How Water Became Landscape: Fountains and Hydraulic Devices in Early Modern China

The paper attempts to capture the major moments of Sino-European encounters in the area of hydraulics by examining how Jesuit hydrology reinvigorated the ancient Chinese idea of water and stimulated the making of the Qing political landscape. Particular attention will be paid to the prevalence of fountains and plays of water in eighteenth-century Qing visual and material culture. With the help of Jesuit court artists, the designs of European theatrical fountains were incorporated into the cosmological imagery of court-made clocks and became urban spectacles and focal points of imperial celebrations. This talk will further demonstrate that the cosmological and religious visions (both Taoist and Buddhist) embedded in early Chinese water devices in which the Qianlong Emperor conceived his decades-long ‘Water Palaces’ (Shuifadian) project. It will also be argued that the encounters with Jesuit hydrology provided the major technical and cultural impetus to achieve and transform the ‘Water Palaces’ into a Qing political landscape, which went far beyond the desire of a ‘Chinese Occidenterie’.