Giuseppe Castiglione (Jesuit)

Father Giuseppe Castiglione (Chinese郎世宁/郎世宁, Pinyin Lang Shining, born July 19, 1688 in Milan, † July 17, 1766 in Beijing, China ) was an Italian Jesuit missionary and painter in China.

Life and work

He studied painting and went in 1715 as a missionary for the Jesuits to China. On the Qing court to Beijing, he was primarily active as a painter and was very appreciated by Emperor Qianlong. Later, supported by his monks, in particular Jean -Denis Attiret and Ignaz sickle Barth, Castiglione made ​​there, the Western painting known, but also joined in his own works elements of European art ( central perspective, chiaroscuro technique) with traditional Chinese painting and developed so a completely new style.

Castiglione made ​​1744 an album with garden pictures of Yuanming Yuan. From 1749, he drew up the plans for a Xiyang Lou mentioned area at Yu Yuan (so-called " Old Summer Palace " on the northwestern outskirts of Beijing) with a palace and garden in a European-Chinese style. He was responsible for the supervision of the work that has been carried out 1749-1751 and 1755-1759.

Decisive he worked with some also in the famous series " The ten victorious campaigns of Emperor Qianlong ", which should be engraved in 1770 in Paris in copper and returned from there to the Chinese imperial court.

Further career and death

He took the Chinese name Lang Shining on (郎世宁), under which he is well known in China. From after the final ban of accommodation ( Rites Controversy ) by the pope in 1744 festzustellenden fighting Christian missionaries remained Castiglione, similar to other leading Hofjesuiten, largely untouched. 1750 he was appointed Mandarin third class. He spent the rest of his life in China and died in 1766 in Beijing, where he approached an honorable burial in the Chala Cemetery.