「中國性」的歐洲解釋：耶穌會中國傳教區的「風格」問題初探

A European Distinction of Chinese Characteristics: A Style Question in Seventeenth-Century Jesuit China Missions

這篇論文探討耶穌會的表達和特徵化的概念，以他們在中國傳教區所提出的一些關於繪畫風格的評價為主要史料。所謂的「風格」，在西方表達發展的歷史中，是一個牽涉到表達的分類和特徵化的方法之基礎核心議題，在視覺藝術和修辭學上都是。「風格」，也是代表文化觀念的性質或方式。在視覺資料的跨文化接觸中，藉由視覺活動而運作的中歐文化互動，實則為一種物質接觸。但在物質文化中的一種研究取向，是把「物質性」界定為不只是指物象的形式，也包含因此物象所引發的人類行為和實踐。這個「物質性」的觀念在跨文化的傳教架構中，可以是指向「中國性」和「歐洲性」的兩個性質觀念的一個很有用的研究方法。因為「中國性」和「歐洲性」是指一種人類學的性質，一種風格的觀念，在物質接觸中可以很明顯地被觀察到。而且耶穌會的中國傳教區紀錄，就有相當多藉由視覺活動接觸所引發的對於這個兩個性質的意見。本文希望藉由這個主題的討論，可以申論「風格」──也許被視為藝術史研究的老方法──如何能有效地運用在跨文化的歷史觀察上。

This paper discusses the issues regarding Jesuit expression and characterization, and the question they raised regarding pictorial style in their China mission, focusing especially on visual materials. Style, or the history of representation in Western history, is an essential issue involving categories of expression and methods of characterization both in rhetoric and in the visual arts. Style, moreover, can indicate a quality or manner to present and represent a culture. The cultural encounters through visual materials, which took place between the Chinese and European by means of visual activity, are a kind of material contact. One perspective in material culture is to seek for materiality, which emphasizes not only the form of the object but also the human activity or practice caused by the object in question. This materiality is a useful concept in addressing the two terms 'Chineseness' and 'Europeanness' in the cross-cultural missionary framework. The sense of culture in 'Chineseness' and 'Europeanness' can be phrased as an anthropological quality, which can be well observed in the material contacts between the two sides and recorded in Jesuit own accounts, since materiality could evince not only objectivity but also subjectivity. By investigating these records, I would like to argue that how to in effect apply the concept of style—which might be thought of as an old approach in art history—to a cross-cultural historical observation.