Resumen de Le discours savant sur la peinture chinoise en Occident au tournant du XXe siècle: termes et enjeux d'un changement radical, une histoire globale avant la lettre?
This article analyzes the change in the reception of Chinese painting in scholarly discussions by Western art historians on both sides of the Atlantic at the beginning of the 20th century, and it studies its place and role in the esthetic discussion that led to a questioning of the Classical model. Convergences in the approaches led to a questioning of their logic in accord with the historical, esthetic and historiography context. Multiple factors contributed to favoring the emergence and the development of a scholarly discussion. Also, the accentuation of the opening up to world cultures in the first decades of the 20th century supported the emergence of new perceptions of Chinese painting. If this latter had demonstrated the validity of another system of painterly references and its internal coherence, the idea developed among art historians that explorations of the forms of expression that differed or strayed from Classical norms should also be undertaken within the context of Western tradition. This favored the reconciliation and the comparisons between Chinese painting and older Western painting of the Italian Primitives or contemporary modern artists, opening the way in return for a renewed reading of Western art. Thus the debate over the other esthetic norms possible in cultures outside of Europe nourished as much a change in the vision of Chinese painting as this latter also contributed to the development of these considerations.
