Ray Gallego

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Refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflects Chinese art and is characterized by the use of fanciful imagery of an imaginary China, by asymmetry in format and whimsical contrasts of scale, and by the attempts to imitate Chinese porcelain and the use of lacquerlike materials and decoration. Chinoiserie entered the European repertory in the mid-to-late seventeenth century; its popularity peaked around the middle of the eighteenth century, when it was easily assimilated into rococo, then declined somewhat, for it seemed to European eyes the very antithesis of neoclassicism. Chinoiserie is expressed entirely in the decorative arts of Europe, and its expression in architecture was entirely in the field of whimsical follies.