The Far East
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'The tea hour', Japanese print |
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Interior of a 19th century Chinese salon, |
In the land of the rising Sun, the Japanese first told the time using the same primitive methods (the sun, water and fire) as every other civilisation, but adopted mechanical means as soon as they were introduced to them. Not content however to copy European clocks and watches, they instead adapted them to their needs, creating technologically and artistically original objects until around 1870, when the Japanese Empire adopted the Western division of days and hours.
In the land of the rising Sun, the Japanese first told the time using the same primitive methods (the sun, water and fire) as every other civilisation, but adopted mechanical means as soon as they were introduced to them. Not content however to copy European clocks and watches, they instead adapted them to their needs, creating technologically and artistically original objects until around 1870, when the Japanese Empire adopted the Western division of days and hours.
In the 18th century, the Japanese invented various systems peculiar to them such as, for example, a striking mechanism devised to correspond with their hours, which were fairly complicated and varied according to the seasons. Clocks of this period came in a wide variety of shapes, with a typically indigenous character and an aesthetic to match the interior and furnishings which, as we know, were extremely sober.
Things were different in China where furniture was much more lavish. Here, however, clocks and watches were more likely to be copies of European works, built in part, from the 17th century onwards, in workshops run by Catholic missionaries. Consequently, they fall far short of the aesthetics or even mechanics found in Japanese horology.