This thesis explores the implications of chinoiserie, or Western creations of Chinese-style decorative arts, upon an eighteenth century colonial American audience. Chinese products such as tea, porcelain, and silk, and goods such as furniture and wallpaper displaying Chinese motifs of distant exotic lands, had become popular commodities in Europe by the eighteenth century. The American colonists, who were primarily culturally British, thus developed a taste for chinoiserie fashions and wares via their European heritage. While most European countries had direct access to the China trade, colonial Americans were banned from any direct contact with the Orient by the British East India Company. They were relegated to creating their own versions of these popular designs and products based on their own interpretations of British imports. Americans also created a mental construct of China from philosophical writings of their European contemporaries, such as Voltaire, who often envisioned China as a philosopher's paradise. Some colonial Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, fit their understanding of China within their own Enlightenment worldview. For these individuals, chinoiserie in American homes not only reflected the owners' desires to keep up with European fashions, but also carried associations with Enlightenment thought. The latter half of the eighteenth century was a time of escalating conflict as Americans colonists began to assert the right to govern themselves. Part of their struggle for freedom from England was a desire to rid themselves of the British imports, such as tea, silk, and porcelain, on which they had become so dependent by making those goods themselves. Americans in the eighteenth century had many of the natural resources to create such products, but often lacked the skill or equipment for turning their raw materials into finished goods. This thesis examines the colonists' attempts to create their own chinoiserie products, despite these odds, in light of revolutionary sentiments of the day. Chinoiserie in colonial America meshed with neoclassical décor, thereby reflecting the Enlightenment and revolutionary spirit of the time, and revealing a complex colonial worldview filled with trans-oceanic dialogues and cross-cultural currents.

Исследование посвящено проблеме определения степени влияния искусства романтизма конца XVIII – первой половины XIX в. на научную картину естественной истории Земли, отразившейся в интеллектуальном наследии Уильяма Баклэнда и его коллег-ученых. Материалы частной естественно-научной коллекции исследователя – окаменелости, образцы геологических пород и минералы – как акторы воплотили в себе многие идеи романтизма, которые посредством публикаций вошли в научный дискурс. Взаимосвязи между наукой и искусством, находящиеся в фокусе данной работы, становятся, таким образом, следами действий рассматриваемых материалов и позволяют представить естественную историю как сложную систему, включающую вещественные источники, научные публикации, отдельных исследователей, научные институции, а также идеи и образы художественной культуры рассматриваемого времени, произведения искусства и коммуникации между этими элементами. / The research is devoted to a problem of identifying the degree of influence the romanticism art of the end of 18th – the first half of 19th century had on scientific understanding of the natural history. This impact had reflected on the intellectual legacy of William Buckland and his fellow scientists. The collectibles from the researcher’s private natural history collection, such as fossils, specimens of rock and minerals, embodied many ideas of romanticism.