In 1860, Western armies brought ruin to the treasured seat of the Qing emperors near Beijing. One hundred and fifty images have been collected to date as a support for an extensive study of the building of the palaces and their subsequent destruction. This book gives an historical overview of the political situation.
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Publication Date: 2013
In Liberal Barbarism, Erik Ringmar sets out to explain the 1860 destruction of Yuanmingyuan - the Chinese imperial palace north-west of Beijing - at the hands of British and French armies. Yuanmingyuan was the emperor's own theme-park, a perfect world, a vision of paradise, which housed one of the greatest collections of works of art ever assembled.
The Yuanmingyuan was plundered by the Anglo-French forces that destroyed the Yuanmingyuan at the conclusion of the 2nd Opium War in 1860, the “40 scenes” remain the only visual evidence through which we can imagine the Chinese sections of the “Garden of Perfect Brightness.” They are reproduced in Part 1.
In 1747 the Qianlong emperor began an addition to the Eternal Spring Garden in the form of European-style buildings and gardens. The “20 Views”—engravings commissioned by Qianlong in 1783, reproduced in in Part 2—remain the only visual record of this ornate experiment in Western perspective.
In October 1860, the Second Opium War came to a violent end when British and French forces sacked and destroyed the Yuanmingyuan. Many valuable objects of art made their way into the great “Oriental” collections of the West.
The full set comprises twenty copper-plate engravings of the European Palaces (Xiyanglou 西洋樓) of the Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanmingyuan 圓明園), thirteen of which are included in this album.
A Chinese research group used computer imaging software to digitally map 60 percent of the original appearance of Beijing’s renowned Old Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan.
The Yuanmingyuan project, developed by Cooperans, aims to safeguard the memory of the sack of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by Franco-British troops in 1860 and the second looting in 1900. It is a cultural and memorial initiative aimed at a better mutual understanding of European and Chinese cultures.
Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces by 
Liberal Barbarism by 
YUAN MING YUAN: Art and Culture of an Imperial Garden-Palace
