Gentil: Diplomat, Writer, Patron and Collector A Page in the History of Eighteenth-century Indo-French Cultural Relations

让蒂尔：外交家、作家、赞助人和收藏家 十八世纪印法文化关系史上的一页

• 批准号: 2732974
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2732974
• 关键词: Gentil; Diplomat; Writer; Patron; Collector

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil (1726-1799), a French resident in pre-independent India, is accredited with the largest and most diverse collection on India. The collection consists of illustrated treatises on Indian political history, currency and religion, an illustrated atlas of provinces of India, an album of illustrations for Gentil's memoirs, and albums of paintings on Indian history and culture. To compile them, Gentil engaged with local scholars, artists and depended wholly on first-hand knowledge, a rare practice for European collectors in India.This corpus will allow me to shine a light on overlooked intercultural material that is specifically the result of interactions between the practices of indigenous artists and scholars on the one hand, and European patrons and collectors on the other. By illuminating networks (actors, objects and practices) that underlie the production of this collection and their modes of interaction at the local and regional level, I aim to produce a new framework to study such intercultural creation. It will contribute to the scholarship of Indo-French cultural history, as most of the scholarly attention has previously been paid to the diplomatic, military, and political aspects.This study is urgently needed as existing methodologies are inadequate. Frameworks of Orientalism and Indology are unsuitable to study such material (Lafont, 2000; Pandey, 2019) because such studies regard cultures as homogeneous entities and presume the "purity" of each culture before contact, propagating grand narratives of universal 'global' histories trapped in Eurocentric divides. Since eighteenth-century India precedes colonialism, nation-states, and industrialisation, Homi Bhabha's 'third space' (2004) appears insufficient to explain pre-colonial early modern intercultural creation in India.Through this collection, and Gentil's memoirs, I will study Indo-French cultural history through a different vantage point, using frameworks of cultural transfers (Espagne and Werner, 1985) and connected histories (Subrahmanyam, 1997) as guiding principles at start. Among the questions I will address are the following: Why did Gentil compile his collection on India?What were his indigenous sources (people, texts etc.)? Who were involved in Gentil's Indo-French cultural network (Indian artists, scholars, other French collectors etc.)?What are their roles in the making of the collection?In the corpus, where and what are the traces of the modes of interaction of this network?How did did this collection represent/mediate Indian culture for the French society? How did Gentil succeed in translating/mediating Indian culture to the French?These questions will orient the study to consider different modes of interaction between the actors, objects and their practices, exposing unseen connections at the local level. I will analyse the interplay between text and image in the illustrated treatises and between the paintings and their detailed explanations in the miniature art albums, revealing the practices of collaboration between Gentil and the local artists. I will also look at Gentil's method of engaging with indigenous knowledge, through his interaction with local scholars, and ancient texts. Here, textual analysis of Gentil's writings (memoirs and letters) and the relevant archival documents will provide essential context. I will document the collection from the point of view of patronage, while situating it in the context of the Indo-French cultural network (Gentil, local artists, interpreters, other French collectors, local experts on Indian history etc.)This study will illuminate multifaceted interactions between local networks at the level of the individual and their strategies, thereby transcending political boundaries. In doing so, this corpus will re-assess the established historical "facts" and narratives in the shared history of France and India during the eighteenth century

让-巴蒂斯特·约瑟夫·让蒂尔（Jean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil, 1726-1799）是独立前印度的一名法国居民，他被认为拥有最大、最多样化的印度藏品。这些藏品包括有关印度政治历史、货币和宗教的插图论文、印度各省的插图地图集、让蒂尔回忆录的插图集以及有关印度历史和文化的画册。为了编纂这些藏品，让蒂尔与当地学者、艺术家进行了接触，并完全依靠第一手资料，这对在印度的欧洲收藏家来说是一种罕见的做法。这个语料库将使我能够照亮被忽视的跨文化材料，这些材料是土著艺术家和学者的实践与欧洲赞助人和收藏家之间互动的具体结果。通过阐释构成本作品集创作基础的网络（演员、对象和实践），以及它们在地方和区域层面的互动模式，我的目标是建立一个研究这种跨文化创作的新框架。它将为印法文化史的学术研究做出贡献，因为大多数学术注意力以前都集中在外交、军事和政治方面。由于现有方法的不足，迫切需要进行这项研究。东方主义和印度学的框架不适合研究这些材料（Lafont, 2000; Pandey, 2019），因为这些研究将文化视为同质实体，并假设每种文化在接触之前的“纯洁性”，传播被欧洲中心分裂所束缚的普遍“全球”历史的宏大叙事。由于18世纪的印度先于殖民主义、民族国家和工业化，Homi Bhabha的“第三空间”（2004）似乎不足以解释印度殖民前的早期现代跨文化创造。通过这本合集和让蒂尔的回忆录，我将从不同的角度研究印度-法国文化史，以文化转移（Espagne和Werner， 1985）和关联历史（Subrahmanyam, 1997）的框架作为指导原则。我将讨论的问题包括：为什么让蒂尔要编撰他的印度文集？他的本土来源（人、文本等）是什么？谁参与了让蒂尔的印法文化网络（印度艺术家、学者、其他法国收藏家等）？他们在这个系列的制作过程中扮演了什么角色？在语料库中，这个网络的交互模式的痕迹在哪里？这些藏品如何代表/调解法国社会的印度文化？让蒂尔是如何成功地将印度文化翻译/中介给法国人的？这些问题将引导研究考虑参与者、对象和他们的实践之间不同的互动模式，揭示在地方层面上看不见的联系。我将分析插图论文中的文本和图像之间的相互作用，以及微型艺术专辑中绘画和它们的详细解释之间的相互作用，揭示Gentil与当地艺术家之间的合作实践。我还将探讨让蒂尔通过与当地学者和古代文本的互动，与本土知识接触的方法。在这里，对让蒂尔的著作（回忆录和信件）和相关档案文件的文本分析将提供必要的背景。我将从赞助的角度记录这些藏品，同时将其置于印度-法国文化网络（让蒂尔、当地艺术家、口译员、其他法国收藏家、当地印度历史专家等）的背景下。这项研究将阐明个人层面的当地网络及其策略之间的多方面互动，从而超越政治界限。在此过程中，这个语料库将重新评估18世纪法国和印度共同历史中的既定历史“事实”和叙述