Abstract

CASTILLA, Manuel V.. Semiotic significance of the garden design of The Labyrinth, paradigm of the Yuanming Yuan. Estud. Asia Áfr. [online]. 2018, vol.53, n.2, pp.351-376. ISSN 2448-654X.  https://doi.org/10.24201/eaa.v0i0.2404.

During the late 18th century, European Jesuits built a Labyrinth located within Western Mansions complex in the northeast of Yuanming Yuan Garden. The destination of the Labyrinth was an open-air scenery designed with western illusionist techniques for the entertainment of the emperor Qianlong. This article analyses the design of the Labyrinth from a visual language point of view. Semiotic structures and tools were employed to interpret the expression of architectural forms of this art work and formulate a subsequent understanding of these forms by turning each element into a communication tool. This original Labyrinth was encoded by the pictorial-architectonic hybridization developed by the Jesuit missionaries in China.

Keywords : architectural elements; linear perspective; semiotics; Qing dynasty.

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