Cultural Hybridity in Chinese and European Art: A Comparative Study of the Horse in Giuseppe Castiglione and Xu Beihong

Across centuries and empires, the horse becomes an unexpected bridge between China and Europe. This is especially timely in 2026, as the Year of the Horse has just begun with the recent celebration of the Lunar New Year in February. This piece places The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback by Giuseppe Castiglione in dialogue with Xu Beihong’s Three Horses, two works that – despite vast differences in time, geography, and political context – share a striking cross-cultural dynamic. Each artist engages deeply with the artistic language of the ‘other.’ Castiglione, an eighteenth-century Italian Jesuit at the Qing court, integrates European realism into the ritual and cosmological framework of imperial portraiture. Xu, a twentieth-century Chinese painter trained in France, reinterprets traditional ink painting through Western anatomical precision and perspectival structure.

This cross-cultural mirroring raises the core research question: how do Castiglione and Xu Beihong reinterpret the horse by adopting and transforming the conventions of the cultural tradition opposite their own? Through close visual analysis followed by comparison, this piece argues that hybridity functioned as diplomatic accommodation in Castiglione’s case, and as cultural renewal within Xu’s modern nationalist project.

Giuseppe Castiglione’s Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback

Painted either in 1739 or in 1758, The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback (322.5 × 232 cm, ink on silk, the Palace Museum, Beijing) is a prime example of Sino-European artistic hybridity (Figure 1). Created by the Milanese Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione – known at the Qing court as Lang Shining 郎世宁 – the work is a political portrait: the Qianlong Emperor, wearing a glowing armour mounted on a richly adorned horse and preparing to review his troops (as part of the Grand Review of 1739, a massive military inspection of the Eight Banners army held at Nanyuan, near Beijing), asserts Qing military legitimacy during the height of Manchu expansionism. In terms of technique, the painting bears Castiglione’s European training. His use of colours tends to be ‘bright and metallic with strong geometric contours,’ reflecting his Genoese and Milanese background. This is evident in the Emperor’s marigold robe, gold-plated saddle, and detailed harness. As Musillo points out, early exposure to artists such as Giovanni Battista Crespi (Cerano) inspired his focus on ‘the reflective qualities of different materials, such as textiles, metals, ceramics and fur,’ especially in light. 

This sensitivity helped bridge his European realism with the Chinese renwu portrait tradition (人物画), which he mastered in the yurong 御容 (‘imperial visage’) format. Imperial yurong portraits followed strict formal rules: a frontal composition with empty space around the figure, which symbolised both political authority and the cosmic order. Key to this representation was the detailed depiction of the chaofu 朝服 (court robe), which mediated between the emperor and the world. Adopting this format enabled Castiglione to comply with imperial artistic conventions while concurrently adding some personal touches, such as using light to enhance the image, thus balancing early 18th-century Milanese illusionism with traditional Chinese ritual clarity. This also appears in his handling of light on the emperor’s face: differently from his earlier type of chiaroscuro, here he eliminates shadows, adapting to court sensibilities: according to Suebsantiwongse, Qianlong reportedly felt ‘shadows looked dirty and he did not want them on his face.’ This frontal lighting reconciled European naturalism with Qing ideals of clarity and auspiciousness. As Vossilla remarks, Qianlong himself deeply admired Castiglione ‘for his pictorial talent and for his intelligent willingness to adopt some of the aesthetic and cultural customs of the Chinese.’

The horse’s depiction further reflects hybridity: its anatomically precise rendering draws on Western realist technique, whereas the absence of a cast shadow corresponds to established Chinese pictorial conventions; the horse seems to float, recalling Tang and Song equestrian scrolls where weightlessness signalled celestial traits. As Suebsantiwongse notes, ‘the portrayal of the horse in such a way is a typical Chinese device, probably intentional, as the animal figures look more ‘celestial’.’ The background instead points to the collaborative nature of Qing court production. While Castiglione painted the central figure, the landscape was likely executed by Chinese court artists such as Tangdai or Shen Yuan. The scholar continues to note that ‘the Emperor and the horse are totally disjointed from the rest of the work,’ reinforcing the sovereign’s centrality. What emerges is not only a hybrid portrait, but a performative assertion of Qing virtue: Castiglione celebrates Qianlong with an overt homage to a non-Christian sovereign. Yet, as Vossilla notes, rather than Western dynamism, Castiglione stresses ‘intelligence and dignity,’ which appear in the Emperor’s composed gaze and bearing. Castiglione’s early training in Genoa and Milan had exposed him to the spatiality and realism of artists such as Cerano and Abbiati. These influences helped him ‘construct a coherent and persuasive narrative image,’ resonating with both European and Chinese viewers. This turned The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback into a fully-fledged medium of diplomatic intelligence that visually translated Qing legitimacy across cultures ‘through the achievement of an intermediate style between the West and the East.’

Figure 1: Castiglione, G. (1739 or 1758). The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback. The Palace Museum. Beijing, China.

Xu Beihong’s Three Horses

Painted in early 1919, shortly before his departure for Paris, Xu Beihong’s Three Horses (90 × 174 cm, colour on paper, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing) captures a turning point in his visual language (Figure 2). Though painted in China, this ink and colour work already reflects Xu’s reformist agenda: uniting Chinese brushwork with Western realism. Long before the anatomical volumes of Galloping Horse (1941) or the monumental canvases of the 1930s and 1940s, this three-figure composition marks both a farewell to literati traditions and a foreshadowing of Xu’s hybrid future. The composition is simple: three horses, with their bodies turned in different directions but their heads all facing the same way, occupy the scroll. Their poses – the white one relaxed, and the other two more alert – are unified by a balance of solidity and lightness. Compared to the calligraphic silhouettes of Ming or Qing equine art, these horses are grounded: their legs support weight, their torsos have volume. The curves, defined with ink washes and fine lines, reflect spatial logic closer to European academic drawing than the outline-driven xieyi 写意 (freehand brushwork) style. As Jia writes, ‘Xu Beihong’s answer [to brush limitations] is to introduce the spirit of Western realism … built upon a solid foundation of sketch training.’

Three Horses shows Xu’s early efforts to blend the ink tradition with realism through observation. The flanks, foreshortened limbs, and anatomical articulation reflect European influence, which Xu would later refine under French realist Dagnan-Bouveret. Even before the École des Beaux-Arts, Xu had developed a deep curiosity for the Western canon, making this work already gesture westward despite having been painted a few months prior to his departure for Paris. But the painting is no mere imitation: Three Horses is concurrently a creative and strategic reimagination of national art. The use of volume does not erase brush technique; rather, it refines it. Xu’s lines remain expressive and calligraphic. For instance, the horses’ tails, as well as two of the black and brown horses’ hooves, flick with sudden flourishes, resisting strict realism and retaining Chinese kinetic energy. Pagani captures Xu’s ambition: to unite ‘traditional Chinese heroic subjects with Western realism.’ The horse, a symbol of loyalty and strength, had long served as a literati or imperial emblem. Xu thus modernises this form while retaining its symbolism. The restrained emotion evokes the serenity of Song dynasty scrolls, yet adds tactile realism from the European canon. His goal, as Jia explains, was to ‘break free from the constraints of ink and brush language on figurative art’ through synthesis, not rupture.

The inscription – ‘己未新春寫奉覺彌先生永念悲鴻’ – adds a personal layer. Dedicated to Mr. Juemi (覺彌先生), likely a friend or mentor, the phrase ‘永念’ (‘eternal remembrance’) conveys quiet mourning. Signing as ‘Beihong’ (悲鴻, ‘sorrowful swan’), omitting his last name, reinforces the work’s affective tone: a farewell painted with devotion. The horses’ sombre elegance and alert positions could also reflect the artist’s emotional state: poised between leaving home and the unknown of Europe. Paradoxically, Three Horses may be more Western than Xu’s later masterpieces. By the 1930s and 1940s, works such as Jiufang Gao (1931) and Galloping Horse (1941) return to Chinese grammar, stressing line over shading. As Jia observes, Xu avoids ‘excessive reliance on light and shadow’ and reaffirms ‘the spatial integrity of line expressions in ink painting.’ The paradox of Xu’s style appearing more ‘Chinese’ during his European years than during his early career in China may also reflect the evolving phases of his artistic trajectory. While still a young painter in China, Xu might have felt compelled to distinguish himself through a more radical adoption of Western techniques, whereas once in Europe – already more secure in his artistic identity and surrounded by academic realism – he may have strategically shifted to Chinese tradition to assert cultural distinction and consolidate his political ideals.

This contrast between the stark realism of Three Horses and the more hybrid, guohua-influenced style of later horse paintings can be appreciated by juxtaposing them. Three Horses thus stands at the peak of Xu’s Westernising impulse – interestingly more ‘European’ than the patriotic gallopers that followed. This paradox points to the nationalistic core of Xu’s project. Despite his Western techniques, Xu remained committed to Chinese cultural revival. Three Horses is therefore a compelling case study: both departure and foundation; epitaph and manifesto.

Figure 2: Xu, B. (1919). Three Horses. CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China.

Comparative Analysis: the Cross-Cultural Hybridity of Giuseppe Castiglione and Xu Beihong

Though separated by centuries and context, Giuseppe Castiglione and Xu Beihong pursued similar artistic missions: reconciling disparate visual languages for political and aesthetic synthesis. Both forged hybrid styles: Castiglione between Italian Baroque and Qing court painting, Xu between Chinese ink traditions and Western realism. Yet their strategies, motivations, and results diverged, shaped by imperial versus nation-building goals. As Su points out, Xu Beihong himself praised Castiglione for introducing ‘a synthetic style that emphasized realism’ to the Qing court, specifically noting his use of oil modelling, perspective, and chiaroscuro to depict the Manchu emperor and his horse in a distinctly European heroic mode. However, his hybridisation remained confined to imperial image-making. His sinicisation was subtle, betrayed by flattened space, vertical composition, and auspicious motifs, all serving political flattery. His style thus accommodated Chinese norms while reinforcing existing visual hierarchies.

Xu Beihong, by contrast, used hybridity to reform a nation. His project was primarily nationalist: creating a modern Chinese art resilient to stagnation and foreign pressure in a period of profound crisis caused by the instability that followed the fall of the Qing dynasty and proclamation of the Republic of China in 1912. Three Horses (1919), painted before Paris, already reveals European influence: foreshortening, anatomical mass, and shading despite using brush and ink. Later works such as Jiufang Gao (1931) retreat to more recognisably Chinese styles, reframing European techniques within guohua. While Castiglione translated Europe into China, Xu used European tools to modernise Chinese tradition. Their exhibitions in particular point to this difference: Castiglione painted within the closed court, whereas Xu organised a 1933 international display of Chinese art, interestingly omitting references to foreign training to construct a narrative of cultural renewal. As Su notes, ‘modernity, according to this exhibition, was another aspect of classical art.’ Xu concealed his École des Beaux-Arts education in order to stress ethnic purity and continuity. Yet, paradoxically, it was precisely his Western training that made his horses revolutionary, just as Castiglione’s Qing portraits relied on European oil techniques, even when mounted on silk scrolls. Nonetheless, both artists sought more than anatomical accuracy: Castiglione bridged two courts; Xu reconciled a civilisational past with a nationalist future. For Castiglione, hybridity was accommodation. For Xu, it was transformation.

Conclusion

With the beginning of the Year of the Horse in February, a comparative analysis of this animal as an artistic subject in Giuseppe Castiglione’s The Qianlong Emperor in Ceremonial Armour on Horseback and Xu Beihong’s Three Horses reveals how the two artists – separated by time, geography, and purpose – reimagined the horse through the lens of a foreign artistic tradition. Castiglione’s work fused European techniques with Qing court symbolism to elevate imperial authority within a ritualised aesthetic framework. Xu, by contrast, employed Western realism to revitalise Chinese ink painting at a moment of national crisis and cultural reinvention. Though both embraced hybridity, their aims diverged: Castiglione’s synthesis served political accommodation within an imperial context, while Xu’s transformation reflected a forward-looking nationalism rooted in tradition. Their shared subject – the horse – becomes more than just an animal on canvas; it turns into a meeting point between two artistic worlds and the ideas behind them. Both paintings transcend the mere representation of horses: they reflect the push and pull of cultural exchange and show how art can cross boundaries, bring together different traditions, and express new identities.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author(s) alone and do not necessarily reflect those of European Guanxi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

René Neumann is President of European Guanxi and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the European Studies Review. He holds a BA in International Relations from King's College London and is a 10th-cohort Yenching Scholar of Peking University. René is an Asia-Europe Foundation Young Leader and was a Political Studies Fellow at the Hudson Institute. A polyglot who speaks five languages fluently, René has lived in six different countries across four continents.

This article was edited by Nika Tatoshvili and Ziyu Zhang.

Featured Image:  A Chinese painting of three horses by Xu Beihong (1895 – 1953) / Creative Commons CC0 License / Wikimedia Commons / Free for use