THE JESUITS IN CHINA: TRANSLATION, LOCALIZATION, AND FAILURE

Abstract

This thesis discusses an Early Modern art history topic on European Jesuits’ artistic activities in late Ming Dynasty China. By considering methodologies in translation and localization, provided by scholars across the world, the author provided three case studies of images to attentively explain why the missionaries did not meet their initial goal of converting Ming China. In this thesis, the author argues for the dynamism, but ultimate failure, of Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault’s strategies of cultural translation, which met numerous obstacles, took on a life of their own and were thereby mistranslated or untranslatable, or were met with disapproval by both the Chinese and the Roman authority at a later time.