L’introduzione delle parole měishù e měishùguǎn nel lessico cinese moderno: alcune considerazioni preliminari

This article will focus on some travelogues contained in the anthology "Zou xiang Shijie congshu" edited by Zhong Shuhe (1985), in order to examine the introduction of new concepts and words into the modern Chinese art lexicon. In particular, I will present some preliminary results of an inquiry conducted on the words "měishù" and "měishùguǎn", i.e. “fine arts” and “fine arts museum” and investigate in which way the two concepts were designated in the travelogues examined before the “domestication” of these words at the end of the nineteenth century. Beyond aiming at examining the introduction of such words into the Chinese modern lexicon from a purely linguistic standpoint, my main purpose is to investigate the “cultural journey” of these new meanings, that is, the way they were absorbed and perceived into the linguistic-cultural context of the end of the nineteenth century China.