Colonial Aesthetics in Bloom: Monet’s Water Lilies as Soft Power in Hong Kong’s Garden Diplomacy

Monet’s water lilies were inspired by Japanese prints, but the exhibition frames this influence as a one-way transfer from East to West, ignoring the indigenous knowledge systems embedded in ukiyo-e and Chinese garden design. The Suzhou scholar gardens of the Ming Dynasty, which pioneered asymmetrical, nature-integrated designs, are absent from the narrative, despite their global influence. Indigenous horticultural practices, such as the use of lotus in South Asian and African cultures, are reduced to aesthetic inspiration rather than recognized as foundational to garden art.

The exhibition’s ‘bridge’ metaphor erases the colonial history of art exchange, where Japanese prints were imported to France as colonial commodities after the 1853–54 forced opening of Japan. Monet’s garden at Giverny was itself a colonial fantasy, modeled after imported plants and Japanese aesthetics, reflecting France’s imperial ambitions. The Palace Museum’s inclusion of its collection obscures its role as a repository of imperial loot, including artifacts seized during the Second Opium War.

While the exhibition claims to bridge East and West, it reinforces a Eurocentric hierarchy by positioning Monet as the pinnacle of artistic achievement, with Asian art serving as mere inspiration. Japanese ukiyo-e artists like Hokusai were innovators in their own right, yet their works are framed as exotic curiosities rather than as equal contributors to global art history. The exhibition’s focus on ‘garden art’ ignores the spiritual and philosophical dimensions of gardens in Chinese and Japanese cultures, reducing them to visual spectacle.

The exhibition’s curatorial approach lacks rigorous provenance research on the colonial origins of the artworks, particularly the Japanese prints in Monet’s collection. Scientific analysis of pigments and techniques could reveal the extent of cultural exchange, but the narrative prioritizes aesthetic harmony over historical accuracy. The inclusion of the Palace Museum’s artifacts, some of which were looted during colonial conflicts, is presented without critical examination of their acquisition histories.

Monet’s water lilies are often interpreted as spiritual meditations on nature, but this reading ignores the Zen Buddhist and Daoist influences in Japanese garden art that inspired him. The exhibition’s focus on visual beauty overlooks the deeper philosophical questions about humanity’s relationship with nature raised by both Eastern and Western garden traditions. Indigenous Taiwanese and Māori garden designs, which integrate ancestral spirits and ecological cycles, are entirely absent from the narrative.

This exhibition models a future where cultural exchange is framed as a transactional, aestheticized process rather than a decolonial dialogue. It sets a precedent for other global cities to use art as soft power, potentially exacerbating cultural appropriation under the guise of ‘bridging’ traditions. A more sustainable model would involve collaborative curation with indigenous artists and historians to co-create narratives that acknowledge colonial violence and shared heritage.

The exhibition centers the voices of Western art institutions and the Hong Kong government, while marginalizing grassroots artists and historians who critique the commercialization of cultural exchange. Local Hong Kong artists of South Asian or Southeast Asian descent, whose communities have deep ties to garden traditions, are not represented. The narrative excludes the perspectives of indigenous communities in China and Japan, whose knowledge systems were appropriated in the creation of these artworks.