Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Reaktion Books - Picturing History) PDF
Preview Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China (Reaktion Books - Picturing History)
Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China , PICTURING HISTORY SeriesEditors PeterBurke SanderL.Gilman RoyPorter BobScribner Inthesameseries HealthandIllness ImagesofDifference SanderL.Gilman TheDevil AMaskwithoutaFace LutherLink ReadingIconotexts FromSwifttotheFrenchRevolution PeterWagner MeninBlack JohnHarvey EyesofLove TheGazeinEnglishandFrenchPaintings andNovels1840-1900 StephenKern TheDestructionofArt IconoclasmandVandalismsince theFrenchRevolution DarioGamboni TheFeminineIdeal MarianneThesander MapsandPolitics JeremyBlack TradingTerritories MappingtheEarlyModernWorld JerryBrotton PicturingEmpire PhotographyandtheVisualizationofthe BritishEmpire JamesRyan Pictures and Visuality in Early Modern China Craig Clunas REAKTION BOOKS PublishedbyReaktionBooksLtd II RathbonePlace,LondonWIP IDE, UK Firstpublished1997 Copyright©CraigClunas,1997 Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthispublication maybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,or transmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,electronic, mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise withoutthepriorpermissionofthepublishers. JacketdesignedbyRonCostley DesignedbyHumphreyStone PhotosetbyWilmasetLtd,Wirral ColourprintedbyBASPrinters,Hants PrintedandboundinGreatBritainbyBiddIesLtd, GuildfordandKing'sLynn BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData: Clunas,Craig PicturesandvisualityinearlymodernChina. - (Picturinghistory) I.Painting- 16thcentury- China2.Art,Modem - I7th-18thcenturies- China I.Title 759·9'5I'0903 ISBN I 861890087 Contents Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 9 2 PositionsofthePictorial 25 3 RepresentingtheTriad 77 4 PracticesofVision 102 5 TheWorkofArtintheAgeofWoodblock Reproduction 134 6 FearsoftheImage 149 7 Conclusion 172 References 189 Bibliography 206 PictureAcknowledgements 215 Index 216 Acknowledgements Thewritingofthisbookwas helped immeasurablybyaspellas aFellow at the Getty Center for the History ofArt and the Humanities in the spring of1996, and I am very grateful to all the Getty staffand Fellows for their help in innumerable technical and scholarly matters. I would particularly like to acknowledge the help of Joanna Roche. For the supplyofspecificideas, encouragementand materialsitisalsoapleasure to thank: Maggie Bickford, Timothy Brook, Michela Bussotti, Soren Edgren, Stanislaus Fung, Sue Gold oftheWellcome Institute,Jonathan Hay, Paul Holdengraber, Ladislav Kesner, Michael Lackner, Stephen Little, Joseph McDermott, Robert Nelson, Jessica Rawson, Susan Stewart, Miriam Wattles, Evelyn Welch, Verity Wilson, the Far Eastern Department ofthe Victoria and Albert Museum and the Library ofthe UniversityofSussex,especiallyJennieMarshman.Manyothercolleagues and friends not named also provided stimulation, criticism and support, and Ihope theywillconsiderthemselves sincerelythanked, althoughnot implicatedinanymistakesoffactorinterpretationthebookmaycontain. 7 Introduction I Lately, somelargeclaimshavebeen madefor pictures. Forsome, 'repre sentation itself is at stake', in a situation where works of art 'have engendered rather than merely reflected political, social and cultural meanings'. This approach has called for ahistoryofimages, as opposed I to a history ofart, a form ofhistorical enquiry which would not start from an apriori privileging ofcertain works as masterpieces, but would range more widely across the entire 'field ofcultural production'. These claimscometo alargeextentfrom within the disciplineofart history. In thecrudestsensetheyaremadebythosewhoseprimaryprofessionaliden tification depends on their employment as teachers ofa subject ofthat name. They have the necessary effect ofmaking art history seem like an important,evenanessential,fieldofenquiryatatimewhenitscredentials arechallengedfrombothwithinandwithout.Theyrecuperateitsimpor tanceonnewandambitiousgrounds.Theseclaimsarenotuncongenialto me,sincemypay-chequetooderivesfromanequivalentsource,evenifin practice what such approaches have often involved is the summoningof new images to explain the traditional objects ofstudy. But recently too, pictureshaveseemedtooimportanttoleaveto arthistorians.Therehave been moves from those whose self-definition is as 'historians' pure and simple,forwhomimageshavecometoseemalegitimatefieldofenquiry.2 The presentbook is conceived under an awareness ofboth these ten dencies. Itlooks atelementsofthebodyofvisual material manufactured intheChinaoftheMingDynasty(1368-1644)andtriestoposeanumber ofquestions: howwasthisbodyofmaterialconceived,manufacturedand appropriated for use? Did it in fact engender rather than merely reflect social,culturalandpoliticalmeanings,andifso,how?Isitpossibletocon struct a frame of reference that will encompass types of objects (for example, painting on paper and on porcelain) which have historically been held apart, or discussed ifat all only under the heading of'influ ences'? Can we find ways ofdiscussing the pictorial that do not collapse into assumptions about the 'importance' of certain representations as 'art'? What were the issues surrounding pictorial representation at the 9
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