1. Chen Hongshou de shinu hua: wan Qing nuxing neihan de fansi yu xin jing.
- Author
-
Feng You-heng
- Abstract
Chen Hongshou (1599-1652) is among the most outstanding figure painters of the late Ming. He not only revived this genre by incorporating the past styles of Li Gonglin (1049-1106), Zhou Fang (act. 763-804) and Gu Kaizhi (ca. 344-405), but also created a new figural style. In the subject of shinu hua (paintings of women), he initiated a solitary, lofty, scholarly-like female figure style, which differed from the earlier languid, listless mode created by Tang Yin (1470-1524) and Qiu Ying (ca. 1509-1551). With regard to the meaning of his new female type, Chen had subverted the traditional guiyuan (complaint from the inner chamber) subject associated with paintings of women, turning the passive female figure who is an object of the male gaze into a more subjective individual prone to her own feelings and desires. In addition, he created images of woman as educator, recluse, and scholar, which was unprecedented. The late Ming trend of the rise of talented and beautiful women was also duly reflected in Chen Hongshou’s paintings of women in contrast to the depiction of women as attendants, servants and entertainers in the past. In the aspect of religious image, Chen fully explored the ambiguity of Guanyin (Avalokitesvara)’s gender identity and blurred the gender lines by giving “her” a man’s face. In all, it might signal Chen’s distrust of any possibility of religious redemption for himself and an increasing de-canonization and secularization of the late Ming in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009