Narrativité : Comment les images racontent des histoires. Paris : Presses de l’Inalco, 2022. Disponible sur Internet : <http://books.openedition.org/pressesinalco/45194>. ISBN : 9782858314034., 2022
Help! Illustrated Tales detailing the Aftermath of Disasters in Late Imperial China
Sequential... more Help! Illustrated Tales detailing the Aftermath of Disasters in Late Imperial China
Sequential images depicting disaster and relief emerged as an independent genre in China during the late imperial period. These images have the peculiar feature of representing one-time events that do not rely on well-known sources or fictional tales, even though they contain a textual element. The aim of this chapter is to determine how and using which narrative ingredients these illustrated tales of disasters and their aftermath were constructed. First it defines the historical circumstances of their creation, their function and the main formats used for this kind of pictures. The chapter then focuses on two albums produced during the 19th century. If both series represent floods, in the first one, the bird’s eye views keep the viewer at a distance from the subject, while the second one displays a more dramatic style with powerful and vivid images of the disaster, as photo reports will do a few years later.
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Papers by Alice Bianchi
uted by signature to the painter Xiang Shengmo (1597–1658), and com-
posed for the Fujianese collector Yu Junshen (1628–after 1697), who at
the time was living in Nanjing, the centre of Ming loyalists (yimin) during
the second part of the seventeenth century. After analyzing the various
elements that challenge the current attribution to Xiang Shengmo and
reattributing this painting to a less famous master of the time, the arti-
cle highlights the very specific context of its creation and undertakes
an analysis of the picture’s formal aspects and symbolic dimension. It
then turns to a detailed discussion of some of the colophons, composed
by famous loyalists of the time, to consider how they responded to
the dynastic transition. The argument concludes that although the
painting is not by Xiang Shengmo, it is, nonetheless, an important
work, emblematic of the pivotal moment of shift of the Nanjing’s yimin
community from a position of active resistance towards the recently
established Qing dynasty to a condition of passive resistance of the
new rule, symbolized by a lifestyle of social and political withdrawal.
Sequential images depicting disaster and relief emerged as an independent genre in China during the late imperial period. These images have the peculiar feature of representing one-time events that do not rely on well-known sources or fictional tales, even though they contain a textual element. The aim of this chapter is to determine how and using which narrative ingredients these illustrated tales of disasters and their aftermath were constructed. First it defines the historical circumstances of their creation, their function and the main formats used for this kind of pictures. The chapter then focuses on two albums produced during the 19th century. If both series represent floods, in the first one, the bird’s eye views keep the viewer at a distance from the subject, while the second one displays a more dramatic style with powerful and vivid images of the disaster, as photo reports will do a few years later.
From the Ming dynasty onwards, we see paintings associated with the genre known as Liumin tu流民圖 (Wandering People) representing beggars and street characters in constituted groups. The different existing pictorial presentations of these characters, offer contrasting images of them. Some paintings aim at criticizing the government’s ineffectiveness in providing for people’s needs. Other works portray these lower class figures not in a disturbing or very moving way, but in comic or picaresque situations which show them as more funny than pitiable. This paper examines precisely this latter type of paintings through the analysis of a family of four handscrolls of the same subject, produced in all likelihood during the Ming and Qing dynasties. After proposing an iconographic interpretation of this ensemble by comparing it to works of the same period, we argue that according to the analysis of a colophon appended to one of the scrolls, images of this kind could have been intended as social satire targeting the educated elite, in particular those literati who came to terms with the Confucian values to improve their wealth and position.
Talks by Alice Bianchi
uted by signature to the painter Xiang Shengmo (1597–1658), and com-
posed for the Fujianese collector Yu Junshen (1628–after 1697), who at
the time was living in Nanjing, the centre of Ming loyalists (yimin) during
the second part of the seventeenth century. After analyzing the various
elements that challenge the current attribution to Xiang Shengmo and
reattributing this painting to a less famous master of the time, the arti-
cle highlights the very specific context of its creation and undertakes
an analysis of the picture’s formal aspects and symbolic dimension. It
then turns to a detailed discussion of some of the colophons, composed
by famous loyalists of the time, to consider how they responded to
the dynastic transition. The argument concludes that although the
painting is not by Xiang Shengmo, it is, nonetheless, an important
work, emblematic of the pivotal moment of shift of the Nanjing’s yimin
community from a position of active resistance towards the recently
established Qing dynasty to a condition of passive resistance of the
new rule, symbolized by a lifestyle of social and political withdrawal.
Sequential images depicting disaster and relief emerged as an independent genre in China during the late imperial period. These images have the peculiar feature of representing one-time events that do not rely on well-known sources or fictional tales, even though they contain a textual element. The aim of this chapter is to determine how and using which narrative ingredients these illustrated tales of disasters and their aftermath were constructed. First it defines the historical circumstances of their creation, their function and the main formats used for this kind of pictures. The chapter then focuses on two albums produced during the 19th century. If both series represent floods, in the first one, the bird’s eye views keep the viewer at a distance from the subject, while the second one displays a more dramatic style with powerful and vivid images of the disaster, as photo reports will do a few years later.
From the Ming dynasty onwards, we see paintings associated with the genre known as Liumin tu流民圖 (Wandering People) representing beggars and street characters in constituted groups. The different existing pictorial presentations of these characters, offer contrasting images of them. Some paintings aim at criticizing the government’s ineffectiveness in providing for people’s needs. Other works portray these lower class figures not in a disturbing or very moving way, but in comic or picaresque situations which show them as more funny than pitiable. This paper examines precisely this latter type of paintings through the analysis of a family of four handscrolls of the same subject, produced in all likelihood during the Ming and Qing dynasties. After proposing an iconographic interpretation of this ensemble by comparing it to works of the same period, we argue that according to the analysis of a colophon appended to one of the scrolls, images of this kind could have been intended as social satire targeting the educated elite, in particular those literati who came to terms with the Confucian values to improve their wealth and position.
By analyzing a few examples of this genre and their accompanying texts produced during the late imperial and the early modern China, this paper investigates how natural disasters and their victims were recorded in texts and images. I argue that rather than being faithful representations of specific calamities, these pictures might be considered as belonging to China’s long pictorial tradition of describing disasters, in which the same stock images and tropes were used over and over again. Working as “signals” of the severity of the crisis, these pictures’ aims were to persuade the viewers (the emperor or the philanthropists) to have pity on and send aid to the suffering people, while simultaneously strengthening Confucian moral values such as filial piety, chastity and loyalty.
and performers, fortune-tellers and so on. From the Ming dynasty onwards, these colourful characters, popularised and romanticised by fiction and novels, started to be treated as an
independent theme in pictorial art. In paintings, they are often described in comic or picaresque situations, such as quarrelling or even fighting scenes. This paper explores visual depictions of this particular group and deals with the following questions: What function and meaning did such works have? Are these images plausible portrayals of real-world situations or are they carrying
social or political undertones? Through these inquiries, I argue that these works might be seen as painted counterparts to the fictitious world of satirical or grotesque novels. Thus, the painted
characters were used as a commentary on society’s (especially the educated elite’s) vices and shortcomings, becoming a subject suitable to express social or even political frustration.
Cet exposé se propose de mettre en regard le Shuhanron emaki et la peinture chinoise par la comparaison de quelques thèmes ciblés, tels que la représentation du corps et de l’ivresse ou le processus de fabrication des boissons et de la nourriture dans les deux traditions picturales. Ce faisant, nous allons d’une part nous interroger sur les sources chinoises auxquelles le peintre aurait fait appel ; d’autre part découvrir dans quelle mesure les motifs analysés bénéficient d’un traitement similaire ou complètement différent dans les deux cultures.
The proposals expected for submission will serve to analyze the historical depth of the phenomenon as well as the prospective impact of current policies. For example, it will be a question of taking into account the environmental factors in the construction of the state in imperial and, subsequently, post-imperial China. The focus will thus be on the administration of localities and regional planning (agriculture, major public works, water management, etc.). What strategies have been put in place to anticipate and then respond to epidemics and famines? What individuals and groups (civil servants, military, scientists) have been mobilized to respond to natural disasters and the human consequences of political utopias? Environmental questions in the peripheral areas of the Chinese world will make it possible to address those of political boundaries and the role of the environment in their (re)definition, as well as the question of the ecological policies that have led to the displacement of millions of individuals, and, additionally, the reinterpretation of the relations between humans and non-humans (animals, plants, and spirits).
In the field of literature and the arts, which representations take into account the impact of the environment on Chinese society and, in return, the human effect on the environment, and what can their respective implications be?
These themes confirm that the environment is one key to understanding the political, cultural and social upheavals that have occurred in the Chinese world. Conversely, the Chinese experience offers a productive case study for addressing theoretical or more general issues, such as global warming or the validity of the concepts “Anthropocene,” “ecology,” or even the very notion of “environment.”
Over the last twenty years, material culture studies have occupied a growing place in the social sciences. These studies are founded on the idea that objects—natural, technical or artistic—can be considered documents for the writing of history, or even as actors in the social sphere, where they are capable of conditioning or transforming human behaviour. Therefore, special attention has been given to the social, economic and material conditions of their production and diffusion, their history and uses, and more broadly to their “biographies” or “social lives” in order to account for their ability to take on different roles in different periods. The relationships that people build with objects that surround them, are created by them, or used and exchanged by them, have been an integral part of the issues confronting historians studying material culture since, at least, the 1960s. How does this growing interest in objects and material culture reveal itself in Chinese studies? Choosing from different disciplines and different periods, this AFEC workshop aims to examine how to approach objects in the humanities and social sciences—from everyday objects to natural objects, consumer goods, technical or scientific instruments, objects of study or devotion, or ritual objects and works of art. By bringing together specialists from different fields (history, art history, archaeology, technology, anthropology, literature, sociology, etc.), the workshop explores the life, trajectory and the possible metamorphoses of the value, status and function of objects, as well as the relationships these artefacts have with individuals—raising in addition questions of their social uses—by focusing on their religious, symbolic, political, economic, emotional or memorial dimensions.