"Female Space" in Chinese Painting

Art historical research has long used the terms "court ladies' paintings" or "beauty paintings" to describe paintings featuring women. However, these terms are not only relatively recent, but also carry a certain disciplinary orientation and critical focus during their development, and they cannot encompass all paintings centered around "women." In this book, Wu Hung proposes the concept of "female-themed paintings" and introduces "female space" as the core of his discussion, intending to restore isolated and abstracted female images to the pictorial, architectural, and social contexts to which they belong.
Focusing on "female space", the author sorted out the development of female-themed paintings in various historical stages from the Warring States Period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties - from the portrait bricks of famous women in the Wuliang Shrine to the "Picture of the Goddess of the Luo River" in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, from the self-expression of famous prostitutes in brothels to the "Twelve Beauties" that show idealized beauties. In a way of both pictures and texts, the author shows the different presentations of "women" in various painting scenes and eras, and reconstructs the original works to which they belong; combined with art reviews, historical background and other factors, the author deeply explores the mutual influence of aesthetic value and commercial value behind the works, and then thinks about the significance of female-themed paintings in the social, religious and cultural environment.

2019-01-01

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