Full Description
This book is the winner of the 2020 Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 Book Prize, awarded by the Association for Asian Studies.
In Song Dynasty Figures of Longing and Desire, Lara Blanchard analyzes images of women in painting and poetry of China's middle imperial period, focusing on works that represent female figures as preoccupied with romance. She discusses examples of visual and literary culture in regard to their authorship and audience, examining the role of interiority in constructions of gender, exploring the rhetorical functions of romantic images, and considering connections between subjectivity and representation. The paintings in particular have sometimes been interpreted as simple representations of the daily lives of women, or as straightforward artifacts of heteroerotic desire; Blanchard proposes that such works could additionally be interpreted as political allegories, representations of the artist's or patron's interiorities, or models of idealized femininity.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Gendered Subjectivity and Representing Interiority
Subjectivity and Authorship
Pictorial Representations of Inner Feelings
Courtly and Literati Audiences: Evidence from Commentaries
2 Political Interpretations of Desire
Handscrolls of Goddess of the Luo River
The Beijing Handscroll Night Revels of Han Xizai
3 Male Audience and Authorship: Projecting Desire and Longing onto the Female Figure
Huizong's Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk
Mou Yi's Pounding Cloth
4 The Female Audience: Modeling Idealized Femininity
Women and Fan Paintings
Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers: A Bed-Screen?
Conclusion: Interiority and the Value of Connection
Works Cited
Index
