Zeng Jing's Informal Portraits of the Jiangnan Litera
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Fashioning the Reclusive Persona: Zeng Jing’s Informal Portraits of the Jiangnan Literati A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Art History by Seokwon Choi Committee in charge: Professor Peter C. Sturman, Chair Professor Miriam Wattles Professor Hui-shu Lee December 2016 The dissertation of Seokwon Choi is approved. _____________________________________________ Miriam Wattles _____________________________________________ Hui-shu Lee _____________________________________________ Peter C. Sturman, Committee Chair September 2016 Fashioning the Reclusive Persona: Zeng Jing’s Informal Portraits of the Jiangnan Literati Copyright © 2016 by Seokwon Choi iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincerest gratitude goes to my advisor, Professor Peter C. Sturman, whose guidance, patience, and confidence in me have made my doctoral journey not only possible but also enjoyable. It is thanks to him that I was able to transcend the difficulties of academic work and find pleasure in reading, writing, painting, and calligraphy. As a role model, Professor Sturman taught me how to be an artful recluse like the Jiangnan literati. I am also greatly appreciative for the encouragement and counsel of Professor Hui-shu Lee. Without her valuable suggestions from its earliest stage, this project would never have taken shape. I would like to express appreciation to Professor Miriam Wattles for insightful comments and thought-provoking discussions that helped me to consider the issues of portraiture in a broader East Asian context. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Susan Tai, Elizabeth Atkins Curator of Asian Art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She was my Santa Barbara mother, and she helped made my eight-year sojourn in the American Riviera one that I will cherish forever. Words cannot convey the depth of my gratefulness for her. I especially thank her for giving me an opportunity to work with her for the Artful Recluse exhibition. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to David Wong. I would like to thank Professors Ronald Egan and Xiaolong Li who first opened my eyes to sinology and Chinese literature. My appreciation extends as well to Professors Ann Jensen Adams, Swati Chattopadhyay, Mark A. Medow, Laurie Monahan, and Richard Wittman for their intellectual stimulation and encouragement. I am also grateful to Professor Xue Longchun of Nanjing Art Academy for his generous help in deciphering passages of calligraphy. iv Special gratitude is due to my teachers at Seoul National University. I offer my sincere thanks to my former advisor Chang Chin-Sung who encouraged me to pursue my interest in Chinese art further and gave invaluable guidance and constant support. I owe a great debt to Ahn Hwi-joon for helping deepen my understanding of Korean art and also to Professors Kim Youngna and Rhi Juhyung for their contributions to my training as an art historian. Further thanks go to Cho Insoo of the Korean National Academy of Arts, Hong Sunpyo of Ewha Womans University, and Kim Haewon of the National Museum of Korea. My research in China and Taiwan was conducted under the generous auspices of the WT Family Fellowship, the Marilyn A. Papp Graduate Scholarship Trust, and the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies. I thank the Department of History of Art and Architecture, the Graduate Division, and the East Asia Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara for financial assistance. I was able to complete my dissertation only with the help of Thomas DePasquale. The countless hours that he spent editing my manuscript will never be forgotten, nor the camaraderie we have shared. I wish to thank my fellow graduate students Thuy Tran, Jiayin Zhang, Wencheng Yan, Patricia Lee, Deborah Spivak, Mary McGuire, and Sophia McCabe for intellectual exchange and emotional support. Santa Barbara became a second home to me thanks to Teresiana Matarrese, Erik Berg, Rahul Mukherjee, Dat Tran, Sydney Hengst, Kim Hyoyeon, Kim Kyuhan, Ko Seojin, Joseph McCabe, Choi Koeun and Kang Byungkyu, Park Sujin and Oh Sangho, Claire and Peter Burke, and Kim Seon. My comrades back home sustained me through moments of doubt. My special thanks to Kim Minku, Kim Hongki, Oh Youngjung, Yoo Jaebin, Kim Seungik, Yang Doowon, Jo Jiyoon, Oh Yookyung, Cho Hyunchung and Shin Chunghoon, Kim Junghui and Park Jeongho, Yang Hyokyung and Kim Hyungjin, Ju Soyeon and Kim Heeseung, and Kim Jinhee. v My very deepest appreciation is reserved for my father Choi Chunkil, my mother Son Changsook, and my sister Choi Jihyun for their patience and support. I dedicate this dissertation with love and respect to them. vi VITA OF SEOKWON CHOI September 2016 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology and Art History, Seoul National University, Korea, 2003 Master of Arts in Art History, Seoul National University, Korea, 2008 Doctor of Philosophy in Art History, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2016 PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 2004–5: Research Assistant, Seoul National University Museum 2005–8: Assistant Curator, Seoul National University Museum 2009–14: Teaching Assistant, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara 2010–15: Atkins Asian Art Research Intern, Santa Barbara Museum of Art 2015: Visiting Professor, Art Department, Colorado College PUBLICATIONS “Man with a Staff: Zeng Jing and Image-making in Late Ming Painting.” Orientations 44, no. 2 (2013): 113–18. Catalogue entries in The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17th-Century China, edited by Peter Sturman and Susan Tai. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2012. “Gyeongsu yeondo: Sumyeong jangsu reul chukhahaneun janchi” 경수연도 慶壽宴圖: 수명장수를 축하하는 잔치 [Banquets for longevity celebration: The Representation of the Festivities]. In Yeoksa wa sasang i damgin Joseon sidae inmulhwa: 歷史와 思想이 담긴 朝鮮時代 人物畵 [Joseon period figurative paintings with history and ideas], edited by Ahn Hwi-Joon and Min Kilhong, 268–93. Seoul: Hakgojae, 2009. Catalogue entries in Masterpieces from the Seoul National University Museum. Seoul: Seoul National University Museum, 2006. “Poetry, Painting, Mountains and Waters of Korea.” The International Journal of Korean Art and Archaeology 1 (2006): 4–7. Catalogue entries in Artists on Journey. Seoul: Seoul National University Museum, 2004. AWARDS 2014: Marilyn A. Papp Graduate Scholarship, The Marilyn A. Papp Graduate Scholarship Trust 2013: WT Family Fellowship, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) 2013: Korean Honor Scholarship, The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the USA 2012–13: Dean’s Fellowship, Graduate Division, UCSB 2012: Research Travel Grant, East Asia Center, UCSB 2011–12: Doctoral Grants, The Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies 2011–12: Doctoral Research Award, UCSB 2011: Graduate Division Fellowship, UCSB vii 2010: Enrichment Fund Fellowship, UCSB 2009–10: Graduate USAP Fellowship, UCSB 2008–10: WT Family Fellowship, UCSB 2008–9: Fellowship-Regents Intern, UCSB viii ABSTRACT Fashioning the Reclusive Persona: Zeng Jing’s Informal Portraits of the Jiangnan Literati by Seokwon Choi Zeng Jing (1564–1647) was a professional portraitist in late Ming China who specialized in informal portraits of contemporary literati in the Jiangnan region. Zeng’s portrait oeuvre embodies the Jiangnan literati’s eremitic aspirations, illuminating the ways in which the literati visually constructed their reclusive personae. Zeng depicted members of Jiangnan cultural elite as commoners or as mountain men, integrating the literati heritage of eremitism with a range of pictorial traditions of representing reclusive figures. The casual dress, relaxed postures, and informal settings in Zeng’s portraits functioned as visual signifiers of the political disengagement and reclusive lifestyle that his sitters pursued. Zeng’s focus on individualized physiognomy indicates the politically frustrated literati’s strong sense of self- awareness. Zeng designed all his portraits to convey the Jiangnan literati’s values of political insubordination, cultural self-contentment, and collective identity of reclusion. Zeng Jing’s portraits give visible form to the complex mindset of the reclusive literati and to the values and aspirations that characterized late Ming eremitism. Zeng’s appropriation and reinterpretation of the conventional scholar-in-landscape composition concretizes the enduring notion of reclusion as communing with nature. Zeng’s pictorial allusions to venerable recluses from earlier ages of Chinese history and his subtle use of ix Buddhist and Daoist iconography show how archaism and syncretism permeated the literati’s ethos of reclusion. Zeng’s portraits, coupled with the portrait encomia written by the sitters and their companions, emerge as both pictorial and literary testimonies of the Jiangnan literati’s self-fashioning. Through the collective acts of appreciating and inscribing portraits, the Jiangnan literati used Zeng’s portraits as a means to create camaraderie within reclusion. During Zeng’s most prolific years, many members of Chen Jiru and Dong Qichang’s coterie in Huating shared in the ideal of reclusion by sitting for portraits by Zeng, while the literary giant Chen collaborated with Zeng by providing encomia to Zeng’s portraits. As focal points for individual expression, social posturing, and aesthetic experience, Zeng’s portraits forged the Jiangnan literati’s eremitic cultural identity in reaction to the sociopolitical unrest