_full_journalsubtitle: Men, Women and Gender in China _full_abbrevjournaltitle: NANU _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 1387-6805 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 1568-5268 (online version) _full_issue: 2 _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_alt_author_running_head (change var. to _alt_author_rh): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (change var. to _alt_arttitle_rh): The Pictorial Portrayal of Women and Didactic Messages _full_alt_articletitle_toc: 0 _full_is_advance_article: 0 NAN N Ü The Pictorial Portrayal OfNan Women Nü 19 (2017) And Didactic155-212 Messages 155 Contents The Pictorial Portrayal of Women and Didactic Messages in the Han and Six Dynasties 155 brill.com/nanu Wen-chien Cheng Chinese Women Go Global: Discursive and Visual Representations of the Foreign ‘Other’ in the Early Chinese Women’s Press and Media 213 Paul J. Bailey A Pictorial Autobiography by Zeng Jifen (1852-1942) and the Use of the “Exemplary” in China’s Modern Transformation 263 Binbin Yang Heroes, Hooligans, and Knights-Errant: Masculinities and Popular Media in the Early People’s Republic of China 316 Y. Yvon Wang The Pictorial Portrayal of Women and Didactic Gentlemen, Heroes, Real Men, Disabled Men: Explorations at the Intersections of Disability and Masculinity in Contemporary China 357 Sarah Dauncey Bret Hinsch 385 Messages in the Han and Six Dynasties Robin D.S. Yates Wilt Idema 394 Xiaorong Li Louise Edwards 398 Ying-kit Chan Zheng Wang 402 Nicola Spakowski Wen-chien Cheng Cui Shuqin 406 Elizabeth Parke Royal Ontario Museum Yang Hu 410 William Jankowiak [email protected] Corrigenda 415 Contents to Volume 19 (2017) 417 Abstract This study examines the visual forms into which Liu Xiang’s (ca. 79-8 BCE) compilation Lienü zhuan (Categorized biographies of women) were translated during the Han (221 BCE-220 CE) and Six Dynasties (220-589) periods. After Liu Xiang’s work appeared, the images of lienü were established as a distinctive visual category, developed within a broader context of a didactic pictorial genre that engaged the use of images for both the living and the dead. They not only provided admonitory functions, but also were consid- ered auspicious and visually pleasant. In addition to a body of excavated lienü images from these periods, I examine two later scrolls originally rooted in this pictorial genre of lienü, the Lienü renzhi tu (Sympathetic and wise women scroll) in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and the Nüshi zhen tu (Admonitions of the court instructress) in the British Museum. I argue that the two paintings epitomize an ideal female exemplar who is vir- tuous, graceful, and physically attractive – all these qualities and their textual associa- tions served as markers of the owner/viewer’s elite status. Keywords Han and Six Dynasties period – Lienü zhuan – lienü image – female exemplar – didactic image – Gu Kaizhi Introduction As the first literary work focused solely on women, Liu Xiang’s 劉向 (ca. 79- 8 BCE) Lienü zhuan 列女傳 (Categorized biographies of women),1 completed 1 The title of this work has commonly been translated as “Biographies of exemplary women” in past scholarship. The meaning of lie 列 in the compound lienü 列女 should not be confused ©Nan koninklijke Nü 19 (2017) brill 155-212 nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15685268-00192P01Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 01:54:00AM via free access 156 Cheng in 34 BCE, has received extensive scholarly attention.2 Owing to its importance over the centuries, the book has been thoroughly studied as a literary genre dominating writing about women’s biography in Chinese history.3 The influ- ence of Lienü zhuan, however, goes beyond literature. It has functioned as an inspiration for didactic illustrations throughout Chinese history. This paper in- vestigates the translation process whereby lienü narratives and other admoni- tory texts for women took visual form during the Han 漢 (221 BCE-220 CE) and Six Dynasties (220-589) periods. I explore the visual aesthetics of didactic fe- male images, their pictorial conventions and functions, viewers’ perceptions and reactions, and the text-image relationship. The visual materials discussed in this paper include a body of excavated lienü images from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) and Six Dynasties, whose dating is relatively well established. I also examine two paintings that contain images of female exemplars, Lienü renzhi tu 列女仁智圖 (Sympathetic and wise women scroll) (Figure 1), and Nüshi zhen tu 女史箴圖 (Admonitions of the court instructress) traditionally attributed to Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (ca. 344- 405) (Figure 2). Although considered a copy made after the Tang 唐 era (618- 907), Lienü renzhi tu preserves a much earlier original composition and pictorial rendering of figures from the late Han to the Six Dynasties. It repre- sents the earliest concentrated pictorial transformation of a chapter from the Lienü zhuan, which deserves greater attention than it has hitherto received. Compared with the Lienü renzhi tu, the Nüshi zhen tu illustrates a different genre of didactic text. I will argue in this paper, however, that the Nüshi zhen tu with lie 烈 (illustrious). Instead, its usage corresponds to lie in liezhuan 列傳 (various biogra- phies) and lieguo 列國 (various states). See Kinney’s more detailed discussion in her introduc- tion to Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), xxxvii. 2 The bibliographical treatises of later dynastic histories attribute the authorship of Lienü zhuan to the Western Han scholar Liu Xiang. But there have been intense scholarly discussions concerning his authorship of the text, and its original version in relation to various later edi- tions. For a good summary, see Bret Hinsch, “The Textual History of Liu Xiang’s Lienü zhuan,” Monumenta Serica 52 (2004): 95-112. See also Lisa Raphals, Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998): 105-12. 3 See the introduction in Joan Judge and Hu Ying, eds., Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women’s Biography in Chinese History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 1-14. See also Harriet Zurndorfer, “The Lienü zhuan Tradition and Wang Zhaoyuan’s (1763-1851) Production of the Lienü zhuan buzhu (1812),” in Judge and Hu, eds., Beyond Exemplar Tales, 55-69, and especially pages 55-59. DownloadedNan from Nü Brill.com10/08/202119 (2017) 155-212 01:54:00AM via free access The Pictorial Portrayal Of Women And Didactic Messages 157 a b Nan Nü 19 (2017) 155-212 Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 01:54:00AM via free access 158 Cheng ; ink and light colors on silk; handscroll; 25.8 × 470.3 cm; provided by the Palace Museum, Beijing. the Palace by cm; provided 25.8 × 470.3 ; ink and light colors on silk; handscroll; 列女仁智圖 , Lienü renzhi tu , Lienü renzhi Anonymous FIGURE 1 c d DownloadedNan from Nü Brill.com10/08/202119 (2017) 155-212 01:54:00AM via free access The Pictorial Portrayal Of Women And Didactic Messages 159 a b c d FIGURE 2 Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (attributed), Nüshi zhen tu 女史箴圖; ink and colour on silk; handscroll mounted on a panel; 25 × 348.5 cm; provided by the British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum. follows closely the pictorial tradition of lienü images. Whether the Nüshi zhen tu presents a straightforward rendition of admonitions or is embedded with satirical implications in its portrayal of female images will also be investi- gated.4 4 Kohara Hironobu 古原宏伸 was among the first scholars to view the painting as satirical because of a poor fit between the painting’s pictorial elements and its didactic message. See Shane McCausland, ed., and trans., The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies Nan Nü 19 (2017) 155-212 Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 01:54:00AM via free access 160 Cheng Commentaries made during later dynasties often highlighted the didactic nature of pictorial art during the Han dynasty, resulting in a common view that Han authors tended not to appreciate pictorial images for their visual beauty alone.5 However, the actual dynamic of the pictorial and social functions of early art was more complicated. Through the examination of female exemplar images and of relevant literary texts, I argue that the visual aesthetics of didac- tic images established in the Han privileged text over image. In general, this primacy of text over image is the key to understanding how viewers at the time perceived these early didactic images. The viewer’s prior knowledge of the text is assumed, and the insertion of texts into these images signifies the literacy status of their original owners. Nevertheless, other evolving factors may condi- tion the viewer’s knowledge of earlier texts during the translation process of texts to images. The case of lienü images demonstrates that Liu Xiang’s initial politicized use of lienü changed when lienü stories and figures were trans- formed into visual form in various ways and contexts during the Eastern Han and the Six Dynasties. Although the viewers’ perception of the didactic es- sence of lienü figures may have remained the same, these images could carry specific didactic messages and provide other functions than those Liu Xiang intended. In addition, while there was some notion of the visual effectiveness in the functionality of images, the viewer was largely responsible for recognizing the supposed didactic message of pictures associated with moral stories during the Han and Six Dynasties period. With the two painted scrolls discussed in this paper as examples, I problematize the assumption of conflict or tension in interpreting female images depicted in earlier didactic genres. The representa- tion of physical beauty was never intended to contradict the didactic mes- sages. Instead, we should read the pictorial charm of female beauty, other Scroll [revision of Kohara’s “Joshi shin zukan,” Kokka 國華 908, 909 (1967): 17-3.1: 13-27], published in Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art Occasional Papers 1 (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2000), 1-69, and see pp.