EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Art, Archeology & Material Culture 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 88 Images of the He-He two Saints (He-He erxian) “Harmony-Unity” are easily recognizable. These dei- ties are usually depicted as two happy glad young men or boys, one of them with lotus flower in hand and other with jewelry box. The problem of genesis of these deities is difficult. Almost a hundred years ago two Russian scien- tists — Sinologue, Academician V. Alekseev (1881–1951) and Ethnographer L. Sternberg (1861–1927) discussed about the essence of He-He. The main question was: whether He-He two saints were twins (L. Sternberg) or doubles (V. Alekseev)? B. Alekseev insisted that their cult and iconography came from hieroglyphic rebus; L. Sternberg thought that this theory is completely wrong, because the basis for persons like He-He two saints should be built on a myth of twins like Dioscuri and Ashwins. According popular legend He-He’ prototypes were two Tang dynasty Suzhou monks and poets Hanshan-zi and Hede-zi (IX c.). Yong Zheng Emperor canonizes them as Saints in 1733. Ac. V. Alekseev also describes famous folk pictures composition “Yituan heqi” (“Full Harmony”) as a derivative of the same hieroglyphic rebus gives birth to He-He images. New Year popular prints nianhua “Yituan heqi” represented very fat happy man with the “Maitreya face” and absolutely round body. But now we can suppose that the origin of this composition is another picture entitled also “Yituan heqi”. The first who depicted He-He as circle was eighth Ming emperor Cheng-hua (1465–1487) in 1465. His round trinity was a symbol of religious syncretism, harmony of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The central person of the composition looks like Maitreya: very fat men with blessed smile sitting cross-legged, but really his rounded body is three-in-one: the circle compound from the bodies of Confucian scholar and Tao monk. Wang Yizhou (Heidelberg University) Visualising a Shift in Images of Courtesans fromMiddle to Late Ming Key words: courtesans, gender, paintings, woodblock illustrations, text-image During the middle Ming period, paintings depicting courtesans already appeared in a relatively consid- erable number appreciated mainly by the elite, while the general scholarly interest has centered on the late Ming period in terms of the research into the fashion of courtesan culture and art in the Ming literati circle. This paper will focus on the theme of courtesans that has been neglected in Chinese visual art probably due to the difficulty in its recognition, and it will examine the ‘overlooked’ middle Ming period in com- parison with the ‘popular’ late Ming era. What makes the middle Ming period unique is that the courtesans in paintings are often recognizable: some of them are real figures, and some refer to literary works or text in history. I argue that the middle Ming paintings depicting courtesans who ofter encounter with literati in images, show a more authentic emotion and attitude from the artists e.g. Wu Wei (1459–1508) and Tang Yin (1470–1523), compared with the gradually stereotyped images of courtesans in the late Ming and early Qing period. Courtesans depicted in these paintings are visually arranged in an important position almost equal to male figures, and artists are trying to recall the individual experiences or stories of courtesans, and to arouse viewers’ feelings like sympathy. This paper will discuss the following issues: How did the images depicting courtesans suddenly come into being in paintings under the middle Ming social context? How did they differentiate from and shift to the late Ming paintings? How did paintings visually interact with woodblock illustrations to fictions or dramas in this theme for a wider range of classes of audience? How can we perceive these images in gendered views? Wang Lianming (University of Heidelberg) Ten Noble Hounds: Animal Portraiture in the Qianlong Court Key words: Qing, Qianlong, painting, animal, Jesuits As one of the first domesticated animals, the dog played an inextricable role in the daily life of Chinese society, and its emergence in visual art enjoyed a long tradition from marginal depictions in prehistoric art via funerary objects, to an increasingly prominent role in the paintings of pre-modern courts. Neverthe- less, dogs in art have never been treated in the same way as horses, since the latter were mostly considered