The female-themed paintings by Ming Dynasty painter Chen Hongshou were a field for irony, questioning and deconstruction. Not only did he challenge the traditional themes of boudoir resentment, he redefined the "ideal qualities" of women and handled the themes of goddesses (immortals) in a strange way, expressing a certain absurd, illusory and even surreal atmosphere that has never been seen in the history of painting.
Recently published by Shanghai Painting and Calligraphy Publishing House, "Juanjuan Stands Alone on Cold Pond Road: Women in Ancient Chinese Art" explores the image and status of ancient Chinese women in art, reveals their transformation from the margins to the center, and reflects on the restrictions and expectations of society on women. This article is an excerpt from the section "Literati Painters Who Subverted Traditional Paintings of Ladies" in the book.
Questioning the significance of "boudoir complaints" and "raising infants"
"Leaning against the Incense Burner", painted around 1639, may be the painting with the richest literary connotations among Chen Hongshou's paintings of ladies, but it also shows the most extreme contempt for the tradition of literature and art. Chen Hongshou admired Bai Juyi (772-846) and Su Dongpo (1036-1101) the most in his life, probably because he liked their approachable poetry style and unrestrained temperament. Here, the last sentence of Bai Juyi's poem " My tears wet my silk handkerchief, and I can't dream. Deep in the night, I hear the singing in the front hall. My beauty is not old, but my love has ended. I lean against the incense burner and sit until dawn " is used as the title of the painting. Originally, Bai Juyi's poem depicts a woman who has fallen out of favor. At midnight, she can still hear the noisy singing and dancing in the front hall. In contrast, it highlights her loneliness, waking up from a dream at midnight, and living alone in the harem, unable to fall asleep.
Chen Hongshou, “Leaning against the Incense Burner”, circa 1639, hanging scroll in color on silk, collection of Shanghai Museum
The theme of Bai's poem is the traditional "palace complaint" or "boudoir complaint" theme. This theme is often expressed in paintings, mostly emphasizing the loneliness and helplessness of women staying alone in an empty boudoir, and the futility of trying to redeem the disappearance of youth. For example, in the Song Dynasty fan painting of a lady "Embroidered Cage in the Mirror at Dawn", the heroine has her back to the huge empty bed curtain and looks down at her face in the mirror on the dressing table, as if she is afraid of a lover who has never appeared (imaginary). Once she gets old, love will gradually wither. However, Chen Hongshou greatly changed this long-standing tradition of poetry and painting in his painting. Although he followed Bai Juyi's poem and depicted the sitting posture of the woman leaning against the incense burner, the focus was not on emphasizing the sadness of the woman's "beauty is not old, but love is gone". On the contrary, unlike the self-pitying and lonely figure of the heroine in the previous "boudoir complaint" paintings, the body language of the heroine in "Leaning against the Incense Burner" is full of provocative arcs and room for imagination.
(Attributed to) Wang Shen (ca. 1048-1104), "Embroidered Cage with Mirror at Dawn", color on silk, collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei
In "Leaning on the Incense Cage", the heroine is looking up at the parrot on the bird stand above her sight, which is chained and cannot fly high. Her phoenix eyes are slightly narrowed, revealing a slightly disdainful look. Is she unwilling to endure the fate of being imprisoned in the boudoir for a long time like a captive bird? Or is she already tired of such a life? Her body is lying on the bed. As her upper body is leaning on the incense cage, her robe covers the upper half of the incense cage to draw a beautiful semicircle, which echoes the arc of the left half of her legs. The robe she wears is also covered with circular white crane patterns. The various arcs not only outline the graceful figure of the young woman and set off her lazy mood, but also her exquisite robe covers the iron cage of the incense burner, spreading soft and changeable folds like ripples, which is a strong contrast with the cold and hard mesh of the repeated and dense iron cage below. Here Chen Hongshou used fine and strong lines to paint the long and moving curves of the woman's body, and the fluttering folds of her clothes dance out a series of graceful arc melodies. His brushstrokes were seamless, dazzling, and displayed an unprecedented skill in drawing lines.
Chen Hongshou, "Leaning against the Incense Burner" (detail)
This painting completely breaks the tradition of "boudoir resentment" paintings in that the heroine is no longer a young woman who is self-pitying and has a pitiful life experience. On the contrary, Chen Hongshou uses some body movements that have never appeared in "boudoir resentment" paintings: first, the young woman willfully raises her head, with a look of contempt and distrust, fully showing her autonomy and emotions, which is very different from the previous "boudoir resentment" heroines who always have blurred faces and lower their heads to hurt themselves. Chen has used the posture of raising his head to express women's confidence and arrogance before. When he painted "Water Margin Leaves" in 1633, he used this posture of raising his head to portray the strong-willed female hero Hu Sanniang. In his later years' "Bo Gu Leaves", Chen Hongshou used the same posture of raising his head to reject and depict the wife of Zhu Maichen (?-115 BC) who took the initiative to ask for divorce in the Han Dynasty. In addition, the curve of the heroine's body in "Leaning against the Incense Burner" implies a certain longing and desire, which is unprecedented in previous paintings of ladies. Therefore, scholar Wang Zhenghua believes that this represents a woman's initiative in expressing her sexual desire.
Chen Hongshou, Water Margin Leaves - Hu Sanniang, 1633, woodcut, private collection
The painting "Leaning against the Incense Burner" is rich in meaning. In addition to the heroine's contemplation, the supporting characters around her are also thought-provoking. Below the heroine, a maid is looking at the boy in front of her, fanning himself vigorously to catch butterflies. Compared with the size of the heroine, the maid and the boy in front are much smaller, and this reduction is obviously not based on the actual body proportions, nor is it related to the perspective principle of large front and small back. This is most likely that Chen Hongshou learned from the autobiography of Yan Liben (601-673) of the Tang Dynasty, who intentionally reduced the size of the servants around him in his "Emperors of All Dynasties" to highlight the majesty of the emperor's body and momentum. Chen Hongshou followed this technique in "Yang Sheng'an Hairpin Flower Picture" in 1636. However, three years later, this traditional "male is big and female is small" expression method in the painting has undergone a subtle change. In this painting, he used the method of "female is big and male (child) is small" to express the subjectivity of the heroine and the vanity and absurdity of another world in front of the picture.
(Attributed to) Yan Liben (601-673), "Emperors of Successive Dynasties" (partial), hand scroll with color on silk, collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
Chen Hongshou, “Yang Sheng’an Wearing Flowers in His Hair”, circa 1636, vertical scroll in color on silk, collection of the Palace Museum
The young child running in the front of the picture holds a fan in his hand, pretending to catch a butterfly. However, upon closer inspection, the butterfly he catches is not only motionless, but also much larger than it should be. Therefore, some scholars interpret the butterfly as a decoration on the fan. In any case, "蝶恋花" means obsession with love. In addition, it is said that when Emperor Minghuang of Tang celebrated the "Flower Festival" in February every spring, the concubines in the palace would wear flowers on their heads. If a flying butterfly landed on it, she would become the object of the emperor's favor that night. Chen Hongshou used a technique like a stage play here - when the heroine is daydreaming and indulging in the thoughts of her life and situation, another scene of her life and situation is being played out in front of the stage. The young boy is desperately catching butterflies (pursuing love or marriage), but he does not know the vanity and absurdity in this (butterflies do not exist at all), and the maid behind him, with her hands on her knees, seems unable to stop the boy's meaningless pursuit and can only stand by and watch.
This scene also tells the audience that perhaps the heroine was once as innocent as a child, holding infinite fantasies about love and marriage, but now not only has her pure emotions been dashed, but she is also unable to struggle out of the current cage of life, just like the bird on the chain that accompanies her. Although Chen Hongshou painted the theme of boudoir resentment here, it can be seen as a portrayal of himself - at the beginning, he held a heart of ideals and hoped to stand out in fame and fortune, which was as childish and ridiculous as a child, and the maid who watched with a smile beside him was just like the society's helplessness towards him who had a heart of passion but still achieved nothing.
This painting is revolutionary in the presentation of female images and female roles. Compared with the young woman presented in the Miscellaneous Painting Album - Banana Leaves, Rocks, Women and Infants by Guo Xu (1456-1526), a Ming Dynasty painter not too far away from the same era, Guo Xu also depicted the theme of women and infants, but Guo Xu's heroine is obviously a typical traditional "good woman". She sits quietly in a corner of the garden decorated with banana leaves and lake stones, accompanied by her young son who is playing and running not far away in front of her. In conjunction with this peaceful and gentle picture is Guo Xu's own poem: "How many times have I asked the golden hairpin under the lamp, when will I be sad under the lamp? The baby on my knee is now old, maybe he can go to the end of the world." Whether Guo Xu wrote poems or painted here, he still followed the traditional "boudoir complaint" tone, that is, the beloved has gone away, the baby of that day has grown up, but there is still no news of the beloved who has gone far away, which makes the young woman in the boudoir very melancholy. The young woman portrayed by Guo Xu has a beautiful and gentle face, her sitting posture is dignified, and she accompanies the baby to fulfill her female "natural duty", all of which are impeccable and fully meet the viewer's expectations of women.
Guo Xu (1456-after 1526), "Miscellaneous Painting Album - Banana, Rock, Woman and Infant", color album on paper, Shanghai Museum
Like most traditional paintings of women's grievances, Guo Xu's works feature heroines who are tormented by love and wait in sorrow in their boudoirs. The paintings all show the passive and fragile side of women, which makes people feel pity. However, the heroine in Chen Hongshou's "Leaning on the Incense Burner" is different. She is neither standing nor sitting upright to be "watched" by others. Instead, she lies comfortably on the bed, not minding showing her body curves at all. She adopts a rare posture of looking up in thought in paintings of ladies of all dynasties, which not only expresses her own subjective wishes and desires, but also conveys her thoughts as long and distant as the continuous lines on her gorgeous robes.
In addition, although Guo Xu and Chen Hongshou both present the theme of "raising babies", the interaction between the young woman and the child in Guo Xu's painting is an undisputed mother-child relationship, and the eyes between the mother and the child are concerned about each other; however, the relationship between the heroine and the boy in Chen Hongshou's painting is very debatable. The eyes of the young woman and the boy are in opposite directions and do not intersect. The two seem to live in two different worlds. The shrunken figures of the boy and the maid make them even more insignificant to the young woman. The young woman's facial expression seems to be immersed in her own dream, and her body seems to be the embodiment of desire. Where is the shadow of a "loving mother"?
As the name suggests, "Leaning against the Incense Burner" depicts a woman who has lost favor with a man. According to Bai Juyi's original poem "tears wet the silk handkerchief, dreams cannot be fulfilled, singing sounds are heard in the front hall at night", the frustrated heroine should be contrasted with the joyful love in the front hall. However, Chen Hongshou did not draw this picture. Instead, he added a theme similar to the traditional "raising a baby" to the situation of the woman leaning against the incense burner, which is full of contradictions. Combining these two incompatible scenes produces a full irony effect: it is neither a real "boudoir complaint" - women no longer simply believe in or mourn love, and the picture further gives people a sense of confusion as to whether love is real or illusory, and it completely subverts the "raising a baby" theme - women are no longer the assumed caregivers and protectors of young children. In addition, they also have their own desires and fantasies.
In the Jiashen Rebellion (1644), the capital was lost and Chongzhen committed suicide. Chen Hongshou, who was living in Qingteng Book House, the former residence of Xu Wei (1521-1593) in Shaoxing, sometimes cried silently and sometimes drank wildly. The pain of losing his country had a profound psychological impact on Chen Hongshou. When Beijing was broken, his good friend Ni Yuanlu (1592-1644) dressed up and thanked Zongque before hanging himself. The following year, Hangzhou fell, and another good friend Qi Biaojia (1602-1645) starved himself to death. Chen's teacher Liu Zongzhou (1578-1645) also died after 23 days of fasting. These bad news about close teachers and friends undoubtedly brought great pain to Chen Hongshou and a sense of guilt for enduring humiliation and living in seclusion.
In the third year of Shunzhi, the Qing army occupied eastern Zhejiang. Chen Hongshou fled to Yunmen Temple in the deep mountains near Shaoxing and became a monk. He called himself "Huichi" and "Huishen Monk". In fact, Chen Hongshou had already called himself "Huizhai" in the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), six years before the fall of the Ming Dynasty. However, the "regret" before may reflect his dissatisfaction and resentment after repeated setbacks in real life, while the "regret" after the fall of the Ming Dynasty could not avoid the pain of being a lonely minister and a wicked son. One year after becoming a monk (1647), he wrote in a poem: "In the summer of Bingxu, I regretted fleeing to a place full of monkeys and birds in the mountains and valleys, so I shaved my head and wore a monk's robe. How can I be a monk? I just rely on being a monk to survive." It fully expressed his helplessness in his survival.
Book cover of "Juanjuan Standing Alone on the Cold Pond Road: Women in Ancient Chinese Art"
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