Two Hundred and Forty Portraits for a 'Life of Unparalleled Glory' (1849): Ideal Manhood and the Rise of Pictorial Autobiographies in China

Abstract

The first half of the nineteenth century in China witnessed the phenomenal rise of what I would term ‘pictorial autobiographies’ by men - in brief, a form of autobiography that made its visual impact on the audience by using an extensive series of self-/portraits to recapture the subject’s life experiences. The governor Wanyan Linqing ! (1791-1846), for example, commissioned and printed in wood blocks two hundred and forty portraits for himself in order to delineate - to quote one of his contemporaries – ‘a life of unparalleled glory’ in every detail. Interpreting this trend certainly involves contextualizing it within China’s tradition of portraiture as a means of glorifying the ‘pillars of the state.’ However, the leap to self-glorification, and particularly to one’s claim of what makes oneself the ‘ideal man’ in every sense of the word in nineteenth-century China, in addition to one’s political feats - speaks of a critical moment in the development of Chinese autobiography. The gendered messages in this trend, moreover, shed light on the construction of gender ideals during this time, and provide crucial contexts for us to approach women’s self-construction as well.