Selling and collecting paintings : the art trade and identity construction of female painters in Jiangnan in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties = 鬻畫與鑒藏 : 論明末清初江南地區女性畫家的藝術交易與身份建構

Abstract

The emergence of female painter groups in Jiangnan area of Ming and Qing Dynasties is a considerable social phenomenon. Their artistic behavior is not only related to the history of gender, but also an important reference to the history of consumption and social history: the social interaction behavior linked by art works is itself a part of the consumption culture of the late Ming Dynasty. Refer to Tang Shuyu's (湯漱玉，1795-1855) The Jade Terrace History of Painting and other earlier Chinese texts, this paper focuses on Wen Shu (文俶，1595-1634), Huang Yuanjie (黃媛介，1620-1669), Li Yin (李因，1616-1685), Lin Xue (林雪，?-After 1645) and other artists' artistic activities, based on the historical data to investigate their life and the path of painting, the circulation of their works among collectors in the Ming and Qing dynasties was analyzed, and then the acceptance history of the works of female painters represented by the above painters in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties was constructed. Due to the restrictions and distinctions of social status, female painters formed their personal painting styles through different painting fields. Although their competition aspects were different, in general, the circulation of their works outside the home was dominated by literati and merchants. They can choose what they paint, but they can't really decide it. The individual fate of female painters was closely linked with the rise and fall of that age, and became a note of the decline of the Ming Dynasty.