Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-1900 (review)

Reviews 265 RichardVinograd. Boundaries ofthe Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-1900 Cambridge [England]; NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xv, 191 pp. 154 figures, 20 plates. $95.00. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press This well-crafted book is a study of Chinese portraiture that far exceeds any previous treatment of the subject, and is guaranteed to change readers' perceptions and preconceptions. Moreover, it is a work that effectively illustrates the course of Chinese cultural history in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and hence should have a general appeal to scholars in the China field. As contemporary art historians have pointed out, "portraiture did not simply passively mirror other aspects ofculture but actively participated in the construction ofself-awareness and selfimage " (p. 29). Thus portraiture, commonly visualized by both China specialists and amateurs as the traditional format of the ancestral portrait, is reinterpreted byVinograd as an expressive art form of central importance in Chinese cultural development. Such an emphasis is possible because the text deals mainly with the later periods of Chinese art and focuses on artists' portraits and self-portraits in particular. And representations of these figures serve as a kind ofvisual history of successive stages ofartistic culture from roughly 1500 on as it moved from Suzhou to Shanghai. Finally, the status ofportraiture is elevated through rereadings of specific images in social, literary, and psychological contexts, and Vinograd makes use ofin-depth art-historical analysis inspired by recent literary criticism. Such approaches are not always easily digestible, and the text is heavilyweighted with interpretation: One is forced to progress slowly through it, which fosters the absorption ofmeaning. And by the end ofthe book one does believe Vinograd's introductory comment that new areas of research have opened up for him and others during the course oftheir study of Chinese portraiture. As for the content, the general outline is chronological, since the first chapter deals with pre-Ming portraiture while introducing some concepts, myths, and types of the genre, and the second, third, and fourth discuss portraits ofvar-ious artists ofthe seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, respectively. The well-crafted aspect ofthe text is exemplified by the amount ofmaterial introduced in the first chapter that serves as a point ofreference later on. For example, underlying concepts that endure to modern times are brought out by comparing a Qing woodblock illustration of portrait head features, similar to a Tang 266 China Review International: Vol. ?, No. ?, Spring 1994 physiognomic diagram, with a Ren Bonian head painted in 1884 (figs. 3, 4). Various types of portraits discussed in the first chapter, such as the scholar in a landscape setting (figs. 10, 14), are the source for more sophisticated later versions. In general the illustrations are well chosen and well spaced in the text for easy viewing . The first chapter also deals with a wide range ofportraiture that is not covered in detail elsewhere, commenting on ancestral images and their social context . Indeed, it begins: "Portraiture is grounded in social practices having to do with rituals of commemoration and claims of status or identity that are large-ly public" (p. 1). And one might add that these identities, whether religious or historical , were generally conveyed through conventional types. However, as Vinograd's title indicates, he is primarily interested in the more intimate portraits of living figures that resonate with some awareness of"Boundaries of the Self." "Introduction: Effigy, Emblem, and Event in Chinese Portraiture" is the heading of the first chapter, and the alliterative three "Es" recur in the central subheading. (Alliteration calls attention to itself in this chapter, which contains a previous subheading of"Concepts, Categories, and Conventions" as well as two subsections labeled "Surface and Structure" and "Public and Private Portraits.") As one might expect, an effigy is commonly an ancestral portrait, but it could also be a Buddhist portrait statue, a commemorative image that often conveys a sense ofrealism through conventions by relying on familiarity and at times on overtones of magic. The emblematic portrait expresses individuality in a variety of cultural roles, commonly surrounding the subject by significant objects or props of status recognizable to contemporary viewers. The "Event" is not a distinct type ofportraiture like the first two (hence the...