Visual Studies Commons^™

Portrayals Of Women In Chen Hongshou’S Figure Paintings, Lai Na Wan

Theses & Dissertations

Chen Hongshou (1598/1599-1652), a famous artist of late Ming and early Qing China, was particularly well-known for his figure paintings, which exerted a noticeable influence on later generations and has been the subject most commonly discussed by scholars. Among Chen’s figure painting oeuvre, this study is especially concerned with his portrayals of women ranging between the 1630s and 1650s with an intention to explore what their representations, audience and function reveal about the artist. The existing monographs on Chen’s female figures is limited to only few case studies, from which the artist’s depictions of women have not been clearly sorted …