A Study Of The Illustrations In Novel With Embroidered Portrait Of Late Qing Dynasty

As one of the four major novel journals in the late Qing Dynasty,Novel with Embroidered Portrait is the first novel journal born in China after New Novel in Yokohama,Japan.It is the first novel journal founded by The Commercial Press,undoubtedly bearing profound cultural value and historical mission.Novel with Embroidered Portrait has the characteristics of both illustrations and text,and the illustrations also show the characteristics of the new era,which is worth thinking about today.In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties,the main popular illustrations in novels were portraits of figures in the form of embroidered portrait,while narrative illustrations were rare.Although Novel with Embroidered Portrait was named embroidered portrait,its illustrations were narrative.In the past,novels focused on describing history.But Novel with Embroidered Portrait was born in the wave of new novels.The novels of the late Qing Dynasty were closely related to social news,and the illustrations were current events.Therefore,this article examines the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait within the framework of social trends and the development of illustrations in Chinese novels in the late Qing Dynasty,attempting to reveal the overall appearance of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait.Therefore,it is mainly divided into the following four aspects.The first part discusses the creative context of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait,starting from both external and internal contexts,and taking the influence of Dianshizhai on the illustrations in the novels of the late Qing Dynasty as a clue to explore the material factors such as technology,market,and manpower that led to the birth of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait;Internally,the Commercial Press inherits the mission of the era of New Novel as a clue to explore the significance,function,value,and other ideological and cultural factors of the birth of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait.By comprehensively examining the external and internal contexts,this article reveals the reasons for the birth of illustrations.The second part discusses the narrative form of illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait.Starting from the intuitive visual expression of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait,this article analyzes the impact of the painting techniques,composition methods,and addition of characters on the narrative and audience acceptance of the text in Novel with Embroidered Portrait illustrations,and analyzes the ways in which they participate in the narrative of the novel.The third part discusses the narrative content of the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait Examine the content focused by the text of Novel with Embroidered Portrait and the content presented by the illustrations in Novel with Embroidered Portrait,analyze the illustrations that represent various forms of officialdom and society,so as to restore the social outlook of the late Qing Dynasty and interpret the "self" understanding of the Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty;Analyze the illustrations showing foreign exploration to interpret the understanding and mentality of the late Qing people towards the "other".In this way,the history of the late Qing Dynasty is illustrated by images.The fourth part discusses the relationship between image narration and text narration in Novel with Embroidered Portrait.Pay attention to the position of illustrations in the journal and the similarities and differences between image narration and text narration,in order to summarize the positive effect of image narration on text narration in the journal.