Wen-chi's Captivity And Return: A New Exploration On The Image

Cai Wen-chi's captivity in Xiongnu and her returning to Han Empire is one of the most famous narrative motives in Chinese art history: literature, music, painting and drama. This essay is a new survey and a visual and cultural explain of long scrolls on this motif. It reviews and re-authenticates most of the currently known versions, cleans up their relationship.The most important image system is 9 versions on Liu Shang's cycle. This essay divides them into 2 groups. On the first group many issues on Southern Song Paintings are discussed, especially the creating of the original painting: when and why it was created. On the second group I focus on the issue on "Suzhou Pian", a forgery producing system in Ming and Qing Dynasties. By this research I found some new information on it.Another image system different from Liu Shang's 9 versions is two versions on a cycle traditional attributed to Cai Wen-chi herself. This essay cleans up and re-authenticates them and put them on the background of Ming Dynasty musical culture.Then I return to historical, literary and musical documents to review this motif and the paintings. I find a continuous process of reconstruction and accumulation: from the antetype Cai Yan to dramatic Cai Wen-chi, from historians' description to Liu Shang's cycle, from this cycle to the original long scroll painting, form the original Southern Song paintings to late Ming and Qing copies. From this case we find the original painting is created in the stylistic and social circumstance in the beginning of 13 century, and artists played an active role in this process.