A Study Of The Relationship Between Woodblock Print And Ink Paintings In Late Ming-Early Qing

As book publication flourished during the late Ming, woodblock prints appeared in great numbers as book illustrations. Literati participation in the planning, design, and publication of prints caused its style and aesthetics to become increasingly closer to ink paintings. On the other hand, as a major medium in visual and material culture, book format and illustration inspired changes and innovations in painting. This dissertation explores the interaction between prints and paintingsduring the late Ming-early Qing period.First, I examine the infiltration of ink painting and literati aesthetic into prints. A case study on printed painting manuals reveals how this genre graduallyincorporated the format of paintings and diverged from the format of illustrated books. As publishers strove to print exquisite images to attract readers, the aesthetic value of illustrations started to be recognized. Moreover, they realized the potential for woodblock prints to function as image templates. Eventually printed painting manuals emerged as a genre that transmitted painting technique and knowledge, as well as provided models for copying and appreciation.Second, I analyze the link between book culture and the development of album leaf format in paintings, and then proceed to study the relationship between printed painting manuals and album leaf paintings. I argue that the popularity of album leaf sets in the style of various old masters is the elite artists’response to the ubiquitous printed manuals of the same nature-the elites were consciously differentiating themselves from the popular market. Finally, I take Master Gu’s Painting Manual (Gushihuapu) as an example to discuss how printed painting manuals functioned as templates and drafts for paintings and how they transmitted the elite visual conventions to non-elite artists.Furthermore, book illustration was an influential interface between two major visual mediums-print and painting. Copious viewing experience in prints encouraged late Ming viewers to be more attentive to the forms, structure, and details of images. The section is an analysis of the works of Chen Hongshou and Wu Bin in order to illustrate how prints influenced the productionof ink paintings and affected how people viewed paintings.The final part is a research of how the format, visual conventions, and carving techniques of prints inspired innovation in the painting technique and visual language of ink painting. I study the works by Xiao Yuncong and Ding Yunpeng to demonstrate that the visual language of prints has an influential presence in ink painting that manifests in the format, composition, texture strokes and how ink is used. This will contribute to our understanding on the ink paintings of the late Ming-early Qing and on the visuality during this period.