Text, Images And History

Derived from the Chinese classic A Dream in Red Mansions,the woodblock printsof The Dream of the Red Chamber produced by artisans who lived in Yangliuqing Town of Tianjin during the Qing dynasty are a subject that has not received muchattention yet from researchers of Redology.In this paper,the author tries to make a thorough exploration of the Yangliuqing prints of the Red Chamber based on all the images of the subject that she can have access to and with reference to other basicmaterials such as historical and local records,the text and illustrations of A Dream in Red Mansions,the picture album,the architectural sketches,etc."Text,image,history" is the core of this paper.Did the knowledge of TheDream of the Red Chamber come from the text of A Dream in Red Mansions when Yangliuqing woodblock prints of the Red Chamber were produced in the Qing dynasty?Were they made with reference to other types of images such as illustrations of the literary classic?Were they the contemporary art of the Qingdynasty?Were they just programed merchandises or passionate creations by theartisans?What role did they play in history?All these questions will be answered in this paper.Apart from the woodblock prints of the Dream of the Red Chamber as well as the place where they were produced---Yangliuqing,the author has also had athorough review of the text and images of the book,based on which a thickdescription was given to two classic pictures---"Eating Crabs in the Lotus Fragrance Pavilion "and "Four Beauties Fishing".All the discussions have beenfocused on the problems and methods of image research,and ideas and methods of other fields such as iconology,communication studies and sociology of art were also drawn on.While providing a supplement to the research of images inRedology,the author hopes to,with this paper,broaden the horizon and diversify the methods of the study of Chinese intangible cultural heritage and also be helpfulto the study of images in Chinese folk art.