Courtesans Qing Dynasty China Judith Zeitlin
Professor Margaret Francesca Rosenthal, USC, Prof of Italian, Comp Lit and English, and Judith Zeitlin, Prof of Ch Lit at the University of Chicago, gave presentations about courtesan culture in Renaissance, Italy, and Qing Dynasty China, respectively.
Judith Zeitlin took the approach of Music being visible in the paintings, literally and figuratively, and started her preamble as she termed it, with the panels representing the musicians She called her presentation, "Flesh , Silk, Bamboo: Picturing Song and Beautiful women in Late Imperial Visual Culture." She cites Rose Tremain's "Music and Silence", in which a king houses an orchestra in his wine cellar, so the concerts can filter up to his dining room, and entertain his guests. She notes that "this disembodied music" was an anomoly then but we take it for granted today, when it is the opposite -- the presence of musicians is an exception. She sets up the theme of "listening to music with the eyes"....In the painting of the 5 panels, the beauties are making music in a garden setting. Their musical skill is as essential to their allure as was their visual beauty. Their languid boredom and "submitting themselves to the gaze of another" are part and parcel of their role as courtesans? She cites a Tang dynasty historical example of screens with flowers hiding the musicians making music, so the womens' attractions are only suggested. To give perspective, she points to a 12th c palace concert painting, which is a copy of a handscroll and to a Ming copy of a 10th c work, of another concert of women by Zhou Wenji. In a late tang tomb, ink and color on a plaster wall represent such a screen... In 1676 Yu Zhding " "The Three Pleasures of Yuanzhi" shows a scholar indulging in his three pleasures, "wine, books and music". Three musicans perhaps household entertainers, rather than courtesans, play a zither, flute, and one sings. They, like the women in the panels all have very white skin, rosebud mouths, long tapering fingers, and are clothed in luxurious silks, which create a sense of "languor". Zeitlin's perception of the visual images is pivoted on her sense that music is indispensable to the literati, who joined singing clubs and staged their own concerts in the 16th and 17th centuries. On porcelain vases, in the Butler collection in England, the lecturer shows a rehearsal of a play(probably kunqu opera) in the top register. She mentions the Domestic album and ends with a leaf from it, where the man is gesturing and she thinks the couple is singing a duet while a lute is being played...Zeitlin does not note the influence of the West on such a painting, and that is probably why, as she observes, the lute is sideways instead of straight upwards...and it would have not been a lute, but possibly an erhu.? She ignores much of the detail in the actual paintings in this exhibition except for her introduction and closure. She does not address the economic realities or the social realities of these women, and I feel, though it is aesthetically interesting to elevate a court musician, let alone one of these women due to her musical talent...that is not the whole story. In an afterword with her, she cites Karaoke as an example of this tradition continuing today. She ignores the present day news of the richest men in China having 17 young women, apiece, which they house and retire at age 30 in Shanghai...saying they must be from HK or Taiwan, which is not true. She refuses to face the social condoning of mistresses and of taking other women into the house, when money and position permit. Her treatment of music is one that I have followed as well, but in the poetry, often written to the "tune of"...songs. When I mention this to her, she seems surprised; how can she be a professor of Chinese Literature and not be aware of this phenomena.
See separate entry for Margareta Francesca Rosenthal.
Judith Zeitlin took the approach of Music being visible in the paintings, literally and figuratively, and started her preamble as she termed it, with the panels representing the musicians She called her presentation, "Flesh , Silk, Bamboo: Picturing Song and Beautiful women in Late Imperial Visual Culture." She cites Rose Tremain's "Music and Silence", in which a king houses an orchestra in his wine cellar, so the concerts can filter up to his dining room, and entertain his guests. She notes that "this disembodied music" was an anomoly then but we take it for granted today, when it is the opposite -- the presence of musicians is an exception. She sets up the theme of "listening to music with the eyes"....In the painting of the 5 panels, the beauties are making music in a garden setting. Their musical skill is as essential to their allure as was their visual beauty. Their languid boredom and "submitting themselves to the gaze of another" are part and parcel of their role as courtesans? She cites a Tang dynasty historical example of screens with flowers hiding the musicians making music, so the womens' attractions are only suggested. To give perspective, she points to a 12th c palace concert painting, which is a copy of a handscroll and to a Ming copy of a 10th c work, of another concert of women by Zhou Wenji. In a late tang tomb, ink and color on a plaster wall represent such a screen... In 1676 Yu Zhding " "The Three Pleasures of Yuanzhi" shows a scholar indulging in his three pleasures, "wine, books and music". Three musicans perhaps household entertainers, rather than courtesans, play a zither, flute, and one sings. They, like the women in the panels all have very white skin, rosebud mouths, long tapering fingers, and are clothed in luxurious silks, which create a sense of "languor". Zeitlin's perception of the visual images is pivoted on her sense that music is indispensable to the literati, who joined singing clubs and staged their own concerts in the 16th and 17th centuries. On porcelain vases, in the Butler collection in England, the lecturer shows a rehearsal of a play(probably kunqu opera) in the top register. She mentions the Domestic album and ends with a leaf from it, where the man is gesturing and she thinks the couple is singing a duet while a lute is being played...Zeitlin does not note the influence of the West on such a painting, and that is probably why, as she observes, the lute is sideways instead of straight upwards...and it would have not been a lute, but possibly an erhu.? She ignores much of the detail in the actual paintings in this exhibition except for her introduction and closure. She does not address the economic realities or the social realities of these women, and I feel, though it is aesthetically interesting to elevate a court musician, let alone one of these women due to her musical talent...that is not the whole story. In an afterword with her, she cites Karaoke as an example of this tradition continuing today. She ignores the present day news of the richest men in China having 17 young women, apiece, which they house and retire at age 30 in Shanghai...saying they must be from HK or Taiwan, which is not true. She refuses to face the social condoning of mistresses and of taking other women into the house, when money and position permit. Her treatment of music is one that I have followed as well, but in the poetry, often written to the "tune of"...songs. When I mention this to her, she seems surprised; how can she be a professor of Chinese Literature and not be aware of this phenomena.
See separate entry for Margareta Francesca Rosenthal.
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