Author ｜
Wen-tsuei Lu
Abstract ｜
In his Illustrated Dream of Red Chamber, Gai Qi (1773-1828) not only sketches fictional characters but also endows a peculiar discourse-specifically his focus on the “affectional” life of characters. Entrusting Dream of Red Chamber as his paradigm and creating certain “illustrative” discourse in order to interpret humanity within his portraits is a significant dimension in Gai Qi’s world of art. To be able to address the issue, one has to first distinguish the ekphrastic lyrics from the portrayals and no longer refer the work as “the illustrated Dream of Red Chamber with lyrics.” Not only is the work an organic combination of the “lady portrait” tradition and Dream of Red Chamber, it is an unprecedented artistic crossover within the context of “south of the Yanzi River” literati community’s cultural structure-more a creativity of illustrations by literati than portraits that either serves as notes to plots or demonstrations of characters’ personality traits. Under the support of his celebrity friends, these four illustrated volumes on young characters in Dream of Red Chamber-completed in Gai Qi’s midlife, showcase his aestheticism on youthful moods. Gai Qi portrays “minds,” especially juvenile/ girls’ minds, therefore Illustrated Dream of Red Chamber features lyricism instead of narration. It is the figurative embodiment of lyricism; a combination of the moments the characters hop from the pages with poetic implications. This is due to the pure illustration combined with poetics. In the process of creating the portraits for Yuan-Chun and Bao-Yu, Gai Qi achieves a unique interpretation and criticism. Through an examination of Gai Qi’s paradigmatic illustrative creativity, this paper aims to reveal the value of the book series in the context of extensive old school of Redology and make manifest the creative significance of Shanghai literati’s endowment on the “illustrated” lyricism of Dream of Red Chamber in the mid-Qing dynasty.
keywords ｜
Illustrated Dream of Red Chamber, “illustrated” discourse, juvenile/ girl’s minds, the lyrical figures