Ying-Chen Peng, "Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi's Image Making" (Yale UP, 2023)
Ying-chen Peng\u2019s\xa0Artful Subversion: Empress Dowager Cixi\u2019s Image Making\xa0is a beautiful new volume on late Qing imperial art practice from Yale University Press (forthcoming in 2023). Peng\u2019s book, rigorously researched and richly illustrated, presents a revisionist biography of the Empress Dowager through an analysis of her patronage and participation in making art. Each chapter follows Cixi\u2019s her \u201cartfully subversive\u201d command of various media forms, from photography and portraiture, to architecture, porcelain, painting, and calligraphy. Considering Cixi as a patron and artist in her own right, Peng frames the regent as a canny political and aesthetic strategist who worked within and against conventions that circumscribed female power to craft an assertive role as the face of the Great Qing Empire at a moment of immense historical changes. Join us for a fascinating discussion of the artistic universe crafted by Cixi.\nJulia Keblinska is a member of the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies