@article{(Re)MakingtheView:TheShiftingImaginaryofWestLake:4030,
      recid = {4030},
      author = {Shao, Yunfei},
      title = {(Re)Making the View: The Shifting Imaginary of West Lake,  from the 13th to the 19th Century},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2022-06},
      pages = {564},
      abstract = {Examining the images of West Lake from the thirteenth to  the nineteenth century in China, this dissertation focuses  on the representation of the place as a topographic,  historic, and cultural site. Following two lines of  inquiry, this dissertation explores the boundaries and  efficacies of site-specific paintings while probing the  long-perceived Song (960–1279) lineage of West Lake  paintings. This dissertation considers paintings of West  Lake as images constructed from vision, experience, memory,  and history. These images participated in the promotion of  local identity in the Ming dynasty (1358–1644) and the  forging of an imperial landscape during the Qing  (1644–1912). This dissertation comprises an introduction,  five chapters grouped into three parts, a conclusion, a  coda, and two appendices. 
Chapter 1 identifies three key  visual formats in the representation of West Lake: the  bird’s-eye panoramic, the close-up scenic, and the  linearized panoptic. Each format considers a different way  of experiencing West Lake: the desire to overlook the lake  from a high vantage point, the impulse to personally  explore the seasonal and temporal changes on the lake, and  the need to tour the lake in a boat. Chapter 2 demonstrates  two spaciotemporalities in the representation of West Lake  during the Ming dynasty: the past and the present.  Embodying modernity and nostalgia at the same time, West  Lake was represented as the lingering ghost of the Song  capital city and the display window of the Ming metropolis.  Chapter 3 reconstructs the formation of a Song lineage of  West Lake paintings during the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming  periods. Parsing visual and textual materials from the  tenth century, this chapter provides a comprehensive  analysis of the process of rooting the subject matter in  the Southern Song (1127–1279) court, while investigating  the reasons behind such historical and cultural  construction. Chapter 4 explores the imperial footprints on  the landscape of West Lake in the Qing era, in situ and on  paper. This chapter considers court-commissioned images of  West Lake as devices for imperial surveillance and stages  for political spectacles. Chapter 5 traces the circulation  of West Lake images between Beijing and Jiangnan since the  eighteenth century to understand the production,  consumption, and perception of politicized images of West  Lake. 
By demonstrating the close relationship between the  mass/imperial tours and site-specific paintings, this  dissertation considers landscape paintings as agents that  confine and regulate viewers’ experiences with the site. By  reconstructing the process of consolidating a Song lineage  of West Lake images, this dissertation focuses on the  making of (art) history through image building and  art-history writing. It challenges the traditional wisdom  in the study of Chinese painting that the Song court  actively participated in the depiction of West Lake. In  doing so, this dissertation positions paintings of West  Lake in the context of the identity building of the Ming,  the forming of multiethnic landscape of the High Qing era,  and the secularization of political images after the  eighteenth century. 
},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/4030},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.4030},
}