Painted Screens: Image, Medium, and Beyond

Painted screens serve a dual purpose in Chinese history: blocking off the winds as a furnishing and providing aesthetic enjoyment as a painting-bearing object. Art historians of Chinese art have paid close attention to the Chinese painted screen and studied this image-bearing object of various kinds. However, while scholars have developed concrete analyses of one single screen in isolation, the connections between the screens and their relations with the domestic and natural environment have not been thoroughly discussed. Following the pioneering research on painted screens and using Reading under a Pavilion Roof in the Wind as my major example, I argue that in an interior where multiple screens are arranged, painted screens should be viewed with each other and with the wider environment, all of which contribute to the essential viewing experience of the viewer. Moreover, diverging from the heavy emphasis on the visual in the traditional art history methodology, the presences of light, sound, and smell are highlighted when analyzing the function of each object in the painting.