Trauma and violence at the margins: pictorial responses to the Opium War

Abstract

Violence as a cultural expression of power and moral values is generally seen as absent in Chinese art. In part, it is assumed that martial prowess is insignificant in the construction of the paragon scholar-artist. Moreover, the connections between art and specific social attitudes toward violence and the experience of violent acts are often amorphous, making it difficult to construct any systematic examination of pictorial expressions. If acts of violence are rarely depicted, is the aftermath of violence equally absent? This paper will focus on the period after the Opium War from 1842 leading to the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion in 1850. The signing of the Unequal Treaties (1842-44) granted territory to the foreign powers, but resistance in Guangzhou quickly led to violent skirmishes. It was in this post-war Guangzhou that the traumatic affects of loosing a war and surrendering territory generated a corpus of stories and memories of disempowerment and defiance, and contributed to the brewing of discontent towards government authority. I will examine some of the narrative and pictorial strategies that emerged in this post-war period, and the role of image as a form of testimony with both a private dimension and a public aspect that bridge the gulf between experience and discourse.