Iconicity and indexicality: The body in Chinese art

Abstract

This article examines the place of the body in Chinese art. It looks broadly at the case of literati painting and calligraphy and then offers a more historically focused examination of certain tendencies in modern Western-influenced Chinese painting, which was consciously antagonistic to literati values. Using Peirce's distinction between iconic and indexical modes of signification, it argues that while evocation of the body was important in literati visual culture, this was achieved primarily by indexical means, whereas in early twentieth century Chinese visual culture, iconic modes of representation were to become dominant. This modern contestation of the visual economy of literati painting is found particularly in paintings of the female nude. © Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG 2005.