This dissertation takes the expression of indigenous genes in local memory within Manchu painting as its core research topic. Against the contemporary backdrop of accelerating globalization and urbanization, alongside the revitalization of ethnic cult...
This dissertation takes the expression of indigenous genes in local memory within Manchu painting as its core research topic. Against the contemporary backdrop of accelerating globalization and urbanization, alongside the revitalization of ethnic cultures, it examines how Manchu painting has carried, rewritten, and reactivated local memory through historical evolution and contemporary practice. Structured along a fourfold trajectory of memory–theory–history–practice, the study integrates interdisciplinary perspectives from art studies, anthropology, and cultural geography. Its aim is to construct an operational analytical framework of indigeneity that responds to China’s multiethnic context and to test and expand this framework through the creative practices of Manchu indigenous painting.
At the theoretical level, the dissertation systematically reviews key concepts related to indigeneity, including Martin Heidegger’s notion of dwelling, Yi-Fu Tuan’s sense of place, and Kenneth Frampton’s critical regionalism, while placing them in dialogue with Chinese discourses such as Rural China, local knowledge, and the living heritage of intangible cultural heritage. On this basis, it proposes a three-dimensional framework—space, time, and subject—composed of spatial (place-based), temporal, and subjective structures, to analyze the interrelations among local space, historical memory, and narrative agency in Manchu painting. Methodologically, the research combines literature review and visual analysis: it conducts a diachronic survey of Manchu-themed painting from the late Qing dynasty to the present, while also offering in-depth interpretations of case studies such as Dongfeng peasant painting and Xiuyan peasant painting.
At the historical level, Manchu indigenous painting is divided into four phases. The first, from the late Qing dynasty to 1949, is identified as the traditional period, emphasizing the tension between court painting and folk visual genealogies. The second phase (1949–1978), termed the Beidahuang narrative period, reveals how local memory was incorporated into thematic artistic systems centered on frontier development and national construction. The third phase (1978–2000), the Scar Art–Rural Realism period, analyzes the prominence of everyday experience under national artistic paradigms and its localized variations in Manchu regions of Northeast China. The fourth phase, from 2000 to the present, characterized as the Intangible Heritage–Folk Custom–Cultural Industry period, focuses on how the institutionalization of intangible cultural heritage and the expansion of cultural industries have enhanced the visibility of Manchu visual traditions, while simultaneously generating risks of spectacle, symbolic consumption, and the erosion of a genuine sense of place.
At the practical level, the dissertation proposes a dynamic expressive mechanism centered on material innovation, symbolic reconstruction, and the integration of the three-dimensional framework of indigeneity. By reorganizing visual resources such as shamanic objects, festival rituals, and agrarian life, it seeks to liberate “Manchu-ness” from reductive, motif-based representations. By introducing materials bearing temporal and regional traces—such as old wooden doors, drum skins, and fabrics—local experience is transformed into tangible material carriers. Through the overarching integration of spatial, temporal, and subjective structures, the study reconstructs narrative relations concerning “whose land this is” and “who is telling the Manchu story.” Case studies including Dongfeng’s Guandong Three Oddities and Xiuyan’s Snow Rhythms of the Bannerland and Dragon Boat Festival in Manchu Villages demonstrate that Manchu indigenous painting is gradually shifting from grand historical themes and abstract ethnic imagery toward self-narratives centered on specific village spaces, everyday life, and individual memory.
Manchu indigenous painting is neither a static reproduction of “tradition” nor a simplistic expression of “ethnic folklore.” Rather, it constitutes a visual field of practice in which space, time, and subject are continuously reconfigured across different historical contexts. The theoretical contribution of this dissertation lies in providing a transferable analytical framework and dynamic mechanism model for the study of minority arts, while its practical significance resides in offering visual pathways and creative strategies relevant to the contemporary transmission of Manchu culture, the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and rural cultural revitalization.