The Power of Images: A Double Fifth Painting at the Qing Court and Its Apotropaic Power

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper studies an anonymous Double Fifth painting kept at the National Palace Museum in Taipei for its intended apotropaic power. Using historical records and stylistic analyses, the paper posits that the anonymous Double Fifth was made in the Qianlong reign. The paper then explores how the painting intends to be an efficacious image in an iconographical and stylistic sense. Compared to a similar Double Fifth painting signed by Giuseppe Castiglione, the anonymous version has more elements added such as Daoist talismans, Zhong Kui, and a hanging paper cut-out in the shape of a tiger, all of which were meant to fortify the painting’s apotropaic power. On the other hand, the addition of these elements makes the anonymous version less realistic compared to Castiglione’s version. This paper argues, however, that the anonymous version asserts its efficacy on stylistic and pictorial grounds without resorting to mimesis based on realistic representation. To argue this, the paper goes beyond decoding the iconographic meaning of the various elements added in the anonymous version to properly analyze the pictorial mechanism of how such elements are depicted and functioning in the painting. Through such analysis, this paper explores how Chinese seasonal paintings could be studied and interpreted not merely as a system of symbols, but also as a visual apparatus intended to maximize the painting’s efficacy by pictorial means. Ultimately, the paper aims to seek new conceptual and analytical methods of probing the power of images beyond the theory of realistic resemblance.