물질적 매체에서 문화적 기호로: 명청(明淸) 시대 외국 판매용 예술품 속 선박(船舶) 도상의 복합적 정체성 구성 = From Material Medium to Cultural Sign: The Construction of Complex Identities in Ship Iconography on Export Artworks of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

From the mid-Ming to the late Qing period (16th–19th centuries), the intensification of maritime trade between East and West led to the prolific creation of Export Artworks centered in the Guangzhou (Canton) region. Among these visual commodities, ship iconography emerged as a recurring motif, initially serving as a functional depiction of maritime technology, but gradually evolving into a cultural sign with multilayered significance.
This study examines how the representation of ships in export artworks operates not merely as material illustrations, but as symbolic carriers of multilayered cultural identity. These images facilitated the reinterpretation of maritime vessels as more than physical tools—they became nodes of knowledge exchange, metaphors of commercial wealth, archival forms of visual classification, and mediators of cross-cultural narrative.