Space, vision and identity : imagining and inventing Shanghai in the courtesan illustrations of Dianshizhai Pictorial (1884-1898)

This thesis investigates various representational modes and strategies in the Shanghai courtesan illustrations in Dianshizhai Pictorial. The aim of the study is to examine how Shanghai's early modern identity was imaged, imagined and contested through the courtesan figure. I argue that by establishing a new urban iconography, Dianshizhai Pictorial transformed the Shanghai courtesan from a traditional archetypical meiren to a universal image of the urban beauty. On the one hand, the modern city, previously an alien concept, was made familiar and acceptable through the image of the Shanghai courtesan. On the other hand, the ambivalence of the courtesan's new image mirrored a mixed feeling of fear, anxiety and disdain towards the emerging metropolis. The courtesan illustrations, hence, served as an important domain where different public understandings of the city were negotiated and expressed in pictorial terms