| Focusing on the interplay between visual production and social formation, this dissertation looks into the ways in which Xiang Shengmo's art responded to an ensemble of dynamic social relations. Acknowledging that social situations are decidedly both plural and transient, this study intends to closely examine these social interactions as case studies. The four chapters interrogate varied sites and situations with which the artist was grappling, through social networking and artistic representation.; The fabric of Xiang Shengmo's social space was woven with wildly diverse threads, including, but not limited to, obligations and opportunities, alienation and atonement, contestation and compromise, and aspiration and anxiety. The central concern of my dissertation does not sit squarely on Xiang the artist per se, but goes deep into the various social arenas within which he found himself, and his engagement with these particular situations.; The diverse arenas of Xiang's social negotiation discussed include interregional cultural networks, local elite societies, family heritage, and self-positioning through self-portraiture. The study begins by examining Xiang's strategic associations with Dong Qichang and Li Rihua. Through contextualizing Xiang's affiliations within the bigger picture of regionalist contestation in the late Ming, I explore how and why his interregional network transformed over time. The same consciousness of locality loomed large in local Jiaxing elites' efforts to promote distinctive regional art and culture. Xiang contributed his painting and poetry to this enterprise and advanced his own career in the meantime. The enterprise of place-making, the combined creation of site-cum-sight, was prominent in contemporary garden culture. Around Freeing Crane Islet, apocryphal narrative was concocted and, through Xiang's painting, immortalized. Self-portraiture was a socially conscious art form as evidenced in Xiang's self-portrayals. Rather than a personal space secluded from social contingency, Xiang's self-portrayals were as responsive and instrumental to the evolving social space as his works in other genres. Although not always triumphant, Xiang's engagement with social spaces, lodged in particular sites and situations, proved to be proactive, interactive, and at times, retroactive. |
