Building a community through painting: Fourteenth century Chinese scholars

Analyzing newly emerged material as well as iconic paintings, this dissertation sees scholars of the fourteenth century as a community, connected by a shared cultural identity. I argue it was the collective, instead of individual, activities and creations of the group members that brought literati painting tradition to maturation in less than a hundred years. Concentrating on the lower Yangtze delta region (Jiangnan), I focus on the social conditions in which paintings were created and circulated; investigate different means paintings allowed artists, scholars, and collectors to engage each other; and demonstrate the importance of painting in scholars' efforts to construct and perpetuate their collective social and cultural identity.;Set against a historical background of decades of constant warfare that led to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty (1279--1368) and the establishment of the Ming (1368--1644), this dissertation identifies and interprets three main forms of social interaction within the literati community---hosting elegant gatherings where paintings were produced and viewed, dedicating and gifting paintings, and writing colophons on paintings. While arguing literati painting was the outcome of social activities carried out in a community of scholars, this dissertation also sees the fourteenth century as a continuation and crystallization of the ideas, debates, practices, and achievements of Song and earlier literati painters. The cultural identity shared by the Yuan literati community was built on the scholars' pride in continuing a cultural lineage that they carefully traced back in history.