Images of happy farmers in Song China (960--1279): Drunks, politics, and social identity

This dissertation investigates a genre of paintings depicting farmers' celebrations and entertainments. Much of the study focuses on how these paintings were “read” by two major groups, the imperial household and non-aristocratic scholar-elites, who comprised their primary patrons and audiences. I argue that these viewers were engaged in a process of deploying a variety of social and political discourses in viewing the images of happy farmers. The discourses include political debates concerning farmers' and the state's welfare, discursive issues on the legitimacy of cultural and political authority, and ideas on the conflation of social and political identities belonging to rural figures and scholar-elites.; Chapter One begins with an exploration of the close relationships among the idea of fengsu (local customs), its political connotations, and paintings of village themes. A study of the patronage for these paintings is also attempted in order to provide a basic explanation of the production and consumption of the paintings. Chapter Two examines the village festival theme's close association with literature. I demonstrate that Song scholars' active engagement in making public commentaries on the paintings led to a sympathetic reinterpretation of these rural images. Negative or propagandist readings of happy farmer paintings, which were imposed by the imperial household, were challenged and altered. Chapter Three looks into the specific social and political conditions related to farmers during the Song period. I examine how conflicting political parties could use the subject of farmers differently, as a symbol of state prosperity or a peaceful regime, in order to argue for their own legitimacy or to advocate different policies. The last two chapters look at the rural festival paintings from a new angle—that of scholars' writings about their social identity. I interpret that the conflation of a drunken villager with a scholar-recluse image as is associated with concepts of spontaneity, liberation, and anti-social mannerism. Finally, I investigate the political reasons behind the literati's choice to represent themselves in this manner.