Representation Of Power Through The Imperial Costumes Of China And Spain. Iconographical Analysis.

This paper studies the representation of power through the costumes used by the Emperors of the Qing dynasty in China and Bourbon dynasty in Spain at the origin during the eighteenth century。The costume used by emperors of both dynasties is consider in this analysis as an incredible visual tool full of meanings and interpretation to identify the expressions of power in two different empires with diverse political order conception.For this paper the principal concept of interpretation is the Symbolic Capital, concept that forms part of Pierre Bourdieu's Theory of power. The symbolic capital is considered as those elements like virtue, honor, generosity or integrity among others, that historically conformed are expressed through different visual channels including costume.As the sources of interpretation are mainly visual the historical analysis is iconographical. It means that inside the costume of the Emperors usually depicted in portraits, wall frescoes, statues or other visual sources is possible to understand the evolution and transformations of political power and authority around the institutions of Kingship and Emperorship.I used two different costumes in two different empires in order to demonstrate that even if the symbolic capital of power is different according to the culture singularities both political systems used costume as a political tool to legitimate their authority and confirmed an establish order and this is the hypothesis of this paper.There are many works around the history of costume. Some of them include the description of dresses and attires used in different period of times and cultures like encyclopedias of costume, others relate the act of dress and adornment with the history of the body and there are some interesting analysis around fashion history that refers to the use of materials and garment construction. I wish that with the elaboration of this thesis I could collaborate to the expansion of previous analysis of costume, give it an adequate place in modern historiography and contribute to the studies of visual history and power.