From The "Pleasures Of The Senses" To The "Era Of Reading Images"——Enlightenment Of "Western Chamber"Edition Of Min In The Museum F(u|¨)r Ostasiatische Kunst In Cologne

With the development of commercial industry in Ming Dynasty, and the rise of civil society, traditional Chinese opera editions were becoming increasingly popular. The editions of "Western Chamber", in particular, were the most welcoming. And its illustrations were closely related with the pleasures of the senses of scholars in late Ming Dynasty. In late Ming, eunuch possessed special rights. Scholars lost their political right of speak. Hence, they devoted more of their time into opera and the creation of illustrations for the editions. Late Ming witnessed the prosperity of printed book industry. At that time, a lot of masterpieces with delicate drawings, high class quality, and ingenious meanings emerged. Via the analysis of the paper, it can be told that these editions had extremely high cost for creation, and the printing volume was small. These editions were definitely not widely spread books to read among the public, but something for scholars with certain economic and social status to play with.The closer to the end of Ming, the more visual attention was paid to these editions. Images changed from the original opera story-telling to images with independent aesthetic charm. The themes and delights became more similar to those favored by scholars. In addition, the images purposely created some kind of estrangement effect to readers, so that they could clearly feel these were what they were looking for to play with. At the perspective of image construction, the creators applied methods of symbolism, metaphor, and ingenuity, to make the images fun. These all reflected the leisure and fun of scholars in late Ming. The features summarized by the paper were collectively presented in "Western Chamber" Edition of Min in the Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst in Cologne. Thus, the paper takes the edition as an example, to analyze the change of opera editions in late Ming, and the social and cultural factors behind and hidden.Today, we’ve entered "era of reading images"."Pleasure of the senses" at the time back then has already expanded to every corner of daily life from traditional publishing industry. Images in our life are playing the role of "organizer" and "leader". The value and significance in contemporary context are stretching out.First, Contemporary visual culture has made alliance with popular culture and consumer culture, breaking through the various limitations of traditional aesthetic methods, satisfying public visual needs and desires, so that the public can have "striking" visual experience at anytime at anywhere. Second, with the help of modern high science and technology, it has brought convenience to our life and work. Finally, contemporary visual culture also brings into play the advantages of image story-telling. Depending on strong and continuously visual impact, the core value of "exhibition" is embodied. As an objective reflection of the level of modern social and democracy and culture rights sharing, visual culture is shouldering more important role in the development of human society.Meanwhile, the development of modern visual culture also has its negative side. First, as contemporary visual culture is over explored under the effects of consumption culture and public culture, those delicate, elegant, and tranquil traditional aesthetic contemplation like "Western Chamber" Edition of Min in the Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst in Cologne is gradually diminishing. There is a tendency of crude, vulgar, and superficial aesthetic emerging. Furthermore, Blind abusive use of electronic technology makes contemporary visual culture, under the rich and colorful exquisite appearance, showing monotonous form and sameness. What’s more, Long been immersed in such aesthetic atmosphere, unlimited pursuit of visual desire is bound to take place, and ultimately lead to comprehensive fading of visual cultivation and aesthetic thinking skills. This problem should arouse attention of visual culture researchers, or even everyone in the society to think over. Only with reflection on history, can we stand at present day, and identify our bearing in face of the complex visual and audio images. We have to explore the development direction for visual arts and design in contemporary China, and bring into play the real value of visual culture in today’s society.