THESIS
2019
xx, 355 pages : illustrations (some color), 1 color map ; 30 cm
Abstract
This dissertation examines the Imperial Poems on the Mountain Estate for Escaping the
Heat which was published in 1712 in Qing China (1644-1911). When the imperial garden of
the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Heat was mostly completed in 1711, Emperor Kangxi (r.
1662-1722) created an album for it which includes his poems on thirty-six garden vistas and
illustrations of them by court painters. Four hundred copies of the album were presumably
produced and distributed.
To illustrate why Kangxi made an unprecedented move to publish his garden album, I
reconstruct three sets of contexts that occasioned its creation. The first set concerns the Qing’s
northern frontier policy. The Manchus expended much efforts on fostering close ties with the
Mongol tribes. The Mountain Estate was a...[
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This dissertation examines the Imperial Poems on the Mountain Estate for Escaping the
Heat which was published in 1712 in Qing China (1644-1911). When the imperial garden of
the Mountain Estate for Escaping the Heat was mostly completed in 1711, Emperor Kangxi (r.
1662-1722) created an album for it which includes his poems on thirty-six garden vistas and
illustrations of them by court painters. Four hundred copies of the album were presumably
produced and distributed.
To illustrate why Kangxi made an unprecedented move to publish his garden album, I
reconstruct three sets of contexts that occasioned its creation. The first set concerns the Qing’s
northern frontier policy. The Manchus expended much efforts on fostering close ties with the
Mongol tribes. The Mountain Estate was at once part of the policy and an embodiment of its
success, backdropping and forming an undertone of the Imperial Poems.
The second set concerns the Qing’s legitimacy crisis. Chinese literati dismissed the
Manchus as barbarians and refused to submit to the Qing’s rule. Kangxi launched an ideological
offensive in which he poses as a sage-emperor, the ideal Confucian ruler, to confer legitimacy
and garner support from the Chinese. As part of the campaign, the Imperial Poems promoted
Kangxi’s visage as a sage-emperor, which I demonstrate through textual and visual analyses of
the album. I also review other Kangxi imperial art projects to show that art was consistently
employed for the same purpose.
The last set concerns Kangxi’s need of self-expression emerged in around the 1710’s. The
uncertainty at court and anxiety of his failing health gave rise to the urgency to make his
thoughts known to the country and to posterity.
Previous studies on Kangxi imperial art have touched upon the idea of sage-emperor but
most stop at inquiring its relation to broader contexts. This dissertation bridges the gap between
art-historical and political-philosophical accounts of Kangxi’s sage-emperor image-building.
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