The Evolution of Scientific Images in Early Modern Chinese Pictorials

• In Event: Modernity, National Identity, and the Realm of the Arts in East Asia

Abstract

Science is one of the keywords of modern history of China. There have been plenty of studies focused on the modern concept of science since the process of science was introduced into China, but few of them focus on visual materials.
Popular magazines such as Dianshizhai Pictorial as well as professional journals like Beiyang Academic Journal have published many scientific images throughout the late Qing Dynasty and during the Republican period. In terms of content and form, these scientific images are historical records which reflect the introduction into China of western thoughts. This paper will analyze the changing representation of science in modern Chinese pictorials by conducting a close reading of scientific images.
This paper seeks to discover how the science from the West gained legitimacy in China via its use of scientific images. To answer this question, inquiry will be carried out in three steps. Firstly, research will delineate types and characteristics of scientific images at that time. Secondly, it will compare and contrast various representational images. Finally, this paper will attempt to deduce that scientific images played crucial role in the introduction and legitimacy of science in China. On one hand, scientific images provided new objects for seeing the latest technologies, inventions and skills. On the other hands, scientific ways of seeing, such as the X-ray images, could be shown on the pictorials and later executed and repeated unconsciously by readers. Thus, scientific images not only lead the readers to see science as a spectacle, but also shaped readers’ minds by describing, illustrating and interpreting science.

Author

• Pei Xu, Sichuan University