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• 1 2023-07-26T09:26:55+00:00 The Peony Pavilion
  牡丹亭 (1986) 36 plain 2025-01-28T16:35:58+00:00

  Lianhuanhua (Narrative Comics)

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  INFORMATION

  • Title: The Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭
  • Year: 1986
  • Art:  Liu Changhua 刘昌华
  • Cover design: Feng Yinan 冯忆南
  • Textual adaptation: Liang Chen 良辰
  • Publisher: Jiangsu Fine Arts Press 江苏美术出版社

  INTRODUCTION

  The publication numbers of lianhuanhua 连环画, a type of comics printed in pocket-sized booklets that were read widely in modern China, peaked in the early 1980s. The medium, in which each page featured an image with a narrative caption below, was popular throughout the socialist period. However, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that publication numbers soared, with hundreds of millions of booklets and tens of thousands of titles printed. Enthusiasm for lianhuanhua was part of a general boom in publishing that marked the cultural thaw following the end of the Cultural Revolution (1976) and the beginning of a “New Era” (1978). In addition to reissuing classic titles that had been censored during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the industry expanded into adaptations of new material (foreign books, films, and television programs) and artists embraced new and varied styles.
  
  The exquisite Jiangsu Fine Arts Press box set Chinese Classic Drama Picture Library 中国古典戏剧画库 was published in 1986, just when lianhuanhua was beginning to lose readership (or viewership) to the visual medium of television. About to move past its prime as a popular form, the lianhuanhua adaptations of classical dramas in this collection nevertheless emphatically showcase the remarkable stylistic breadth and aesthetic innovation of graphic arts and design in 1980s China.
  
  The original time of composition of the five plays adapted in the box set range from the Yuan to the Qing dynasties; the stylistic variety among the original texts is matched by the distinctive style of each adaptation. The plays include: Meng Hanqing’s 孟汉卿 (ca. 13^th-14^th centuries) The Moheluo Doll (Moheluo 魔合罗), Li Yu’s 李玉 (1602?-post 1670) The Register of the Pure and Loyal (Qingzhong pu 清忠谱), Tang Xianzu’s 汤显祖 (1550-1616) The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting 牡丹亭), Li Yu’s 李渔 (1611-1680) The Mistake Caused by a Kite (Fengzheng wu 风筝误), and Gao Ming’s 高明 (ca. 1305-1370) The Lute (Pipa ji 琵琶记).
  
  While each adaptation was drawn by different artists, each volume’s cover design was conceived by the same artist, Feng Yinan 冯忆南 (1955-), a Wuxi art school graduate from one of the first post-Cultural Revolution college cohorts. He is one of several relatively young contributors to the collection, which made a point of featuring fresh talent and new styles.
  
  This module considers the work of a slightly older artist, Liu Changhua 刘昌华 (1942-), whose Peony Pavilion stands out in the box set for its very contemporary “1980s” feel, showcasing aesthetics that were newly available in this so-called “New Era.” Liu’s serial comic mixes compositions and objects found in traditional Chinese book illustration and painting with foreign influences, including modern art. The comic’s style is also reminiscent of 1980s illustration and graphic design aesthetics found in other types of print culture like lifestyle magazines.
  
  This Peony Pavilion adopts an emerging, hybrid visual style grounded in the historical circumstances of the 1980s. Du Liniang 杜麗娘, the play’s main female protagonist, is as much a Ming dynasty heroine as she is an iconic 1980s beauty primed to elicit visual desire on the part of readers. Her home and gardens are period appropriate historical set pieces for the drama, but also enjoyable to look at in their own right, especially after the Cultural Revolution period, during which lavish traditional interiors were objects of scorn. When the backdrops change into abstract compositions as they do in many panels, they in turn recall modern art, a form that had gained cultural cachet in the post-Cultural Revolution embrace of modernist forms. This module will explore how the comic’s use of such “realist” and more “abstract” modes is not only as a vestige of art styles popular in the 1980s, but also mediates the characters’ emotional experiences and gives visual form to the original play’s dreamy atmosphere.

  THEME: The Mise-en-Scène of Emotion

  When discussing narrative film, literature, and performance, concept of “interiority” refers to a character’s inner thoughts and experiences. The 1986 Peony Pavilion comic affords readers access to “interior” emotional landscapes, including dreams, in two ways. It delves into the feelings of its two romantic protagonists in its captions, identifying their thoughts explicitly. It also “exteriorizes” interiorities, representing affective states and dreamscapes visually. This effect is achieved primarily through the manipulation of the mise-en-scène; at times, the page design overwhelms the reader with its rich patterning, at others, unusually abstract and sparse renderings create visual intrigue and mystique.
  
  At first glance, Peony Pavilion appears to be very mimetic, a representation of life in an aristocratic mansion. Figures and interiors are detailed and lifelike. But as much as the artist worked to evoke the play’s historical time period through this meticulous mise-en-scène, the sense of a coherent exterior world that is associated with such realist representation is repeatedly disturbed. Boundaries between the “inside” (the characters’ interiorities) and the “outside” (the real world) are not always clear. When represented “realistically,” the mise-en-scène appears oppressive and stifling, visually trapping Du Liniang in a claustrophobic environment, from which she seeks escape.
  
  As the comic shifts registers between more realistic and more abstract mise-en-scène, it suggests a complex relationship between Du Liniang’s mind, her interior space, and the exterior world that surrounds her, all interpretable spaces that work together to represent her state of mind. Slipping away from the strictures of realist representation, in which every detail of the sumptuous home fills the page, Peony Pavilion’s turns to abstraction to open up spaces outside of external reality. What is particularly interesting here is that the mise-en-scène, by definition a form of exteriority, itself is crucial to the representation of and access to the heroine’s interiority.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  她想，昔日韩氏红叶题诗，得遇于祐，终成眷属。	She thought about how in the olden days, Ms. Han wrote a poem on a red leaf, which was found by Yu You, allowing them to eventually become a couple.
  还有那《西厢记》里的崔莺莺，偶像张生，一见钟情，虽经波折，也如愿以偿。	There’s also Western Wing’s Cui Yingying who met Student Zhang by chance, fell in love at first sight, and despite all the ups and downs, also had her wish fulfilled.
  而自己呢？	And what about me, huh?

  
  In a striking panel that illustrates Du Liniang’s interiority, she appears in a full body portrait (panel 23 in Fig. 2 above) sitting on an intricately carved wooden sofa, which fills the width of an otherwise empty panel. Though such staging is typical in Chinese portrait painting, Du Liniang is not sitting for a portrait in this scene. She is sulking and thinking about the famous literary couples Han Cuiping and Yu You in The Story of the Poem Written on the Red Leaf and Yingying and Student Zhang in the Western Wing. In the panel, her gaze is assertive, “breaking the fourth wall” to meet the eye of the reader. This direct gaze suggests interiority (think, for example, of the Mona Lisa). The accompanying text supplements the image by narrating her thoughts. The first sentence describes her rumination about the famous couples in the third person (“She thought…” 她想). By the end of the caption the pronoun has been dropped (“And what about me, huh?” 而自己呢？). Omitting pronouns is common enough in Chinese grammar, but here, the self-pitying tone emphasized by the particle ne, it also suggests a slip into free indirect discourse, no longer the voice of a narrator but Du Liniang speaking directly through the text.
  
  This panel stands out in the comic because it is the only one in which Du Liniang meets anyone’s gaze (in this case, the reader’s). Throughout the rest of the comic, she is looking to the side, demure, or… too absorbed in her emotions to engage directly with those around her. In many of the comic’s panels, she is pictured either in semi-abstracted spaces in which several ornamental objects float against a white background or in dense compositions that ground her firmly in the reality of the mansion (where she must behave like a proper young lady). In the abstract scenes, the richly decorated house has disappeared, as if the heroine is no longer moored in this oppressive reality, free to roam in her romantic thoughts. Her absorption in poetic and literal reverie (she is initially moved by reading a famous romantic poem) is signaled by such visual departures in the realistic representation of her surroundings. Yet until panel 23, this “exteriorized” internal state is rather opaque—we see often Du Liniang’s back and never meet her eyes. When she looks right at the reader, Du Liniang’s interiority becomes more directly “accessible,” as it invites us into an emotional space just beyond the “real world.” And indeed, in the very next panel (Fig. 3), the story slips into Du Liniang’s famous dream sequence.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  那秀才笑着说：“小姐，我太爱你了，你如此美丽，却这样寂寞，在幽闺自怜，不如我俩一块去花园游玩，寻找春天。”	Laughing, the scholar said, “Miss, I love you so much. You’re so beautiful, yet so lonely and full of self-pity in this secluded boudoir. It’s better that the two of us go for a stroll in the garden and seek out the spring.
  丽娘不由自主，随书生去了。	Liniang couldn’t help but follow the scholar.

  
  Several panels into the dream, Du Liniang stands pictured to the left of the panel, next to a Taihu rock structure that mirrors her pose (another eerie double!). A body of water fills the space on the right. Her gaze is downcast and not focused on anything in the scene, though the caption explains that she is listening to the scholar who woos her. Most of the image is negative space; diegetically, it represents the surface of a pond, but at the same time, this white plane is also suggestive of the abstract “leave white” (liubai 留白) device common in Chinese painting. Expanses of empty space in this tradition are understood as “canvases for the imagination” that leave it up to viewers to fill in paintings with their own flights of fancy. Du Liniang is once again presented as a contemplative figure whose emotional state can be projected onto the abstracted landscape behind her.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  老夫人责怪女儿不该昼眠，女孩儿家应做针线，看看史书，以舒展情怀。	Madam scolded her daughter for napping during the day. Young ladies should do needlework and read history books to give vent to their feelings.
  丽娘告知刚才去花园玩累了。	Liniang informed her that she had gotten tired from having just gone to play in the garden.
  母亲要她以后不要去花园，那里太冷静，是不适合女孩儿家去的。	Mother did not want her to go to the garden again. It was too deserted there, not an appropriate place for young girls.

  
  Once Du Liniang awakens, the comic reverts to a realistic style that is common in lianhuanhua comics with historical settings. The characters sit in richly decorated interiors that fill the visual space of each panel. There is no room for imagination in this busy mise-en-scène. And yet, Du Liniang’s gaze, pointed characteristically away from all the other characters, lingers on the window in the background, suggesting that even in such a space that is so weighted down with mimetic details, her mind can escape to a realm beyond.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  母亲走了。	Mother left.
  杜丽娘回想着刚才梦中的一切，是何等的温存欣慰；	When Liniang thought back to everything from the dream just before, how affectionate and gratifying it was!
  梦醒之后，母亲的教训，又是多么令人懊恼。	After waking from the dream, Mother’s lesson, how upsetting!

  
  In the subsequent panel (panel 31, Fig. 5), Du Liniang stands thoughtfully next to the wooden sofa. Behind her, a circular window looks out on to the garden. Much of the room’s rich decoration has been stripped away and the three figures in the image, Du Liniang, the sofa, and the window, appear as if suspended in a blank space. As before, an increasingly abstracted mise-en-scène shifts marks a move away from reality and into the space of Du Liniang’s emotions. Du Liniang is able here to escape the claustrophobic details of a realistic setting and find her way to a much lighter space of delight even as she sulks at her mother’s scolding. Later in the story, negative emotions too are manifested in abstraction. In panels 67-69 (Figs. 6-8), Du Liniang becomes distraught when she realizes she must confess to her lover that she is not a living woman but a ghost. In panel 67, she stands between her portrait and a wall of lattice windows. As before, the mise-en-scène is very dense and detailed, trapping the heroine in a heavily ornamented space. Yet here, the abstraction of the mise-en-scène does not allow escape, but rather traps her further in her distress.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  柳梦梅焚香拉丽娘一同跪在地上对天盟誓，今后一定生同室，死同穴，白头偕老。	Liu Mengmei burned incense and pulled Liniang to kneel down and make a vow to Heaven, from now on they must live under the same roof, grow white haired together, and be buried in the same grotto.
  丽娘见柳生确实是一片真情，站起来哭了。	When Liniang saw that Student Liu was true in his feelings, she stood up and cried.

  
  
   
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  终于，丽娘把自己三年前在园中与柳秀才相会的经过情景以及自己死后葬于园中梅树下，留下画像，父母迁任扬州等情说了。	Finally, Liniang recounted the circumstances of her meeting with Scholar Liu in the garden three years ago as well as her death and burial under the garden’s plum tree, and all about leaving behind the portrait and her parents’ move to take up a post in Yangzhou.
  柳梦梅听了，喜出望外，表示丽娘即使是鬼魂，也要结为夫妻。	Liu Mengmei heard this and was exceptionally thrilled, since it expressed that even though she was a ghost, Liniang wanted to be united as husband and wife.

  
  First, she is featured on the far left of a panel (Fig. 7) otherwise occupied by abstracted lattice work. While these are passably realistic accoutrements of interior design, the lattice patterns are mazelike and ominous, giving exterior form to Du Liniang’s increasing worry. In the next panel (Fig. 8), the emotions, and the patterns of the lattice, become even more frantic.
  
  Click to expand/collapse Translation Notes

  Chinese Captions	CTC Translation
  杜丽娘告诉柳梦梅，自己的尸体虽然埋在梅树下已三年，因受花神保护，只要掘开坟墓，就能复生。	Du Liniang told Liu Mengmei that although her body was buried under the plum tree three years ago, because she received the Flower Spirit’s protection, all he had to do was dig out the tomb, and she’d come back to life.
  要他去找石道姑办理。	She wanted him to find the Stone Nun to take care of it.

  
  Here, Du Liniang stands in the middle of the panel clutching a blank wall. A stark abstract composition of black and white shapes that vaguely echo the realistically rendered jagged lattice in panel 67 appears behind her to the right. Du Liniang’s internal anguish appears here visually next to her—displaced onto an anxious exterior world. Unlike the earlier panels, which borrow mostly from the representational aesthetics of Chinese painting, this later sequence is strongly reminiscent of Western modern art. This hybrid mix of abstract forms from both traditions allows the comic to expressively give visual form to Du Liniang’s emotions. It also strongly marks this Peony Pavilion as a product of the 1980s, when such sophisticated experiments in illustration marked a high point in Chinese lianhuanhua comic history.

  AUTHOR

  Julia Keblinska