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Abstract

In the past ten years, art historians have done research to explore Chinese “tastes” for luoti (literally: “unclothed bodies”) in Republican China, mainly focusing on the visual representations of nudes in fine art history as well as the related history of Western artistic education in the Shanghai area. Many scholars have noted that nudes, especially “Western” female nudes, appear frequently in print media; however, existing studies have not yet provided satisfying answers to the following questions: how was luoti understood in the Republican Era? How was luoti represented in the popular press, particularly in pictorials? From where did the “Western” nudes “flow” to China, eventually appearing in Chinese media? Who produced the nudes? Who (re-)arranged the nudes in the pictorials? How and why? The dissertation examines a large amount of textual and visual representations of luoti which were discussed, debated, and presented in illustrated newspapers and magazines of the 1920s-30s, such as Beiyang huabao 北洋畫報 (“Pei-yang Pictorial News,” 1926-1937), Shanghai manhua 上海漫畫 (“Shanghai Sketch,” 1928-1930), Sheying huabao 攝影畫報 (“Pictorial Weekly,” 1925-1937) and Linglong 玲瓏 (“Linloon Magazine,” 1931-1937). On the one hand, I investigate the genealogy and formation of a Chinese understanding of the term luoti, and analyze its linguistic and discursive variations in Chinese literature and public debates of the period. On the other hand, I deal with visual materials of the period, the theme and form of which has roots in Chinese historical heritage, and also largely resulted from the “cultural flows” at the time. Having systematically traced the (often Western) origins as well as the trajectories of dissemination of nude photographs, this study scrutinizes editorial strategies that aimed at incorporating nudes into periodical publications. Ultimately, I argue, editing visual and textual representations of luoti into pictorials was part of transcultural production, and “editorial agency” played a pivotal role in selecting, framing, contextualizing, and interpreting nudes. The culture of “uncovered bodies” was thus discovered.