Twelfth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In a narrative image of a special theme, usually a particular location of the scene would be set to describe the contents. When many images were shown together, how to make them connect? This study examines series images in early Chinese narrative pictorial art to see how ancient Chinese artisans arranged different pictures in one surface. Through research of the spaces changing from one picture to another, it could be seen that the spaces of pictures constructed a mode of the world. Besides natural spaces, the pictures were also arranged after the mode of dividing social spaces. By presenting the social spaces, the images told the mode of social relationship of people in certain society. In the monumental surfaces like shrine walls, ritual bronzes and lacquers, the images enhanced the visual impressions of the ideal mode of the world to the society’s members who saw the images. Therefore, the logic of arranging pictures, through spaces dividing and connecting patterns, presents political ideals from a certain society as well as the images’ contents.