Distant Bodies: Depicting Europeans in Early Modern China

This chapter examines the shifting depictions of foreign bodies alongside Classical Chinese figures in late sixteenth-century illustrated books, underscoring how increased interactions with Europeans led to departures from traditional iconography. In the first section, we analyze Chinese understandings and portrayals of foreign nations in Ming encyclopedic texts that bolster a dichotomy between a civilized Chinese center and a barbarian periphery consisting of tributary polities. We then probe contemporaneous medical texts, shedding light on the late Ming conceptualization of the Chinese physique and the related medical practices, particularly when juxtaposed with perceptions of remote territories and their inhabitants. In the final section, our focus shifts to Ming Chinese encounters with and depictions of Europeans, centering on a lesser-known treatise on “Eastern barbarians” by a Ming official overseeing tributary envoys in Guangdong. The confrontation with European bodies, specifically Portuguese and Spanish settlers, in this late Ming text illustrates the growing imperative to visually capture these newcomers, leading to significant deviations from established iconographical norms. We conclude by contemplating how early modern Chinese depictions of foreignness, as manifested in bodily representations, became intertwined with European exoticism in artifacts bridging both cultures.