≪吳姬百媚≫가 재현한 여성 공간 — 圖와 文의 상호성을 중심으로

초록

This study examines Wu Ji Bai Mei (The Hundred Charms of the Wu Courtesans, 1617), a non-narrative illustrated book of the late Ming period, with particular attention to the female space constructed in its illustrations. By adopting an iconological approach and reading the images in conjunction with the accompanying text, this paper explores how the interaction between image and text inherited, expanded, or transformed contemporary imaginations of the courtesan within the cultural context of late Ming qinglou(courtesan quarters) culture. The book presents fifty-four famous courtesans of Suzhou in ranked order and includes both illustrations and textual representations of each woman. As the images are placed at the beginning of the volume while the texts appear separately in later sections, the overall relationship between image and text is structurally loose. In certain cases, however, image and text directly refer to one another: the image visually renders textual descriptions, while the narrator’s experiential voice in the text reinforces the meaning of the image. In the majority of cases, although no explicit correspondence is visible on the surface, the female space depicted in the illustrations ultimately forms a mutually supportive relationship with the text through cultural codes and metaphorical associations. These two modes of representation situate women within highly subjective and personal experiential worlds. When viewed independently, the illustrated beauty appears as a nameless and standardized image. Yet once combined with the text, she acquires narrative specificity and her proper name gains meaning. At the same time, there also exist “non-correlative” illustrations that bear little connection to the text. In such instances, the book reconfigures widely circulated standardized visual conventions of the period, thereby reproducing a Jiangnan courtesan image that is at once “new yet familiar.” The significance of Wu Ji Bai Mei lies in its creation of women not merely as “ideal beauties,” but as individual human figures constructed through the strategic use of visual standardization. It also marks a new stage in the history of classical illustrated publishing.

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