Early Modern China 93
employed many painters to make imperial portraits, supply murals for
palaces and temples, and commemorate offi cial occasions of all types.
The most famous Ming painters were poet-painters from the central
China region of the southern lower Yangzi valley, particularly the beau-
tiful canal-laced city of Suzhou, where many literati built their private
estates and gardens. The peace and prosperity of Ming times allowed
these amateur artists to travel widely, and to see the paintings of earlier
masters, which were now being assembled in private rather than offi cial
collections. Ming landscape painters were deeply aware of the Song and
Yuan traditions and often made direct references in their work to the
earlier masters. At the same time, some Ming artists self-consciously
manipulated the earlier traditions in order to use painting as a vehicle
for their own artistic creativity.
Women in Ming times reveal an interesting paradox. On the one
hand, the Hongwu Emperor tried to promote a very orthodox brand
of Confucianism that emphasized a woman’s “Three Bonds”: her sub-
ordination to her father, her husband, and her adult sons. The Ming
government began to provide a cash reward for families whose widows
committed suicide or lived out their widowhood in celibacy. Scholars
compiled biographies of virtuous widows and began to emphasize sexual
purity and chastity as the greatest of all female virtues. Some encouraged
and celebrated lifelong chastity or suicide even among young betrothed
“widows” who had not yet married when their fi ancés died.
On the other hand, with the publishing boom in Ming times, more
women than ever before became literate, and those in the scholar, land-
lord, and merchant classes began to develop the same passions as the
male literati for art and literature. In late Ming poetry, fi ction, and drama,
romantic love was a very popular theme. Some of the most prominent
literati in the country had open, much-celebrated affairs with courte-
sans—high-class prostitutes who worked in semibondage yet gained
fame themselves as great poets, painters, calligraphers, and musicians.
One of the most famous of these was the courtesan Liu Shi, who
was sold to a courtesan establishment (the less polite term is brothel)
when still a child. This often happened to young women from poor
families. They worked fi rst as maids in the brothel and once they were
old enough were taught to “serve” the brothel’s male customers. At
fourteen, Liu Shi was sold to a government minister to become his con-
cubine. She quickly became his favorite in the household, and he spent
many hours teaching her the arts of poetry, painting, and calligraphy.
This made her the least popular person in the household, and the min-
ister soon sold her back to the same establishment.