Elegant or Common? Chen Hongshou's Birthday Presentation Pictures and His Professional Status

Though Chen Hongshou has been portrayed by turns as a frustrated scholar, a professional craftsman, “elegant” or “common,” this essay offers instead an analysis of the social circumstances under which he negotiated his career, especially the civil service examination system and the mobility of Jiangnan society. Chen's birthday presentation pictures demonstrate a complexity in his relationship with his public that corresponds with the rituals of etiquette required for artwork, exhibited in letters and poems. Neither “elegant” nor “common,” Chen sketched a new definition of the educated painter.