Robert Hans van Gulik Reading Late Ming Erotica

Abstract

This study closely looks at Robert Hans van Gulik's (1910-1967) treatment of the Huaying jinzhen 花營錦陣(Variegated Positions of the Flowery Battle), a late Ming woodblock album of twenty-four erotic prints included in his privately published book Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period. By reading van Gulik's meticulous description of the pictures and his translation of their accompanying poems, this paper suggests that van Gulik has a tendency to narrativize the content of these pictures, which may be partly due to the viewer's formed viewing habits shaped by his acquaintance with late Ming culture, including erotic literature. Indeed, a comparison of the Huaying jinzhen pictures and several late Ming fictional works reveals important similarities between pictorial and verbal representations of the erotic. Moreover, that van Gulik classifies erotic albums and fiction under the same label ”erotic book” points to the close affinity that he perceives between them. At the same time, van Gulik's treatment of these works points to another important aspect of erotica, i.e. the ”anti-narrative” tendency that marks many late Ming representations-visual or verbal-of the erotic: erotic details, either in pictorial or literary form, can be and are often isolated by the reader from the larger narrative or context and appreciated separately. Moreover, it can be observed that at work within such erotic fragments is a mechanism that, aiming to maximize pleasure, is antagonistic against narrativity. 1n the final part of the essay, I turn to the detective stories van Gulik himself writes and illustrates, with the aim to further demonstrate the proximity he sees/shows between the verbal text and the visual one. In sum, a close reading of van Gulik not only tells us about this versatile man himself, but also unveils important but sometimes overlooked or understudied aspects of late Ming erotica.