This dissertation argues that Emperor Wanli (1563–1620) and his birth mother, Empress Dowager Cisheng (1546–1614), used art as a crucial means of proclaiming their political legitimacy. Whereas previous scholars assumed that the Wanli court’s demand for art production served only to fulfill the imperial family’s penchant for a luxurious lifestyle, in this study, I reveal the complex political, moral, and financial struggles behind their commissions. By examining extant artifacts and textual records, I uncover Wanli’s efforts to declare his independence from the regent rule of his younger years in the construction of his own mausoleum and Cisheng’s breakthrough from restrictions on imperial women’s agency by sponsoring Buddhist monasteries and imagery.
In his early twenties, Wanli embarked on building himself the third largest mausoleum among the thirteen Ming emperors buried in the Tianshoushan area. By analyzing veritable records of how Wanli persistently negotiated with officials about the timing of its construction, its location, and its architectural features, I contend that Wanli sought to imitate his grandfather, Emperor Jiajing (r. 1522–1566), to legitimize his emperorship. Since Wanli ascended the throne at nine years old, the education program designed by Zhang Juzheng (1525–1582), the regent and mentor of Wanli, positively introduced Wanli to various exemplary precedents of sagacious behaviors by emperors, including renovating imperial mausoleums and ordering commemorative art. Therefore, the two monumental paintings of the Wanli court, the Imperial Procession Departing from the Forbidden City and the Imperial Procession Returning to the Forbidden City, which commemorated Dingling’s construction, can also find their roots in Zhang Juzheng’s teaching.
In contrast to Wanli’s commissions which were state projects and directly spoke for the emperor himself, Cisheng packaged her Buddhist sponsorship as private projects dedicating to the imperial family or the subjects. By refraining from commissioning outer court institutions to carry out her building projects, Cisheng was praised as an exemplary imperial woman who did not financially burden her subjects. The widely circulated Buddhist imagery promulgating her as a compassionate mother to the emperor and the subjects also granted her political influence during and after the Wanli era.
