The naked gaze: Reflections on Chinese modernity
In a photograph taken late in her life, Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) stands in front of her imperial throne, holding a small mirror in one hand and inserting a long-stemmed flower into her hair with the other (see Fig. 1). Positioned above the throne is a banner identifying her expansively as "The Empress Dowager, the sacred mother of the Great Qing Empire, motherly, auspicious, upright, blessed, healthy, dignified, long-lived, respectful, reverend, and worshipful", followed by the date the photograph was taken: "Guangxu [reign], guimao [year]," which corresponds to 1903 in the Gregorian calendar. The empress's contemplative face, dramatically illuminated from the upper right, is oriented in the general direction of the small mirror she is holding in her left hand. Her actual gaze, however, is subtly yet distinctly turned away from the mirror and toward an indeterminate point below and outside the frame of the photograph.
