中国的影像与影像的中国——约翰·汤姆森与中国形象

Images of China and China as Images: John Thomson and His Image of China

本文通过对19世纪下半叶来华的英国商业摄影师约翰·汤姆森中国影像集的简要分析,探究西方人的摄影作品与中国形象建构之间的关系。汤姆森镜头前的中国影像主要有两大类型,一类是中国的地理地貌,另一类是中国的人种类型与职业特征。汤姆森的摄影作品并非中国现实的忠实再现,而是经过历史、社会与文化期待视野的过滤后的产品。汤姆森有关中国的摄影作品一方面印证了他所处时代西方人对中国的想象,另一方面又拓展了西方有关中国想象的空间。

This paper is a brief analysis of John Thomson's photographs of China in the late 1800s and their implications for the constructing of the image of China in the Western world. Thomson's photographs of China fall into two main categories, namely, landscapes and ethnological and occupational characteristics. The photographs shot by Thomson were not truthful replications of China's realities. They are actually products filtered through historical, social and cultural lens. These photographs on the one hand consolidated the Western imagination of China, and on the other opened new horizons for such imagination.