How Do Pictorial Biographies of Confucius Portray His Mother and Father?

Abstract

Virtually all illustrations of the life of Confucius/Kongzi include a scene in which one of his parents performs a sacrifice on a hillside, and many versions also depict paranormal events associated with his birth. In most examples, the protagonist is the future sage’s young mother, Yan Zhengzai, but in a few cases she is joined or even replaced by his elderly father, Shuliang He. The variations among depictions of the events sometimes reflect different textual traditions, but social and cultural values also exert a significant influence on the pictorial treatments. As a case in point, this article analyzes a selection of Chinese examples dating from the fifteenth century to our own day, and Japanese examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.