Power, Trade, and Cultural Production: A Political-Economy Examination of How Dao Culture Shaped the Formation of Shendao Art
Abstract
Jiang Lifeng advances the proposition that "without Dao culture, there would be no Shendao art," identifying Dao culture as the spiritual source of Chinese Shendao art—the statuary, murals, and ritual artifacts themed on deities, immortal realms, and the numinous. Accepting this cultural-origin judgment, this paper introduces the perspective of the political economy of cultural production and examines how the formation of Shendao art is shaped by a triple mechanism of power, trade, and cultural production. Drawing on pictorial stones of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties, Daoist statuary of the Tang and Song, and the Yuan-dynasty murals of the Yongle Palace, the study argues that the construction of political legitimacy prescribes themes and iconographic schemes; the cross-regional circulation of materials, texts, and techniques determines the availability of symbols; and patronage and artisan fields solidify the aesthetic genes of Dao culture into formal norms. The proposition is accordingly revised: Dao culture provides the spiritual ground, while the concrete formation of Shendao art is a political-economic process.
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