Image and Art in the Missionary Works of Early Jesuits in Late Ming and Early Qing

his paper aims to study the relation of images and texts in Jesuit missionary books published in the Late Ming period by exploring the function of images, usually juxtaposed with texts, as a way leading to holiness through human faculties of cognition, memory and desire First, this paper will examine the aesthetic qualities of so called "Jesuit arts" in the context of crossing-boundaries, both cultural and artistic Second, it will discuss the aesthetic problematic of Icons between the visible and the invisible, which is related to the problematic of seeing and blindness, when looking at the religious/Christian paintings, among the Chinese in Late Ming period Third, this paper will examine the images of Matteo Ricci's books and their cultural meanings, by investigating the relation of memory and redemption, which is implied in the images of Christian art