Plants, Colonialism, and Visual Global History—The Image-Reproduction Dilemma during the Sino-French War

The Sino-French War (1883-1885), being the only war between modern China and a Western power that did not end with territorial cessions or payment of indemnities, involved China, France, and Vietnam and produced a series of important political repercussions. It also generated a rich visual culture, including the inaugural publication of the Tienshihchai Pictorial and numerous war propaganda prints, while European and American illustrated newspapers also tracked the progress of the war.

This study will, through an ultra-close reading of two portraits/photographs of the commanders Feng Zicai (Chinese) and Courbet (French), reveal the differences in the representation of tropical plants across different pictorial traditions, and the distinction between the “Imperial Eye” and the conventions of Chinese landscape painting (shanshui), which prevented the “invention of the tropics” from manifesting in Chinese depictions of the war.