The portrait of the Twelve Emperors of the Manchu Qing Dynasty that is now circulating actually refers to the portrait of the emperor of the Qing Dynasty hanging in the Fengxian Hall wearing a court dress, and among the 12 emperor portraits of the Qing Dynasty, only Puyi is a black-and-white photograph, not a portrait.
According to the time calculation, during the Tongzhi Emperor period, the Qing Dynasty already had photos. The main reason why the two emperors did not hang their own photos here is that the Portraits dressed in imperial clothes have always been hung in the Fengxian Hall of the Qing Dynasty, which is a tradition tacitly accepted by the Manchu Imperial Family and will not be easily changed.
Portrait of the Twelve Emperors of the Manchu Qing Dynasty
In fact, during the Qing Dynasty, the statues of the Twelve Emperors of the Manchu Qing Dynasty hanging in the Fengxian Hall were used to worship their ancestors, and the portraits of each emperor were very large, and they were all extremely gorgeous and colorful. According to the regulations of the Qing Dynasty imperial family, every year on New Year's Day, the winter solstice, and the Halloween and canonization, as well as the previous emperors, successive births, death anniversaries, Qingming, etc., the incumbent emperors would personally go to the Fengxian Hall to give incense to their ancestors, in order to express their respect for the ancestors.
In the Fengxian Hall, not only the portraits of the emperor are hung, but also the portraits of the empress and the empress, but among these portraits, only the last emperor Puyi is a black-and-white photo. It is also because of this that Puyi's photos will appear so prominent. Although Puyi was the last emperor in Chinese history and the last emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, in fact, his reign was very short, and he was only six years old when he abdicated.
The traditions of the Qing Dynasty are backward existence?
According to the regulations, the figures painted on the portraits hanging in the Fengxian Hall in the Manchu Qing Dynasty must be adults, that is, Puyi, who was only a few years old, did not have the opportunity to hang his own portraits after he ascended the throne as emperor. Moreover, when Puyi ascended the throne as emperor, the Qing Dynasty was in a period of violent collision between the old and new cultures, and some fierce people in this period believed that some of the so-called traditions of the Qing Dynasty were decaying and backward. Only by abandoning these decadent things can the Qing Dynasty continue to move forward.
Recording the appearance of ancestors by painting portraits is a relatively decadent and backward technology, after all, the camera was invented in the middle of the 19th century. When Puyi became emperor, the camera had long been circulated in the Territory of the Qing Dynasty. Of course, these objective external reasons are not the main reason why Puyi did not leave a portrait, and the influence of Advanced Western ideas on this little emperor is the most important subjective reason.
Puyi, who is keen on Western culture
Puyi's growth environment is inseparable from a Westerner named Johnston, who has left a lot of traces of Western thinking in the heart of young Puyi, and made him disgusted and resistant to Manchu Culture from the bottom of his heart. From Puyi's autobiography, it can be seen that he was very contemptuous of the many bad habits that existed in the Manchu Qing at that time, and he believed that welcoming the arrival of new things was the way to long-term development.
It is also because of the reason of accepting Western ideas from childhood that Puyi is not enthusiastic about painting portraits, but is keen to take pictures of himself. At the same time, it can be seen from his photos that Puyi is more fond of Western clothing, because many of the photos he left behind are dressed in suits or Western-style military uniforms. Of course, another major reason why the young Emperor Puyi did not leave a portrait of the emperor in imperial clothes was related to the time when the emperor's portrait of the imperial dress was made at that time.
Even the emperor was a child
According to records, the portrait of the Qing emperor hanging in the Fengxian Hall generally took several months or even a year and a half to complete. And it is almost impossible for a child like Puyi to sit there motionless for a long time. By the time the young emperor was able to sit down, he was no longer an emperor, and naturally there was no need to paint portraits. In the Fengxian Hall, which belonged to the Manchu Emperor, only black-and-white photos of him could be left.
Puyi did not leave a portrait, but left a photo for a variety of reasons, the above analysis of the various reasons, can be roughly divided into subjective and objective aspects to look at, as for the Tongzhi Emperor and the Guangxu Emperor are different.
Simultaneous treatment of frailty and disease
First of all, let's talk about the Tongzhi Emperor, whose life span is very short, and he died at the age of 19. His death was something that many people expected. Because the Tongzhi Emperor was relatively poor in health since he was a child, for a long time, he lived in the harem to survive, and his physical condition could not support him to stand for a long time, or do some hard work, even after becoming emperor, the life mode of the Tongzhi Emperor did not change much.
At the same time, because the Tongzhi Emperor had been conducting closed imperial education for a long time, the young emperor became disgusted with some things in the West. The complete sense of eastern feudal education made the Tongzhi Emperor particularly resistant to Western novelties, which was the subjective reason why he did not leave a single photo. Of course, physical conditions do not allow it to be on the one hand.
There are photos but not enough solemn
The Guangxu Emperor is different, and it should be emphasized that the Guangxu Emperor actually left black and white photos. He himself did not contradict the new things of the West, but the portrait placed in the Bongxian Hall was very solemn and serious. What is represented is a royal liturgy and spirit that cannot be replaced by photographs. Puyi was replaced by black and white photographs because he had abdicated a long time ago and had not painted a portrait, while Guangxu was different.
The situation of these two people is not comparable, and it is precisely because of this that the Guangxu Emperor left a portrait in the Fengxian Hall, while Puyi left in the Fengxian Hall was a black-and-white photograph. However, the photos left by the Guangxu Emperor cannot be compared with Puyi's photos, and the photos of Guangxu are not his own wishes, but the photos taken by a photographer who took pictures inadvertently.
epilogue
From the perspective of the social environment at that time, there were huge contradictions between the Qing Dynasty and the West, and the frequent wars between the two sides also made the relationship between them more and more tense. That is to say, during this period, the Guangxu Emperor, as the ruler of the Qing Dynasty, although he did not reject the new things of the West, he would never enthusiastically accept the advanced objects of the West, after all, the pride of the great powers of the Heavenly Dynasty still remained in the imperial education. Acknowledging the superiority of others is equivalent to acknowledging one's own backwardness, and the Guangxu Emperor could not have done so.
Such differences mainly depend on the changes of the times, after all, Puyi was not an emperor when he took most black and white photos, and the collapse of the Qing Dynasty was a necessary premise for this phenomenon. If the Qing Dynasty had not perished at that time, what remained in the Fengxian Hall now would definitely not be a black-and-white photograph of Puyi, but a portrait of him dressed in the emperor's imperial clothes.