Introduction
“One should always have some sketching brushes in a leather bag. Then, when one happens in a beautiful spot to see trees that are strange and rare, one can sketch and record them immediately so that there will be an extraordinary sense of growing life.” For a translation of Huang’s full text, see Bush and Shih, Early Chinese Texts, 263. For a detailed discussion of why the attribution to Huang Gongwang is problematic, see Xie Wei, Zhongguo huaxue, 239–41. For Wang Lü’s album of Mount Hua, see Liscomb, Learning from Mount Hua. Another premodern Chinese painter who is often considered to have painted outdoors is Jing Hao (fl. ca. 870–ca. 930). A short treatise attributed to Jing claims that the artist made thousands of sketches of old pines at Mount Taihang. But the text is unclear as to whether he painted on the spot or made his observations and then painted indoors; for a translation of the text, see West, “Bi Fa Ji,” 203.
Wu Mengfei, “Wusi yundong qianhou,” 43.
Deng Yizhe, “Guan Lin Fengmian,” 94.
Wood, “Indoor-Outdoor,” 59.
There are numerous studies on open air painting in the West; a few important studies include Conisbee, Gowing, and Gere, Painting from Nature; Phimister, Wiles, and Denison, Sketching at Home; Sha, Visual and Verbal Sketch; Galassi, Corot in Italy; Bermingham, Learning to Draw; and Callen, Work of Art.
For an overview of landscape painting in China, see Sturman, “Landscape,” 177–94.
Although many of the works Chinese painters produced outdoors were similar to sketches or études in nature, the discussions on open-air painting rarely point to any deliberate separation between sketches and paintings. The difference between the two did not become a topic for discussion until the 1950s, when visiting artists from the Soviet Union emphasized the preparatory nature of sketches, which they considered too often lacking clearly defined themes with political relevance to be qualified as finished works. See chapter 5. For a brilliant study on the art of the Soviet Union, which touches on thematic composition, or kartina, see Reid, “De-Stalinization.”
There has yet to be an in-depth study in English on xiesheng, or open-air painting, in China, except for the author’s dissertation; see Gu, Scientizing Vision. A few studies in Chinese have appeared in recent years; see, for instance, Shih Shou-ch’ien, “Mingshan
This translation is not entirely accurate, as the outcome of xiesheng could be finished work or a preparatory sketch. The emphasis is on the direct encounter between the painter and the subject instead of on the nature or characteristics of the resulting work. For the definition of xiesheng in a standard Chinese dictionary, see Hanyu dacidian, 2130. Depending on its subject, xiesheng was categorized as still life drawing/painting (jingwu xiesheng), figure/nude painting (renti xiesheng), and open-air painting. The fact that open-air sketching was often abbreviated as xiesheng attests to its popularity and significance.
For studies on the term xiesheng in premodern Chinese art writings, see Kono, “‘Shasei’ no gensen,” 481–514; and Po-ting Lin, “Changes in the Meaning,” 2–6. In Japan, the meaning of shasei was expanded to refer to painters’ efforts to capture the “vital forces” of an object and sometimes even to the practice of sketching from life. Kono, “Edojidai ‘shasei’ kō,” 389–427; Jordan, “Kawanabe Kyosai’s Theory,” 86–115. Because of the subtle difference in the development of shasei in Japanese culture, Japanese scholarship on the term xiesheng in Chinese art writings tends to contextualize xiesheng in a naturalistic tradition, while downplaying the fact that xiesheng, on most occasions in Chinese, was used as synonym for bird-and-flower painting. In the Meiji period, the term shasei was used to translate the English word “sketching” or the French word dessin. See Yaegashi, “Shasei,” 366. For the Japanese literary world’s adoption of the concept, see Karatani, Origins.
For a few examples, see Elman, From Philosophy to Philology; Lam, Passion for Facts; Prakash, Another Reason.
Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 1. For a criticism of Gombrich’s reading of the image, see Mitchell, Picture Theory, 43–45.
For some of the most important discussions on linear perspective, see Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form; Ivins, Papers; Damisch and Goodman, Origin of Perspective; Elkins, Poetics of Perspective; and Belting, Florence and Baghdad. For a succinct account of Cartesian perspectivalism and modernity, see Jay, “Scopic Regimes,” 3–28.
For a helpful review of recent discussions, see Stonehill, “Debate over ‘Ocularcentrism,’” 147–52; for an account of the philosophical debates, see Levin’s introduction in Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, 1–29.
Nylan, “Beliefs about Seeing,” 89–132; Tian, “Seeing with Mind’s Eye,” 67–102; Eugene Y. Wang, “Watching the Steps,” 116–42; Eugene Y. Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra; Clunas, Pictures and Visuality, 102–33; Clunas, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences; Jonathan Hay, “Qi Baishi,” 422–35; Purtle, “Scopic Frames,” 55–73; Gu, “What’s in a Name?,”120–38.
For a few examples, see Chow, Primitive Passions; Pang, Distorting Mirror; Lam, A Passion for Facts; Bao, Fiery Cinema.
In addition to the works mentioned in the previous note, see Heinrich, Afterlife of Images; Hearn and Smith, Chinese Art; Kuo, Visual Culture; and Purtle and Thomsen, Looking
The relationship between painters and larger epistemological shifts remains a challenging question. For criticism problematizing the equation between painters’ representations and people’s perceptions, see Carrier, “Book Review,” 576.
Studies on Chinese people’s encounters with linear perspective and monocular vision during the eighteenth century seem to agree on the limited impact of perspective and the resilience of binocular vision. See chapter 3.
My interpretation here is influenced by the excellent discussion on the coexistence of multiple epistemological modes in Daston and Galison, Objectivity.
Cohen, Discovering History.
For studies that share the interpretive lens of the so-called impact-response model, see Kao, Twentieth-Century Chinese Painting; Sullivan, Art and Artists. Julia Andrews and Kuiyi Shen have contributed greatly to revealing the modernizing attempts of the guohua painters; see Andrews and Shen, “Traditionalism as a Modern Stance,” 1–29; Andrews and Shen, “Traditionalist Response,” 79–93. For the most recent developments, see Andrews and Shen, “Japanese Impact,” 4–35; Wong, Parting the Mists; Fogel, Role of Japan; Clarke, Chinese Art; Xiaobing Tang, Origins of Chinese Avant-Garde; Cai Tao, “Guan Liang, Tan Huamu,” 109–25; and Cai Tao, “Saishang,” 75–89.
For the relationship between scientific observation and landscape painting, see Stafford, Voyage into Substance; Klonk, Science and the Perception.
Cai Tao, “Nanguo huariji”; Ding Lanxiang, “Zai jiti”; Wu Xueshan, “Tizhi neiwai”; Hu Bing, Shijue de gaizao; Yin Shuangxi, Yongheng de xiangzheng.
This concept comes from Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe.
Taylor, Painters in Hanoi, 25; Karatani, Origins, 6.
For a few particularly insightful critiques, see Moxey, “Is Modernity Multiple?,” Vinograd, “Relocations,” 163–81; and Jain, “Gods,” 13–26.
Wong, “What Is a Masterpiece?” 95.
Chapter 1
Liu Haisu, “Hanjia xihu xieshengji,” 16–17.
The official name of the Shanghai Art Academy changed many times. It was founded in 1912 as the Academy of Pictures, Paintings, and Art in Shanghai (Shanghai tuhua meishuyuan) in 1912, which was changed to Academy of Pictures, Paintings and Art in Shanghai (Shanghai tuhua meishu xueyuan) in 1914, Shanghai School of Pictures, Paintings and Art (Shanghai tuhua meishu xuexiao) in 1918, Shanghai Art School (Shanghai meishu xuexiao) in 1920, Shanghai Specialized School of Art (Shanghai meishu zhuanmen xuexiao) in 1921, and Shanghai Specialized Academy of Art (Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao) in 1930. I will use Shanghai Art Academy (Shanghai meizhuan), its most commonly used name, throughout this book. For a thorough study of the history of the school, see Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong.”
A good example is the portrait of Ni Zan (1301–74), who looms large in the cultural imagination as an ideal literatus painter. For a reproduction and discussion of the painting, see Fong and Watt, Possessing the Past, 312–14. For an analysis of the portraits of Chinese painters, see Vinograd, Boundaries.
Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong.” Yan’s study is based on extensive research of the rich archival materials at the Shanghai Municipal Archive as well as the reports and advertisements
Liu Haisu, “Huainian Chen Baoyi,” 82; Chen Baoyi, “Yanghua yundong,” 787.
For studies that show how the concept of “Western-style painting” went through a complicated process of definition, redefinition, and negotiation in China, see Wu Fangzheng, “Xiyang huihua,” 133–58; Wu Fangzheng, “Wanqing sishinian,” 49–95.
For a brief account of the other instructors of “Western-style painting,” see Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 49–51; Chen Baoyi, “Yanghua yundong,” 785–87.
For the most reliable study on Zhou Xiang’s life and art that is not based on anecdotes but a thorough cross-referencing of various Republican sources, see Ma Lin, Zhou Xiang yu Shanghai. Zhou Xiang’s close friend Ding Jianxing (1893–1949) wrote a biography, which starts by lamenting that Zhou’s reputation as a painter had overshadowed his excellence in writing and calligraphy. This was a common narrative convention in the biography of painters, especially professionals who wished to distance themselves from the manual labor of painting. Moreover, after Zhou’s death, his friends compiled and published a catalogue of his traditional-style landscape paintings—the legitimate subject for literati painters as opposed to the “new style picture-painting” that had featured in Zhou’s actual career. For Ding Jianxing’s biography and his friendship with Zhou Xiang, see Ma Lin, “Zhou Xiang yanjiu xianzhuang,” 82–83.
Shenbao, January 28, 1913, 12.
Chen Baoyi, “Yanghua yundong,” 788–89.
Chen’s promotion of “sketching from life” was resisted by older faculty members, especially Zhang Yuguang (1885–1968), who were content with the methods of commercial art. However, the younger members of the academy unanimously embraced the method. See Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 60; Chen Baoyi, “Yanghua yundong,” 788.
Goldstein, Teaching Art; Pevsner, Academies of Art.
Shenbao, July 12, 1916, 2.
For the Japanese book, see Dainihon Kokumin Chugakukai, Kaiga dokushūsho. For an in-depth study of Chen’s translation and its impact on the Chinese art world, see Li Weiming, “Yizhong Riben jindai meishu shiguan,” 273–99.
The facilities for sketching from life established by Li Shutong at the Zhejiang Provincial Teachers School were considerable. For still life drawing, Li bought plaster casts from Japan and installed a plaster cast display room. There were three studios exclusively for painting, one of which had a glass ceiling and a glass wall. For open-air painting, the school prepared two boats for students to explore the picturesque spots of West Lake. See Jiang Danshu yishu jiaoyu, 205–27; Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, 31–32.
Shenbao, July 2, 1915.
Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 58–59.
Wang Zhen, Ershi shiji Shanghai meishu, 61. Originally published in Shibao, August 15, 1915.
Wang Zhen, Ershi shiji Shanghai meishu, 61; Shibao, August 16, 1915.
Wang Zhen, Ershi shiji Shanghai meishu, 61; Shibao, August 18, 1915.
Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 98.
Kao, “Reforms,” 146–71. For a detailed discussion, see Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 19–138, 166–82.
For the central role of drawing in common school art education in the West, see Efland, History of Art Education.
See the introduction for a detailed discussion of the Chinese and Japanese terminology for “sketching from life.” The transition may be marked by the publication in 1910 of Shintei gacho (New textbook of drawing), which was deeply influenced by the emphasis on original drawings and sketching from nature in art education in the United States. See Masuda, “Historical Overview,” 5.
Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 65–66.
Wu Mengfei, “Hongyi fashi he Zhejiang,” 1–5.
For the significance of Liu Haisu’s involvement in the Jiangsu Provincial Education Research Society, see Li Anyuan, “Liu, Cai xingyi,” 34. For a brief account of the society, see Sun Guangyong, “Jiangsusheng jiaoyuhui,” 26–31.
For the New Culture Movement and art, see Sullivan, Art and Artists, 32; Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, 39–42; Tang, Origins, 9–40.
Chen Duxiu, “Meishu geming,” 86.
Chen Duxiu, “Meishu geming,” translation from Shen Kuiyi, “Entering a New Era,” 99.
For Julia F. Andrews’s translation, see Denton, Modern Chinese Literary Thought, 182–89. For analysis on Cai and aesthetics, see Duiker, “Aesthetic Philosophy,” 385–401; Ban Wang, Sublime Figure.
For the social network within which Cai and Liu built and maintained contact, see Li Anyuan, “Liu, Cai xingyi,” 34–39.
Cai Yuanpei, “Zai Beida,” 80–81. The speech was first published in Beijing daxue rikan, October 25, 1919.
Ren Hongjun (1886–1961), a leading scientist and educator, summarized the “scientific mentality” as follows: “In short, the significance of science to education does not lie in the quantitative acquisition of knowledge but in training in the correct methodology. More important than the correct methodology is the cultivation of a mentality. Scientific methodology is first to classify, then to establish relationships and to discover laws. Those who practice this method would be mindful of facts to pursue cause and effect, without being deceived by sentiment or bias. That is the scientific mentality.” Ren Hongjun, “Kexue yu jiaoyu,” 1352. The translation is partly based on Kwok’s; see Kwok, Scientism, 124. For a brief account of Ren, see Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors,” 270–75.
Sun Yu, “Cong Beida huafa yanjiuhui,” 41. For a detailed study on scientism, see Kwok, Scientism.
Liang Qichao, “Meishu yu kexue,” 7.
Liang Qichao, “Meishu yu kexue,” 8–9; italics added.
Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 84. For a detailed discussion of guohua, see the introduction.
Many of these schools also included graphic design (tu’an) as a major. For a list of flourishing art schools, see Ruan Rongchun and Hu Guanghua, Zhongguo jinxiandai meishushi, 22–23. For a brief account of the history and curriculum of the National Beijing Specialized Art School, see Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de tuhua jiaoyu, 121–28.
The lack of a guohua major was explicitly criticized by a government report on the academy, which was eager to be accredited by the Education Ministry. See Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 68.
For a few examples of curricula, see Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 106–7, 125; Cao Qinghui, “Beiping yizhuan,” 98. For an account of traditional training in painting
Feng Zikai, “Zhongshi zhi xiesheng,” 38.
For an in-depth study on Feng Zikai, see Barmé, Artist Exile.
Boime, Academy and French Painting, 25. It is worth noting that the French Academy relied heavily on copying as a training method.
Feng Zikai, “Wo de xuehua,” 33–34; Feng Zikai, “Xiesheng shijie,” 63–64; Feng Zikai, “Xiesheng shijie 2,” 245–48; Feng Zikai, “Zhongshi zhi xiesheng,” 36–42.
Feng Zikai, “Zhongshi zhi xiesheng,” 38.
Boime, Academy and French Painting, 25–26.
Feng Zikai, “Xiesheng shijie 2,” 246–48. On another occasion, Feng was lost in his analysis of the proportions of his mother’s face, fascinated by the resemblance between her facial structure and that of the German composer Richard Wagner; see Feng Zikai, “Xiesheng shijie 2,” 246.
Wu Mengfei, “Wusi yundong qianhou,” 412. The career path of an art instructor, although not as glorious as that of a painter, guaranteed financial security. When Feng Zikai and his classmates established the Shanghai Specialized Teachers College (Shanghai shifan zhuanke xuexiao) in 1920, the new school was overwhelmed by requests for graduates even before the school could offer any. See Wang Zhen, Ershi shijie Shanghai meishu, 106.
The Chinese Association for Aesthetic Education was initiated by the faculty at the Shanghai Specialized Teachers College but was quickly joined by art educators all over China, including from the already full-fledged Shanghai Art Academy. Both the association and the journal were run by committee members who were democratically elected. See Ma Lin, “Zhou Xiang yu Zhonghua meiyuhui,” 78–79.
Studies of professionalism have established that professional groups rely on specialized knowledge and skills to claim social prestige. For two succinct summaries, see Xu Xiaoqun, Chinese Professionals, 1–12; Tanner, Sociology of Art, 105–13.
Yu Qi, “Xiesheng diyi jianyifa,” 38–40; Tang Niyan, “Duiyu xiesheng diyi jianyifa,” 76–77. “Strength of the eye” was used to refer to the connoisseur’s discerning gaze in premodern Chinese art historical writing. In the context of Republican art writing, however, “strength of the eye” had nothing to do with previous masterworks. For a discussion on muli in premodern China, see Clunas, Pictures and Visuality, 11–12. Clunas translates muli as “the force of eye.”
Liu Haisu was in charge of drafting the art-related curriculum; see Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 84. For praise of the new curriculum, see Wang Yachen, “Jindai yishu yundong,” 330–31.
The photograph was first published in the inaugural issue of the academy’s journal Meishu in November 1918 and later featured in almost every promotional piece by the school.
For studies on the practice and controversy of life drawing, see Andrews, “Luotihua lunzheng,” 117–50; Wu Fangzheng, “Luo de liyou,” 55–113.
Shenbao, December 11, 1917.
Shenbao, April 17, 1918.
Shenbao, April 29, 1919.
For the switch to coeducation in the academy, see Yan Juanying, “Buxi de biandong,” 80.
Shenbao, November 12, 1920; October 29, 1921.
Shenbao, November 12, 1920; October 29, 1921; November 6, 1921; November 7, 1921.
The numbers in the table are based on Wang Zhen, Ershi shiji Shanghai meishu nianbiao, 85, 87, 88, 98, 104, 109, 115, 117, 120, 126; Shenbao, April 1, 1921; April 2, 1921.
Shenbao, April 1, 1921; April 2, 1921; October 24, 1921; October 29, 1921; November 3, 1922; April 6, 1923; May 11, 1923; April 18, 1926; May 17, 1929.
Shenbao, April 18, 1926; May 17, 1929.
Ni Yide, “Shanghai meishu xuexiao chunji,” 95–102.
Shenbao, October 24, 1921.
Shenbao, October 24, 1921; Tang Jun, “Shanghai meishu xuexiao qiuji,” 91–92.
Shenbao, April 23, 1922; April 17, 1934.
Yang Taiyang, “Xunxun zhangzhe,” 136.
For a few examples, see Huang Hongshi, “Xieshengban zhizaofa,” 47–49; Ding Qilin, “Xieshenghe zhizaofa,” 27–29; Lei Jiajun, Aimeisheng xuehuaji.
According to oil painter Zhong Han (1929–), who grew up in Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, Aimeisheng xuehuaji was one of the few books in the meager collection of his local primary school. The seven-year-old Zhong was so intrigued by the book’s description of open-air painting that he made an easel for himself and went outdoors to paint. See Zhong Han’s autobiography in Zhong Han and Shao Dazhen, Disandai Zhongguo youhuajia, 71.
“Mingri de fumu,” 28.
Chen Ting, “Gaonianji shiwu xiesheng,” 35–40. The experiment demonstrated that instruction in xiesheng gave a marginal advantage to students of the sixth grade after a three-month period. But the author expressed frustration with many uncontrollable elements, such as the absence of students from class, and called for further study. Nonetheless, the premise of the experiment indicates widespread belief in the benefits of sketching from life.
Pan Zhizhong, “Baocanshi xiesheng zaji,” 23; He Tianjian, “Zhedong shanshui,” 3; Yuan Songnian, “Lujiang mingsheng xieshengji,” 146.
Yu Jianhua, “Yandang xieshengji,” 24.
Ren Weiyin, “Lüxing xiesheng mantan,” 66.
Liu Haisu, “Hanjia Xihu xieshengji,” 10.
For similar self-presentation among other professional groups, see Shen, “Taking to the Field,” 231–52.
This is different from Kōjin Karatani’s thesis of the “discovery of landscape” in the context of Japanese literary modernism; see Karatani, Origins.
Wu Liande, Zhongguo daguan. For a brief account of the circumstances under which the volume was compiled, see Ma Guoliang, Liangyou yijiu, 64–67.
Hu Zhichuan and Ma Yunzeng, Zhongguo sheying shi, 96–98.
Ma Guoliang, Liangyou yijiu, 75–76.
Wu Liande, Zhonghua jingxiang.
Wu Liande, Zhonghua jingxiang.
For a brief study on the Chinese Travel Agency, see Dong, “Shanghai’s China Traveler,” 195–226.
Shen Sung-chiao, “Jiangshan ruci duojiao,”166; Lam, Passion for Facts.
See Zeng Yangpu’s preface in Dongnan jiaotong zhoulanhui, Dongnan lansheng.
Dongnan lansheng, 35.
Kang Wen, “Yu Huang Yanpei,” 274–77.
Dongnan jiaotong zhoulanhui, Dongnan lansheng, 35.
Liu Haisu, “Hanjia Xihu xieshengji,” 10; Yu Jianhua, “Xiesheng lüxing,” 7.
Zhang Yuanheng, “Huajia dao nongcunqu,” 23–24.
Zhang Yuanheng, “Huajia dao nongcunqu,” 23–24.
Chapter 2
Lei Jiajun, Aimeisheng xuehuaji, 22.
The lower left corner of the illustration depicts a “device for telling colors,” a square piece of paper with a slit cut in the middle that helps painters perceive tonal difference when in front of a complexity of colors.
Shirley, Oil Paintings, 47.
See Wang Yachen, “Fengjing xiesheng.”
For a brief discussion of the watercolor movement in Japan, see Toshio Watanabe, “Japanese Landscape Painting,” 67–69. For brief biographies of East and Parsons, see Clark, Japanese Exchanges, 237, 250. For East’s visit to Japan and his lasting influence, see Clark, Japanese-British Exchanges, 287.
For a study on the tradition of watercolorists who emphasized instruction, see Smith, Emergence of the Professional Watercolourist.
Ōshita Tōjirō, Suisaiga no shiori, 22. The twenty thousand copies of the first edition of the book all sold out. See Fukuda, Ōshita Tōjirō, 529.
Wang Yachen, “Sishi zishu,” 3–5. Before Wang left for Japan, in addition to his teaching position, he had a thriving business that produced backdrops for photo studios and theaters.
Chen Shuren, “Xinhuafa,” 14.
For an excellent study on the relationship between photography and changing modes of perception, see Nickel, “Art of Perception.”
Du Jiutian, Xinbian sheyingshu, 147. Du used guanyingkuang (frame for viewing the image) to refer to the camera’s viewfinder and adopted the verb-noun combinations zeying (to select a view) and qujing (to take a view), to describe the act of view framing. First published in 1913, this volume was republished many times in the following decades. The editions I have encountered are from 1919, 1929, and 1935.
Du Jiutian himself soon adopted qujingkuang for the viewfinder. See Shen Xiayun and Du Jiutian, Kedake sheyingshu, 36.
Gu Jiegang’s preface to Chen Wanli’s Dafengji (1924), reprinted in Long Xizu, Zhongguo jindai sheying yishu, 135. Dafengji (Anthology of great wind) was the first catalogue of art photography by a Chinese photographer.
Wang Yachen, “Fengjing xiesheng,” 288.
For a helpful discussion, see Tian, “Seeing with the Mind’s Eye.”
Feng Zikai, “Kan zhanlanhui,” 4.
“Jianbian xieshengfa.”
“Jianbian xieshengfa.”
Wang claimed that skilled open-air painters who internalized this perceptual mode no longer needed to carry the view-taker along. But for beginners who had just started practicing, Wang warned, “it is better to be safe.” See Wang Yachen, “Fengjing xiesheng,” 291.
Galassi, Before Photography, 16.
Wang Yachen, “Fengjing xiesheng,” 288.
Wang Yachen, “Shanghai meizhuan lüxing,” 513.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC. Feng acknowledged his borrowing in the preface.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 37.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 38.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 39–42.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 47, 68–83.
Puttfarken, Discovery of Pictorial Composition.
Puttfarken, Discovery of Pictorial Composition. For a groundbreaking study on the changing understanding of visual representation in relation to medium in the context of China, see Hung Wu, Double Screen.
Alberti’s intention to adopt the term “composition” remains a topic for debate; see Greenstein, “On Alberti’s ‘Sign,’” 669–98.
Macarthur, Picturesque, 19.
Macarthur, Picturesque, 33–40.
Xu Weinan, “ABC congshu fakan zhiqu,” n.p.
Xu Weinan, “ABC congshu fakan zhiqu,” n.p.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 1–5.
Feng Zikai, “Meishu de zhaoxiang.”
For a few examples, see “Chuxuezhe de goutufa”; Shi Jifa, “Goutu he yongguang”; Tianzhen, “Sheying yu goutu”; Wei Nanchang, “Sheying goutu mantan”; Wei Nanchang, “Tan sheying de goutu”; and Songshou, “Sheying yu goutu.”
Chen Yingmei, Goutufa shili; based on Tomizō, Shaseiga to kōzu.
For example, see the discussion on composition by the Japan-trained modernist Ni Yide in “Fengjinghua zhi miaoxie.” This topic will be discussed in detail below.
Chen Yingmei, Goutufa shili, n.p.
This focus of inquiry is manifested in Sullivan, Meeting of Eastern and Western, and Kao, “European Influences.”
For recent studies on these painters, see Mo Xiaoye, 17–18 shiji chuanjiaoshi; Rawski and Rawson, Three Emperors; Kleutghen, Imperial Illusions. Outside of the Qing court, linear perspective occasionally appeared in contemporaneous prints in Suzhou, the artists and inspirations of which have remained an issue of debate. See Machida shiritsu kokusai hanga bijutsukan, “Chūgoku no yōfūga” ten. For the most up-to-date and in-depth study on the Suzhou prints, see Kobayashi, “Suzhou Prints.”
Nian Xiyao’s preface to the 1735 edition of The Study of Vision. For a reprint of the entire text, see Zhao Li and Yu Ding, Zhongguo Youhua wenxian, 116. The Study of Vision is based on Nian’s collaborative translation with Castiglione of Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum (1698), by the Italian painter Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709). For a detailed description and analysis of this book, see Palmer, “‘All Is Very Plain,” 182–87. The first edition of The Study of Vision was published in 1729, and a revised second edition appeared in 1735. It is worth noting that, between the two editions, Nian’s attitude toward the applicability of perspective seems to have changed. In his preface to the first edition, Nian indicates that he considers perspective to be especially pertinent to landscape painting, and he takes a rather critical stance toward China’s lack of this technique. Six years later, in his preface to the second edition, Nian’s early confidence in the necessity of perspective becomes more equivocal. Instead of criticizing their lack of rules, he marvels at Chinese painters’ rendition of spatial relationships in landscape painting. The reason for the change is unclear. Nian’s book did not include any images of exterior scenery. A few scholars have noted
For a brief discussion on the meaning of the term xianfa, see Nie Chongzheng, “Xianhuafa xiaokao,” 85–86.
For an in-depth discussion on drawing classes in government-sponsored military and engineering schools in the late Qing, see He Xiaozhou, “Jindai Zhongguo yishu jiaoyu,” 28–42.
Ellen Laing has the most detailed account on this topic, although her focus is not linear perspective; see Laing, Selling Happiness, 64–65.
The first modern education system in Qing China was designed in 1902 in a document often known as the Renyin School Regulation (Renyin xuezhi), but it was aborted the next year. The Guimao regulation can be regarded as the beginning of China’s modern art education. Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 19–56.
This was largely inspired by the British system, which considered drawing as basic training for future productive workers in industrial society. See Kaneko, Kindai Nihon bijutsu kyōiku, 314, 321; Efland, History of Art Education; Efland, “School Art.”
“Zouding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng,” 116.
For a study on the origin and development of teaching schools, see Cong, Teachers’ Schools.
Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 62–64.
Wu Jialing, Qingmo Minchu de huihua jiaoyu, 72–87.
Cassagne, Toushixue.
See Shen Liangneng’s preface. On Tushanwan, see Laing, Selling Happiness, 62–64. Liu Bizhen was from a Catholic family in Changshu, a town in the Yangzi Valley with exposure to Catholicism from the late Ming dynasty on. Liu studied under Nicolas Massa (1815–76), an Italian missionary who practiced oil painting at Tushanwan. Liu had been in charge of the Tushanwan Arts and Crafts School since 1869, when Brother Peter Lu, S.J. (Lu Bodu, 1836–80), who founded the school in 1867, suffered from poor health. Liu officially became the head of the school in 1880. For Liu’s biographical information, see Wan Qingli, “Zhongguo xiyanghua,” 98–104. Based on Shen’s acquaintance with Liu and his knowledge of French, it seems possible that he was associated with the Jesuit community.
See Shen’s preface to Cassagne, Toushixue.
Shen Benqian, “Hupan tongchuang,” 145.
For example, it was included in a 1927 list of textbooks at the Shanghai Art Academy; see “Shanghai meizhuan,” 34.
Jiang Danshu, Toushixue.
Jiang Danshu, Toushixue, 1. For Jiang’s biography, see Xie Haiyan’s preface in Jiang Danshu yishu jiaoyu, 1–8.
Jiang Danshu, Toushixue, 1–4.
Jiang was most likely unaware of the eighteenth-century Study of Vision by Nian Xiyao.
Jiang wrote in his preface: “Some people argue, ‘Those who paint Western-style painting have to understand perspective. But those who paint traditional-style painting don’t have to, do they?’ I would reply, ‘They, too, should!’” See Jiang Danshu, Toushixue, 1.
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue. Wei’s book is based on his study notes from England. Wei was initially a village teacher in Hebei Province. He majored in “art and music” at the Zhili Provincial Teachers School in 1915 and studied in England after graduation. For a brief biography of Wei, see “Wei Yuanxin,” Pengpai News, August 22, 2018, https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2369000/ (accessed January 5, 2019).
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, 269.
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, preface. Chinese intellectuals’ exploration of premodern discussion on linear perspective is discussed in the next chapter.
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, preface.
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, 3. Wei Yuanxin used the term shiyu to translate “cone of rays.” This is a rather idiosyncratic choice. Jiang Danshu adopted shiquan as his translation; see Jiang, Toushixue, 5–7. The most popular term used to refer to the viewing capacity of the eye in the writings on open-air painting is shiye, a translation of “visual field.”
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, 12.
Jiang Danshu, Toushixue, 9.
Cassagne, Toushixue, 15.
Wang Yachen, “Fengjing xiesheng,” 289–90.
Based on the Modern Chinese Scientific Terminologies database, the term first appeared in publications on physics, often translated from or based on Japanese materials. See http://mcst.uni-hd.de/procSearch/procSearchMCST.lasso.
Feng Zikai, Goutufa ABC, 37.
Ni Yide stated that “in painting, ‘vision’ (shijue) is the most important matter.” See Ni Yide, “Fengjinghua zhi miaoxie,” 111; Ni Yide, “Xiyang shanshuihua,” 76. For the most in-depth study on Ni Yide, see Cai Tao, “1938 nian.”
Ni Yide, “Xiyang shanshuihua,” 77.
Ni Yide, “Fengjinghua zhi miaoxie,” 113–14.
Chen Shuren, Guilin shanshui xieshengji.
Cai Yuanpei, preface to Chen Shuren, Guilin shanshui xieshengji, n.p.
See Shen Kuiyi, “Zheng Wuchang de huihua.” Shen has compiled the most thorough study on Zheng that I have encountered.
For example, see his Herding in the Green Field (1941), in which Zheng repeated the elevated horizon with the scene of a buffalo boy in a paddy field, adding two peasants idly watching in the foreground and a high hill in the background to enrich the composition. See Zheng Chang (Wuchang), Zheng Wuchang, 63.
Liu Haisu, Zhongguo xiandai minghua, n.p.
See Zheng Chang (Wuchang), “Zhongguohua zhi renshi,” 48.
“Mountains have three types of distance. Looking up to the mountain’s peak from its foot is called the high distance. From in front of the mountain looking past it to beyond is called the deep distance. Looking from a nearby mountain at those more distant is called the level distance.” See chapter 3 and Bush and Shih, Early Chinese Texts, 168–69.
Zheng Chang (Wuchang), “Zhongguohua zhi renshi,” 48.
See Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu.
Jiaoyubu quanguo meishu zhanlanhui chupin.
For a few Republican travel writings discussing the newly improved transportation, see Cheng Zhize, “Huangshan lingzhua lu,” 29; Yang Zheng, “Huangshan zhi you,” 67; and Xu Jiahan, “Huangshan daoyou,” 43.
The phrase “the great mountain that exemplifies all Chinese mountains” (Huangshan wei Zhongguo zhi biaozhun haoshan) came from Wu Zhihui (1865–1953), a highly respected scholar and politician who was a revered member of the Nationalist Party. Wu’s calligraphy of this sentence was hung at the lounge for visitors at the Ciguang Temple at Mount Huang; see Wu Caipo, “Huangshan jiyou xia,” 17. This phrase was often cited in Republican writings on Mount Huang; for instance, see Xu Jiahan, “Huangshan daoyou,” 43. Another Republican-era writer wrote, “Someone has referred to Mount Huang as ‘the great mountain that exemplifies all Chinese mountains,’ claiming it could stand side by side with the famous mountains in Switzerland in Europe and Mount Fuji in Japan. Similarly, I think that Mount Huang could be called the ‘national mountain’ or even an ‘international [mountain].’” See Yan Chonglou, “Chunyou dao Huangshan,” 43.
Feng Zikai, “Huangshan yinxiang,” 93.
Shao Yuxiang, “Chongyou Huangshan ji,” 34.
For a detailed description of the book, see Wang Yi, Zhang Daqian, 58.
Wang Yi, Zhang Daqian, 59. The emphasis is mine.
Emphasis is mine.
For the convention of inserting figures in traditional landscapes, see Barnhart, “Figures in Landscape.”
Zhang created the work right before he took his disciples and younger relatives for another visit to Mount Emei. In his inscription, Zhang claimed that the painting was based on his earlier experience climbing Emei.
See Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu, 190. For a complete list of exhibits, see Guoli meishu chenlieguan, Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu.
Shao Yuxiang, “Huangshan jiyou,” 24.
Zhou Shoujuan, “Huangshan jiyou,” 51.
Wu Caipo, “Huangshan jiyou xia,” 22.
Liu Shimin, Lin Fengmian, 98.
Liu Shimin, Lin Fengmian, 95–107.
Sun Fuxi, “Yi Xihu fengxian Lin,” 60.
Sun Fuxi, “Yi Xihu fengxian Lin,” 61.
Lu Xun, for example, explicitly voiced disdain for Hangzhou. See Chuandao, “Yi Lu Xun xiansheng,” 255.
Sun Fuxi, “Yi Xihu fengxian Lin,” 61.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 32.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 32.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 32.
For a discussion on the development of the Ten Views, see Wang, “Perceptions of Change,” 80–81. The article remains one of the most insightful analyses on West Lake in modern Chinese visual culture.
Qiu Di/Schudy.
For a study on the Storm Society in English, see Croizier, “Post-Impressionists,” 135–54.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 32. For a discussion of Qiu Jin’s tomb, see Wang, “Perceptions of Change,” 100–102; Ying Hu, “Qiu Jin’s Nine Burials,” 138–91.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 33.
Ling Shuhua, “Women zenyang kan Zhongguohua,” 260. For a brief biography of Ling Shuhua, see Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists, 97. For the role of painting in Ling’s life, see Hong, “Chinese Gentlewoman,” 235–52.
Chapter 3
Yu Jianhua, “Guohua yanjiu,” 156.
Pan Zhizhong, “Zhongguohua ji xieshenghua.”
Xu Jing, “Guohua yu xiesheng,” 15.
Leng Ding, “Tan guohua,” 44.
Some guohua painters engaged in open-air painting in their practice more than others; however, it was embraced by consensus, at least in writing. This trend led to many pieces of writing with interesting rhetorical strategies. We find articles that show great reservations regarding the actual practice of open-air painting but that conclude with pompous claims that xiesheng was a cultural essence of China and should be practiced by all painters. For a good example, see Huang Junbi, “Guohua yu xiesheng,” 21–22.
Elliot and Shambaugh, Odyssey, 56–72.
Hang Chunxiao, “Huihua ziyuan,” 118–27.
Cheng-hua Wang, “New Printing Technology,” 273–308; Hang Chunxiao, “Wenhe de jianjin,” 116–22.
He Tianjian, Xuehua shanshui, 6.
Huang Binhong and Deng Shi launched the ambitious Meishu congshu (Book collection on art), which eventually developed into five categories each comprising ten volumes, published over the span of seven years, as the first effort to anthologize premodern texts on art and to widen their circulation. See Yujen Liu, “Publishing Chinese Art,” 105–42; Yujen Liu, “Second Only,” 68–95; Liu Yu-jen, “Zhaoxiang fuzhi,” 185–244, 258; Roberts, “Dark Side,” 66–69. A few collections focused on painting were published in the following decades; see Yu Shaosong, Huafa yaolu; Ma Keming, Lunhua jiyao; and Yu Anlan, Hualun congkan.
Huang Qiyuan, Shanshui huafa.
Xu Ling, “Yilin zazhi yanjiu,” 38–42; Lü Peng, Hushe yanjiu, 177–78.
For studies on the art history writing boom in Republican China, see Wong, Parting the Mists, 35–53.
The quote is from Leng Ding, “Tan guohua,” 44.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua.”
For instance, it was included in Yao Yuxiang, Zhongguohua taolunji, 51–58. For articles reiterating Hu Peiheng’s argument, see Bai Yu, “Guohua yu xihua”; Leng Ding, “Tan guohua”; and Xu Jing, “Guohua yu xiesheng.”
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 3.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 3.
For Hu’s life, training, and art, see Lang Shaojun, “Boshi duoneng.”
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 5.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 5.
For Su Shi’s famous couplet and its significance in literati art theory, see Bush, Chinese Literati on Painting, 32.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 7.
Hu initially joined the Research Society on Painting Methods as a nonuniversity member around 1919; see Qin Zhongwen, “Daonian Hu Peiheng,” 64. His expertise was quickly recognized, and he was promoted from a student member to an instructor within a short period of time; see Zhao Panchao, “Beijing daxue,” 56.
Lang Shaojun, “Boshi duoneng,” 5, especially note 5.
For a brief discussion of these two societies, see Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, 94–97. Recent resurgence of interest in the so-called traditionalist guohua painters in Beijing has led to a large number of publications in the Chinese language on the Research Society on Chinese Painting Studies, the Lake Society, their leaders, and their journals. For the most insightful discussion on the split of the societies, see Xu Ling, “Yilin zazhi,” 7–10.
Wang Zhen, Xu Beihong nianpu changbian, 22–29.
Zhao Panchao, “Beijing daxue,” 56–57.
Jin Cheng, “Huaxue jiangyi,” 736, quoted in Siu Wai-man, “Jin Cheng,” 133. Also see Hang Chunxiao, “Wenhe de jianjin.”
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 6.
Hu Peiheng, preface, in Shanshui rumen, 2.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 6.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 7.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 73.
After 1949, Hu Peiheng, like other guohua painters, reasserted his embrace of open-air painting as a way to answer the party-state’s call for reform of guohua. See chapter 5.
Zhou Jiyin and Geng Jian, Yu Jianhua meishushi, 512, 514, 518.
For Yu Jianhua’s biography, see Yu Jianhua, “Wei wode huazhan,” 364–66; Zhou Jiyin, “Yu Jianhua,” n.p.
Yu Jianhua, “Wei wode huazhan,” 364; Zhou Jiyin, “Yu Jianhua,” n.p.
Zhou Jiyin and Geng Jian, Yu Jianhua, 512–16. For instance, in 1919, Yu took a trip with fellow faculty and students of the First Shandong Provincial Middle School to Mount Tai and afterwards wrote “Open-Air Painting Trip at Mount Tai.” The travelogue was published in Chenbao fukan, a newspaper supplement, from October 8 to October 31, 1919.
Ren Weiyin, “Zai hushang xiesheng,” 1.
Yu Jianhua, “Yandang xiesheng ji,” 19.
Yu Jianhua, “Yandang xiesheng ji 2,” 42; Yu Jianhua, “Yandang xiesheng ji 3,” 35.
Yu Jianhua, “Yandang xiesheng ji 3,” 29–36.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 71–75.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 73.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 73.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 73.
Yu Jianhua, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 75.
Yu Jianhua, “Duiyu Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 179–80; Yu Jianhua, “Duiyu Zhongguo shanshuihua 2,” 197.
Yu Jianhua, “Duiyu Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 179.
For a discussion of the significance of the society, see Andrews and Shen, “Traditionalist Response,” 79–93.
For the difference between the two, see the introduction.
Yu was highly aware of these prior works. He criticizes the early endeavors as too brief, while praising Zheng’s history as an unprecedentedly scientific, systematic, and well-written “foundation of the history of Chinese painting.” Yu positioned his own endeavor as a “medium-level survey history” that drew from the strength of the preexisting histories and avoided their shortcomings. Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 1–2. For discussions of the production and reception of Chinese painting history in Republican China, see Wong, Parting the Mist, 54–76; Andrews and Shen, “Japanese Impact,” 16–30.
Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 3.
For Yu’s discussion on Zong Bing, see Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 54.
Scholars of the Qing dynasty dated Shanshui jue to the Ming dynasty, whereas the modern scholar Yu Shaosong considered it a product of the Song dynasty painting academy. For the best discussion on the authenticity, attribution, circulation, and different editions of Shanshui jue, see Xie Wei, Zhongguo huaxue, 58–60. For Shanshui lun, see pp. 60–66.
Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 128.
Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 130.
Zheng Chang, Zhongguo huaxue, 156.
Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 112.
Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 177.
Yu Jianhua, “Hualun zuiyan ershiyi ze,” 66.
Yu Jianhua, “Hualun zuiyan ershiyi ze,” 66–67.
Yu Jianhua, “Hualun zuiyan ershiyi ze,” 66.
Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 152.
Yu Jianhua, Zhongguo huihuashi, 225.
Yu Jianhua, “Guohua yanjiu,” 108.
Yu Jianhua, “Hualun zuiyan ershiyi ze,” 66.
Yu Jianhua, “Hualun zuiyan ershiyi ze,” 66.
Tian, “Seeing,” 72; Clunas, Pictures and Visuality, 117–20.
Wei Yuanxin, Toushixue, preface.
Zong Baihua, “Lun Zhong-Xi huafa,” 47–68; and Zong Baihua, “Zhong-Xi huafa suo biaoxian,” 141–48, which was presented at the annual conference of the Chinese Association for Philosophy in 1935 and initially published in Zhongguo yishu luncong. Another article touching on this topic is Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” esp. 33–36; for an English translation of the last article, see Zong Baihua (Tsung Paihwa), “Space-Consciousness.” The translations of Zong’s writings in this book are mine.
For an in-depth study on the society, see Wu Xiaolong, Shaonian zhongguo xuehui. For the political and cultural context of societies of the New Culture Movement, see Rahav, Rise of Political Intellectuals.
Zong considered politics a problematic domain that tends to bring out the ugliness of human nature and deliberately distanced himself from it. But he was a close friend of leftist intellectual leaders such as Guo Moruo and Tian Han and chose to stay in mainland China after 1949. He suffered the same humiliation as most Chinese intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution but survived the tumultuous years and enjoyed great acknowledgment in his last years. There are many biographical accounts of Zong. For an in-depth biography that contains previously unpublished materials, correspondence, and interviews, see Zou Shifang, Zong Baihua. Unless otherwise noted, my discussion of Zong’s biography is based on Zou’s biography, 6–91.
Zou Shifang, Zong Baihua, 50.
Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” 32.
Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” 32.
Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” 33. For similar opinions, see Zong Baihua, “Zhong-Xi huafa suo biaoxian,” 49–50.
Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 168–69.
Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” 34.
Benjamin March provides a long list of previous scholarship in Western languages. The scholars who discussed linear perspective in Chinese painting include William Anderson, W. Bushell, M. Petrucci, and John Ferguson. See March, “Linear Perspective,” 115–17.
March, “Linear Perspective,” 139.
March, “Linear Perspective,” 119.
March, “Linear Perspective,” 139.
Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 37.
Alberti writes that “when they [painters] draw lines around a surface, and fill the parts they have drawn with colours, their sole object is the representation on this one surface of many different forms of surfaces, just as though this surface which they colour were so transparent and like glass, that the visual pyramid passed right through it.” Leonardo writes: “Take a piece of glass of the size of a half sheet of royal folio paper, and fix it well in front of your eyes, that is between your eye and the object you wish to portray. Then move away until your eye is two-thirds of a braccio away from the piece of glass, and fasten your head by means of an instrument in such a way as to prevent any movement of it whatsoever. Then close or cover up one eye, and with a brush or a piece of red chalk finely ground mark out on the glass what is visible beyond it; afterwards copy it by tracing on paper from the glass.” See Dunning, Changing Images, 39.
Zong Baihua, “Zhong-Xi huafa,” 146–47.
Whereas other Republican writers, for instance, Wang Yachen, also celebrated Zong Bing’s essay as China’s indigenous discovery of optical principles, Zong Baihua was the first to use Zong Bing’s text to argue Chinese people’s deliberate abandonment of linear perspective. See Wang Yachen, “Zong Bing hualun,” 218–28.
Zong Baihua, “Zhong-Xi huafa,” 147.
Kuriyama, Expressiveness.
For a brief account on Wang and Xu hua, see Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 22.
Zong wrote in 1919, “That we strive to create a new China is for the progress of the world, for the happiness of all humans, instead of for shallow and limiting nationalism.” See Zou Shifang, Zong Baihua, 19.
Zong Baihua, “Zhongguo shihua,” 35.
For a rare exception that challenges the validity of sandian toushi, see Qian Zhongping, “Zhongguo chuantong shanshuihua,” 41–46.
Previous scholarship in English has translated cun as “wrinkles,” “interior brush texturing,” and “texture strokes.” See Bush, Chinese Literati, 165; Silbergeld, Chinese Painting Style, 24. Joan Stanley-Baker has given particular attention to the relationship between the term and the historical development of brushstrokes, proposing the term “modeling-strokes” for the Song dynasty and “brush-modes” for the Yuan and after. For Stanley-Baker, the shift in English-language renderings reflects a change in the meaning of cun from a depictive device to an underlying formula. Stanley-Baker, “Development of Brush-Modes,” 13–59. As
Wang Gai, Jieziyuan, 117–30.
Wang Gai, Jieziyuan, 117.
A long list of brush techniques is included: “Light ink in overlapping layers applied very slowly is called wodan [to circulate, to rotate]. A sharply pointed brush, lightly drawn across is called cunca [to rub and to wrinkle]. Shaking ink wash off the brush repeatedly and sprinkling the surface is called xuan [to wet]. To dampen with ink wash is called shua [to wash]. Bearing down straight with the brush tip is called cuo [to push]. Lowering the brush tip carefully in a perpendicular manner is called juo [to pull]. Employing half the brush tip and coming down more weightily is called dian [to dot].” I take the translation from Stanley-Baker with slight changes; see Stanley-Baker, “Development of Brush-Modes,” 24. Stanley-Baker translates cunca as “rubbing on the wrinkles,” in which cun is treated as a noun. Considering that all the techniques mentioned here are a combination of two verbs, I believe “to rub and to wrinkle” is more accurate.
For a brief account on these writings, see Bush, Early Chinese Texts, 89–93. Liu and Guo did not use cun as an independent criterion for evaluation but included it with other brush techniques. For instance, Liu Daochun criticized the work of Liu Yong, noting that “his gou yan cun dan (outlining, washing, rubbing, and wrinkling) do not excel.” Lachman, Evaluations, 64.
When Mi Fu viewed a screen by Gu Kaizhi, the legendary fourth-century painter, Mi claimed that “the cun on the slope of the riverbank resembles that of Dong Yuan.” Mi went on to generalize that the painters of the Jiangnan region, from Gu Kaizhi to Dong Yuan and Juran, had a consistent style. See Mi Fu, “Huashi,” 989.
Most names of cun models that appeared in this period did not last, with the exception of the hemp-fiber cun. For example, in Harmonious and Complete Compilation on Landscape (Shanshui chun quan ji) by Han Zhuo (active ca. 1095–ca. 1125), the author mentions five types of cun, of which only the hemp-fiber cun remained a common cun model in the following centuries. Han Zhuo wrote, “In addition, there are various kinds of cun. There is the hemp-fiber cun, the ornamental dot cun, the cutting mountain cun, the horizontal cun, and the uniform and connected water cun. For each of these strokes and dots there are ancient and modern schools, a number of whose rules still exist.” See Maeda, Two Twelfth Century Texts, 25.
Tang wrote, “Dong Yuan’s landscape painting was of two types: one type had ink alum-headed mountains, sparse woods, remote trees, and a tranquil atmosphere in a level-distance composition. He applied hemp-fiber cun on mountains and rocks. The other type was a colored landscape, [in which] he seldom applied texture with brushstrokes and his color was heavy and antique.” Translation from Chou with slight changes; see Chou, Study and Translation, 124. Chou redated Huajian from the 1320s and 1330s to the 1280s and 1290s; see Study and Translation, 33–53.
Yin Ji’nan, “Dong Yuan gainian,” 92–100.
Stanley-Baker proposes a gradual change: “In brushwork, modeling strokes were created and deployed in the tenth century to suit particular needs, and by the eleventh century
It is worth emphasizing that the many correspondences between cun models and painters circulating in late Chinese art writings had yet to emerge during the Yuan dynasty. Even though a text attributed to Huang Gongwang contains the famous instruction “first decide on the model of cun, and don’t mix them,” which alludes to the existence of multiple cun models, the text does not mention any cun models other than Dong Yuan’s hemp-fiber cun. See Huang Gongwang, “Xie shanshui,” 762.
Ho and Delbanco, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s Transcendence,” 16.
Fong, Images of the Mind, 170.
Dong Qichang, “Huachanshi,” 1014. Huang Gongwang had a similar suggestion; see note 105. However, Dong took a much firmer stand, turning Huang’s technical advice into a dogmatic principle.
According to Dong, the Northern school originated in the colored landscapes of Li Sixun (651–716) and his son Li Zhaodao (ca. 670–ca. 730); it was then transmitted to the brothers Zhao Boju (ca. 1120–ca. 1182) and Zhao Bosu (1124–82), and later to academic painters such as Ma Yuan, Xia Gui, Li Tang, and Liu Songnian of the Southern Song. The Southern school began with Wang Wei (701–61) and was continued by Jing Hao, Dong Yuan, Juran, Mi Fu and his son Mi Youren, the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty, and eventually by Wen Zhengming and Shen Zhou of the Ming. For studies on Dong’s theory of the two schools, see Ho, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s New Orthodoxy,” and Ho and Delbanco, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s Transcendence.”
Dong himself appealed to the two branches of Zen Buddhism, the “gradual enlightenment” branch of the Northern school and the “sudden enlightenment” branch of the Southern school, as an analogy to his two genealogies of landscape painting. For an in-depth study of Dong’s two-schools theory in relation to the sudden-gradual polarity in Chinese Buddhism, see Cahill, “Tung Ch’i-ch’ang’s ‘Southern and Northern,’” 429–46.
Chen Jiru, “Nigu lu,” 1049. For Chen Jiru and his relationship to Dong Qichang, see Greenbaum, Chen Jiru.
Wang Keyu, “Shanhuwang,” 1238. For a brief account on “Shanhuwang” and its influence, see Xie Wei, Zhongguo huaxue, 417–18.
Hu Peiheng, “Zhongguo shanshuihua,” 6.
Pan Zhizhong, “Baocanshi xiesheng,” 22.
Pan Zhizhong, “Baocanshi xiesheng,” 22.
Pan Zhizhong, “Baocanshi xiesheng,” 22; emphasis added.
He Tianjian, Xuehua shanshui, 5–10.
He Tianjian, Xuehua shanshui, 14–15.
The painting and the essay were both commissioned for and published in Scenic Views of Southeast China, discussed in chapter 1. He Tianjian, “Zhedong shanshui,” 3.
The sites He visited during the same trip included the Seventy-Two Peaks, the Northern Mount, Mount Dongyuan, Xianxia Peak, the Lan River, and Seven Miles Brook. See He Tianjian, “Zhedong shanshui,” 3–5.
He Tianjian, Xuehua shanshui, 22–23, 49–60.
The most in-depth study on Huang Binhong is Roberts, “Dark Side.”
In 1935, Huang traveled to Guilin, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, where he was received warmly by local painters. The main purpose of this trip was for Huang to show the southern painters how to conduct open-air painting successfully. Thus, in addition to giving painting demonstrations in front of the local artists, Huang also gave them advice on open-air painting, which was recorded and published by Zhang Hong (1891–1968), a painter, theorist, and connoisseur. See Huang Binhong, “Binhong huayulu,” 44, originally published in Meishu, a journal of the Guangzhou Fine Arts School, in 1935; later reprinted in Xueshu shijie (1936), vol. 1, no. 12. For a detailed account of Huang’s trip, see Hong Zaixin, “Xueshu yu shichang,” especially p. 66.
Dong writes, “The ancients say, ‘[A painting should] demonstrate brush and ink.’ People often do not understand the two words ‘brush’ and ‘ink.’ How would a painting not demonstrate brush and ink? [The correct way to understand it] is that, when there is outline but not cun models, we call it ‘without brush.’ When there are cun models but not different renditions for the front and the back, or the bright and the dim, we call it ‘without ink.’” Dong, “Huachanshi,” 1014. For Republican art writings that emphasize the “brush” as well as equating the “brush” to cun models, see Xu Dishan, “Zhongguo meishujia,” 241; Jiang Xizeng, “Zhongguohua”; Ling Shuhua, “Women zenyang kan Zhongguohua.”
A typical paragraph in He’s article reads like this: “Among the Seventy-Two Peaks, you can find those that resemble Fan Kuan’s soil-dots cun. The peaks are covered with small bushes as well as heavy soil. Some of them look like Xu Daoning’s thick-cloud combined with ax-cut cun. Some look like Tang Yin’s raveled-rope cun, which evolved from Li Tang’s [cun model]; some look like Xia Gui’s cun model; some look like Li Chen’s cun model.” See He Tianjian, “Zhedong shanshui,” 4.
Wang Yachen, “Guohua shang dili.”
Dong Qichang, “Huachanshi,” 1014.
Shitao argued for a wide variety of cun models. For a translation of his writing, see Strassberg, Enlightening Remarks, 74–76. For Wang Hui’s use of multiple cun models, see Wang Bihua, Wang Hui, 60, 62.
Fong, Images of the Mind, 196–97. For Gong Xian’s painting manual, see Wu, “Kung Hsien’s Style”; Zhang Erbin, “Du Gong Xian.”
Hu explains his choice: “The representation of the [different] facets of a rock entirely relies on cun models. Although there are many names [of cun models], such as the sesame-seed cun, the disorderly brushwood cun, the large and small ax-cut cun, the lotus-leaf cun, the folded-sash cun, the head-of-cloud cun, and so on, they all evolve from the hemp-fiber cun. Therefore, the hemp-fiber cun is the origin of all cun models. It was because this particular cun model is easy to depict and does not ruin [the habits of] your hand. As soon as you are used to painting it, you can make it exquisite and lustrous.” Hu Peiheng, Shanshui rumen, 15–16.
Huang Binhong, “Da Liu Yixin,” 413.
Xu Jianrong, Dafengtang, 34.
He Tianjian, Xuehua shanshui, 22–23, 27, 60.
Guoli lishi bowuguan, Zhang Daqian shuhuaji.
For Fu’s study in Japan, see Wong and Maeda, “Kindred Spirits,” 35–41. For studies on Fu Baoshi, see Wan Xinhua, Fu Baoshi yishu; Wan Xinhua, Yuedu Fu Baoshi, 243–78.
Takashima, Shasan yōketsu.
For the circumstances under which Fu translated the book, see Takashima, Xieshan yaofa.
Takashima, Xieshan yaofa, 18.
Nishida, “Meiji kōki no gaka.”
Takashima, Xieshan yaofa, 1.
The Republican arguments on the necessity of multiple cun models were also repeated by early PRC authors; see Lu Yuanding, “Guohua de tuichen chuxin,” 7.
See Hu Peiheng, Guilin xiesheng; Hu Peiheng, Hu Peiheng Guilin.
Zhongguo huihuashi; it was published in 1954 by the Commercial Press.
Chapter 4
For brief overviews on war and art, see Sullivan, Art and Artists, 91–112; Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, 115–37. For focused studies in Chinese, see Huang Zongxian, Da youhuan shidai; Huang Zongxian, Kangri zhanzheng meishu tushi; and Li Shusheng, Nuhou de huanghe. For an insightful new study on visual culture and the war, see Wu Xueshan, Changcheng.
“Song zhandi xieshengtuan,” 5. For open-air painting tours to the battlefield, see Huang Zongxian, Kangri zhanzheng, 128–29; Li, Nuhou de huanghe, 65–68; for the most detailed account by a participant, see Huang Zhaochang, “Zhandi xieshengdui.”
For examples, see Shen Yiqian’s battlefield sketches in Kangzhan manhua, no. 6 (1938): 8; Zhonghua, no. 96 (1940): 24.
Huang Mao, “Tan zhandi,” 30; Yi Ran, “Zhandi xiesheng,” 11–12; “Song zhandi xieshengtuan,” 5.
The war brought a dramatic change to women artists’ involvement in open-air painting. Although female art students were active participants in open-air painting before the war, the battlefield open-air painting troops we know of were made up entirely of male faculty members and students. Those women who had stood side by side with their male colleagues to conduct open-air painting in the 1930s had put down their brushes for various reasons. For instance, during the war, Qiu Di supported her husband Pang Xunqin while suspending her own painting practice. For Qiu Di’s life and work, see Qiu Di/Schudy.
Although Guan is recognized as an important painter of modern China, there has yet to be an in-depth study on him in English. For the most comprehensive collection of his works, see Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Guan Shanyue quanji.
The lack of action on the part of the leaders of the art world was criticized at the time by more radical cultural workers under the leadership of the Communist Party; see Yu Zhonghe, “Zhongguo meishujie,” 7–9.
For biographical information on Guan, see Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan.
For in-depth studies on Gao Jianfu, see Croizier, Art and Revolution; Li Weiming, “Xieshi zhuyi.”
Gao appraised Ju Lian’s practice using the phrase “his brush captures whatever his eyes observe” (yanzhi suodao, bibian nengdao) in his 1940 article “Ju Guquan xiansheng de huafa,” quoted in Li Weiming, “Xieshi zhuyi,” 54.
Li Weiming, “Jiuxue xinzhi.”
For Chen Shuren’s translation, see chapter 1; “Xinhuafa” (New method of painting), Chen’s translation of the Japanese art textbook Kaiga dokushūsho (Study of painting, 1909), initially appeared in sixteen installments from June 1912 to February 1913 in Zhenxiang huabao, of which Gao Jianfu was the chief editor. In 1916, Gao Jianfu’s Shenmei Publishing House published them in a single volume.
Croizier, Art and Revolution, 110–14. For excellent studies on Gao Jianfu’s vision of xinguohua, see Li Weiming, “Gao Jianfu ji qi xinguohua,” 129–47; Li Weiming, “Wenhua celüe,” 149–65.
Gao Jianfu routinely sent students of his Spring Slumber Studio away since frequent Japanese bombing had begun to disrupt teaching; see Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 39.
Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 39–42.
Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 69–72.
Croizier, Art and Revolution, 154.
Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Guan Shanyue quanji, Shanshuibian, shang, 52–54.
Croizier, Art and Revolution, 54–59, 128; Li Weiming, “Zai jieru yu chaotuo.”
See “Song Xu Daoning Xuexi,” 14–15; “Song Xu Daoning Guanshan,” 6–7; Xu Daoning’s Fisherman on a Snowy River was also published as a postcard. The Xuanhe Painting Catalogue (Xuanhe huapu) recorded forty-one wintry landscape paintings by Xu Daoning, a significant number both in Xu’s oeuvre and compared to his contemporaries; see Huiping Pang, “Strange Weather,” 10.
See Gao Jianfu’s Snowy Mountain Pass (n.d.), in Croizer, Art and Revolution, 56; and Chen Shuren, Snow at the Rocky Mountains (1928), in Li Weiming, “Zai jieru yu chaotuo,” 201.
For a similar case, see Edwards, “Drawing Sexual Violence.”
Guan Yi, “Bu xunchang de huazhan,” 201; Haojiangke, “Guan Shanyue,” 159.
Bao Limin, “Ye Qianyu,” 176–77.
For a brief account on Ruan’s life, see Deng Gewei, “Nanguo wenhua mingren,” 22–23.
Li Yansheng is probably best known today for Lu Xun’s criticism of him due to their difference in opinion on the vernacularization of the Chinese language. For Li’s role in the Guangxi government, see Guangxi dabaike quanshu, lishi, shang, 366.
Lary, Region and Nation; Pingchao Zhu, Wartime Culture, 1–36. For wartime Guangxi, see Hutchings, “Province at War.”
For Xu Beihong’s activities in Guilin, see essays by Zhang Anzhi, Xu Feibai, and Xu Jiemin in Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 646–64. This volume remains the most comprehensive collection of recollections of the lively art scene in wartime Guilin.
For a study on how Xu preferred to recruit the students from the National Central University in his establishment of an art education system prioritizing naturalism, see Cao Qinghui, “Xu Beihong meishu jiaoyu.”
Li Chenhui, “Kangzhan shiqi Guangxi yishu”; Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 729–36. For brief biographical information on Ai Zhongxin, Huang Yanghui, Zhang Anzhi, and Zong Qixiang, see Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists, 4, 62, 212, 243.
For a brief account on wartime woodcuts, see Andrews and Shen, Art of Modern China, 129–31.
Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 635.
For Huang Xinbo’s experience in Guilin, see Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 697–702; on the closely knit network of woodcut artists in Guilin, see Zhang Zaimin’s essay in Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 621–24.
See Huang Xinbo, “Guan Shanyue huaji qianyan,” 17, quoted in Chen Junyu, “Danqing xie bujin.”
Jiuwang ribao, November 1, 1940.
For Xia Yan and Jiuwang ribao in Guilin, see Pingchao Zhu, Wartime Culture, 50–54; for Ouyang Yuqian and the role he played in wartime Guilin, see pp. 143–58.
Jiuwang ribao, November 1, 1940.
Jiuwang ribao, November 2, 1940.
Xia Yan, “Guanyu Gan Shanyue huazhan,” 1. For a brief discussion of this exhibition, see Chen Junyu, “Danqing xie bujin.”
Xia Yan, “Guanyu Gan Shanyue huazhan,” 1.
Xia Yan, “Guanyu Gan Shanyue huazhan,” 1.
Xia Yan, “Guanyu Gan Shanyue huazhan,” 1.
Yu Suoya, “Guanshi huazhantan,” 8.
Lin Yong, “Jieshao Guan Shanyue gezhan,” 2.
Lin Yong, “Jieshao Guan Shanyue gezhan,” 2.
Lin Yong, “Jieshao Guan Shanyue gezhan,” 2–3.
Yu Suoya, “Guanshi huazhantan,” 8.
For Yu Suoya’s biography and his work in Guilin during the war, see Wei Hualing and Li Jianping, Kangzhan shiqi, 523–26.
Yu Suoya, “Guanshi huazhantan,” 8.
Yu Suoya, “Guanshi huazhantan,” 8.
Yu Suoya, “Guanshi huazhantan,” 8; emphasis added.
See Lü Sibai’s comment in Long Hong and Liao Ke, Kangzhan shiqi, 70.
Dao Cheng, “Kangzhan hou de yishu,” 7.
The first third of the painting is reproduced here. For a reproduction of the full scroll, see Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Guan Shanyue quanji, Shanshuibian, shang, 18–26.
Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 65–68.
Wu also published his inscription in a journal; see Wu Qichang, “Guan Shanyue,” 21. For a brief account of Wu Qichang’s life and work, see Wu Linghua, “Huannian fuqin,” 188–97.
Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, 232.
This piece does not bear signature or seal. Xiang Yuanbian (1525–90) attributed the work to Zhu Rui, a court painter active during the late Northern Song and early Southern Song. Since about 1960, scholars have largely accepted the reattribution to Wu Yuanzhi. See Silbergeld, “Back to the Red Cliff,” 27–28.
In 1980, Guan had the piece remounted and added the following inscription: “This painting was created in Guilin in the winter of 1941. I painted it at a friend’s home after inspiration from a trip to Li River in the fall of the same year. During the War of Resistance, this painting was exhibited in various cities in the southwest and the northwest. After the war, it was also exhibited in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and places in the South Seas (Nanyang). When the scroll was on display in Leshan, Sichuan, in 1943, after seeing it, Professor Wu Qichang of Wuhan University wrote an inscription despite his illness. Now [I have had] Master Zhang Guitong of the Rongbaozhai Studio meticulously
Lu Lin, “Guan Shanyue,” 9.
Chen Jiejin and Lai Yuzhi, Zhuisuo zhepai, 166.
Xia Gui Changjiang wanlitu.
International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Catalogue; Chen Shiju, “Guoshiguan guancang,” 176.
For instance, see Fang, “Scenery of Guilin,” 174.
See the comparison between Guan’s painting and photographs published in contemporaneous pictorial magazines in Chen Junyu, “Bieyou renjian xinglunan,” 199.
See Xu Beihong, Spring Rain at Li River (1937), in Chen Lüsheng and Zhang Weixing, Zhongguo shanshuihua, 1468.
Fang, “Scenery of Guilin,” 176.
Xu Beihong huaji, vol. 6, Youhua bufen, 60, 61.
See Chen’s inscription on Blue Peak Overlooking a River, in Chen Shuren, Guilin shanshui, n.p.
See Zhang Daofan’s comment in Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 129.
See Ye Qianyu’s public lecture in Long Hong and Liao Ke, Kangzhan shiqi, 132, originally published in Xin shubao, July 28, 1941. Ye diagnosed two major problems. First, after the initial excitement triggered by the outbreak of the war, artists began to recognize their inability to “represent grand subjects”; artists overtaken by self-doubt thus turned to technical improvement while slacking in creation. Second, certain “stubborn creators” continued to exhibit their older works, which, in Ye’s opinion, sent discouraging and confusing signals to young aspiring artists.
Long Hong and Liao Ke, Kangzhan shiqi, 62. Originally published in Xin shubao, January 27, 1940.
For Guan’s recollection of his encounter with Zhao, see Guan Shanyue, “Tonghang ru shouzu,” 80.
For Zhao’s early career, see Tseng, “Tuxiang zaixian,” 63–122.
Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 86–89.
For a general description of the site, see Whitfield, Whitfield, and Agnew, Cave Temples.
Chang Shuhong zizhuan, 43–96. Right before Zhao and Guan arrived, Zhang Daqian had departed after his last visit to the site; for a study on Zhang’s engagement with Dunhuang, see Fraser, “Sha Bo Tshe Ring.”
For a brilliant analysis of the emerging interest in the northwest, see Shen Sung-chiao, “Jiangshan ruci duojiao.”
For in-depth studies on this topic, see a series of articles by Hsiao-Ting Lin: “Nationalists, Muslim Warlords”; “From Rimland to Heartland”; and “War, Leadership and Ethnopolitics.”
For overviews of Republican artists who visited the borderland, see Dong Feifei, “Ershi shiji sishi niandai”; Wu Hongliang, “Mandao xunzhen.”
His decision deeply impressed Chen Shuren, who had arranged the position for Guan. See Chen Shufeng’s preface in Guan Shanyue jiyou huaji, n.p.
Xu Beihong’s preface in Guan Shanyue jiyou huaji, n.p.
Chen Shufeng’s preface in Guan Shanyue jiyou huaji, n.p.
For Guan’s own account of this event, see Guan Shanyue, “Huai Guolao,” 6–12. Both inscriptions emphasize the fact that Guan’s works are open-air paintings.
For a detailed discussion on camel paintings in premodern China, see Hsu, “Traveling to the Frontier,” 347–75.
For Liu Kuilin and his art, see Claypool, “Habitat Diorama,” 165–90.
Xiao and Zhang, Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, 319–20.
For a reproduction of this work, see Li Chao, Yongmeng jingjin, 101.
For numerous paintings of similar subjects by Guan, see Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Guan Shanyue quanji, Shanshuibian, shang, 120, 126, 128, 130, 132, 164. For Situ Qiao’s Herding at Tianshan (1944) in the collection of the National Art Museum of China, see Meishu 1980, no. 3: 26.
Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Guan Shanyue quanji, Shanshuibian, shang, 295.
For Chinese cavalry during the second Sino-Japanese war, see Zhou Chunlin, Jin’ge tiema; Cao Hongmao, Xinsijun qibingtuan.
I have chosen Liang Yongtai’s 1939 woodblock print as the illustration here because it was well received by Liang’s fellow woodblock artists; see Wang Qi, “Dao Liang Yongtai.” For more examples of woodblock prints featuring cavalry, see Zhang Wei and Huang Wei, Tiebi fenghua, 66, 75, 218, 262.
Ding Lanxiang, “Tuxiang, diyu, minzu,” 211.
Ding Lanxiang, “Tuxiang, diyu, minzu,” 211. For the meaning of the horse in premodern Chinese art, see Harrist and Bower, Power and Virtue. For a biography of Yu Youren, see Xu Youcheng and Xu Xiaobin, Yu Youren.
This section of the Yellow River is relatively narrow, and the phenomenon of the frozen river bridge is considered a unique local phenomenon; see Qian Tonghe, Lanzhou chengguan, 37–38.
Lu You, Jiannan shigao jiaozhu, 1429. For a detailed study on Lu You and his poems on dreams, see Lloyd, Poems in Dreams.
For a few examples of how Lu You and his poetry were evoked during the War of Resistance, see Zhou Shaolian, Weixin, jishi, jiuwang, 82; Cai Sui’ang, “Cai Yuanpei,” 36; Bai Ding and Tao Ying, “Ji kangri zhanzheng,” 93; Li Zhenjing, “Guanyu Li Jishen,” 186.
Qin Xiaoyi, Zhonghua minguo zhongyao shiliao, 50. I follow the translation of jianguo as “national reconstruction” by Rana Mitter, who explains that “this term seems to me to capture the element of continuation, by which the war and the aftermath became part of a longer trajectory of republican and citizen consciousness in the minds of Nationalist policymakers.” See Mitter, “Classifying Citizens,” 253, n. 22.
Jingping Wu, “Revenue”; Bian, “Sino-Japanese War”; Lim, China’s Quest, 47–74.
Mitter, “Classifying Citizens,” 274.
For the Cartoon Propaganda Unit, see Zhang Yinwu, Wuhan kangzhan meishu, 414–25.
For woodblock artists’ engagement with the factory experience, see Wu Xueshan, “Qidi xiangle.” For the difficulty oil painters faced in depicting national reconstruction and their solutions, see Cai Tao, “Xianggang Lingying.”
Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 729–36; Huang Yanghui, Gange piaobo; Zhang Anzhi huaji; Feng Fasi, Yiwei rensheng. The three painters all studied with Xu Beihong.
See Jiang Liang’s exhibition review in Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 553–54. Initially published in Saodang bao, September 11, 1941.
Zelin, Merchants of Zigong, 14–21.
For instance, see Fu Baoshi, “Dongbei xiesheng,” 17–18.
Barnhart, “Figures.”
Huang Yanghui relocated to Guilin after the fall of Nanjing and worked as an art teacher there. He voluntarily spent his summer breaks doing open-air painting along the Gui-Sui highway, a major transportation line under construction to link Guilin with Sansui in Guizhou Province. See Huang Yanghui’s recollections in Yang Yiqun, Kangzhan shiqi, 733–34.
For accounts on the Qiangui railway, see Ling Hongxun, Zhonghua tielushi, 172–75; Gui Shuqin, “Kangri zhanzheng.” Because the railway company was directly controlled by the Nationalist government, artists who remained in mainland China after 1949 tend to be vague about such experiences. Huang never explicitly stated the nature of his employment himself, but his formal employment was later confirmed by his family; see Huang Yanghui, 118. Wang Yufu, a now little-known guohua painter who aspired to incorporate elements of Western painting, was also hired, which indicates that the department had more than one painter as staff members. See Wang Yufu, “Zizhuan jielu,” 368.
Xu was obsessed with mural design at the time. Although Xu appreciated Huang’s sketches, Xu’s letters make it clear that he did not consider them sufficient end products on their own but steps in the creation of large-scale oil paintings or murals. See Xu’s letters dated May 21, 1941; October 10, 1941; and July 25, 1942, in Wang Zhen, Xu Beihong shuxinji, 186.
Most of Huang’s works were lost during the war. For a small number of extant paintings from this period, see Huang Yanghui, Gange piaobo.
For a fascinating in-depth study on the 1954 painting, see Wu Xueshan, “‘Xin’ kaifa de gonglu.”
Chen Lüsheng, “Jianshe xin Zhongguo,” 12–24.
Chapter 5
For posing in PRC photography, see Jin Yongquan’s brilliant Hongqi zhaoxiangguan.
Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 154–65.
For Guan’s experience during the early People’s Republic, see Guan Zhendong, Qingman guanshan, 154–65. For a brief history of the Guangzhou Art Academy, see Huang Weiyu, “Guangdongsheng gaodeng meishu yuanxiao,” 236–39.
For Guan’s open-air painting tours overseas, see Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Yiyu xinglü.
This important work is well discussed in Andrews, Painters and Politics, 227–28; Chung, Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution, 142–46; and Wan Xinhua, Jiangshan ruci duojiao.
For an inspiring study on art worlds, although of a different period and of a different nature, see Wue, Art Worlds.
The photographer in this case did not force the sitters to smile. For one example in which painters and onlookers are smiling, see Shanghai meishu chubanshe, Shisanling shuiku gongdi sheying, 26. However, the majority of socialist photographic representations of painters conducting open-air painting sessions take a similarly somber approach.
For discussions on the early years of the PRC art world, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 34–73; Hung, Mao’s New World, 182–212.
Previous studies on PRC open-air painting have mirrored this divide, focusing either on oil painting or on guohua without addressing their shared political and cultural milieu. For an example, see Wang Xianyue, “Xiesheng yu xin shanshuihua.” This study approaches open-air painting as an innovation of PRC guohua without taking into
One good example is Luo Gongliu. See Luo Gongliu, Geming lishihua; Liu Xiaochun Luo Gongliu; Yu Yanjun, Luo Gongliu.
See Maksimov, “Sulian huajia,” 21–22; Zhu Sha, Sulian meishu yu xin Zhongguo, 182–207. For an explicit call for open-air painting, see Gerasimov, “Zhi Zhongguo meishujiamen,” 37.
For a brief introduction to Maksimov’s approach to training, see Cao Qinghui, “Make-ximofu youhua xunlianban.” For recollections of participants in Maksimov’s classes regarding their training in open-air painting, see Jin Shangyi and Wang Chengyi, “Huainian women de laoshi,” 58, 60.
Zhongguo meishuguan, Liuxue dao Sulian, 38–44.
Cao Qinghui, “‘Xuedaoshou zaibian,’” 107.
For a poignant description, see Fu Baoshi, “Chulun Zhongguo huihua wenti.” This essay was initially written in July 1951 for a lecture at the Department of Art of the Teachers School at Nanjing University.
Xu Beihong, “Mantan shanshuihua.” Originally published in the first issue of Xinjianshe in 1950.
Ai Qing, “Tan Zhongguohua,” 7–8. For a complete translation of the essay, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 117–18. For an insightful study on the reform of guohua and the so-called xinguohua, see Hang Chunxiao, “Xin guohua.”
This change was most likely the result of a variety of developments in the political and cultural spheres. First, the purge of Jiang Feng, the top cadre of the art world who had unreservedly favored oil painting over guohua, helped to bring more positive attention to guohua. Guohua supporters seized the opportunity to condemn the neglect or marginalization of guohua. Second, Mao’s desire to nurture alternative cultural forces that could counter the cultural dominance of the Soviet Union also brought new momentum to development of indigenous art, including guohua. See Hang Chunxiao, “Xin guohua,” 126; Andrews, “Traditional Painting.”
Andrews, “Traditional Painting,” 568–72.
Zhou Yang, “Guanyu meishu gongzuo,” 15–18.
Cai Ruohong, “Guanyu guohua chuangzuo,” 15.
Occasionally, there were different opinions regarding the correct approach to open-air painting. For instance, the open-air paintings of the 1954 tour by Zhang Ding, Li Keran, and Luo Yin raised doubts; see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 171–72.
Beijing huayuan, 20 shiji Beijing huihuashi, 241–44; Andrews, Painters and Politics, 169–74, Wang Xianyue, “Xiesheng yu xin shanshuihua,” 89–117.
Hang Chunxiao, “Xin guohua,” 129. For Qin Zhongwen’s stance on guohua and its reform, see Beijing huayuan, Beijing huihuashi, 185–90, 245–55.
Although painters painting outdoors had become a popular subject in photography no later than the 1920s, surprisingly few Republican painters chose to feature the subject in their painting.
Laing, Winking Owl, 20. For the history of the concept of socialist realism in the Chinese context, especially literature, see Bichler, “Coming to Terms.”
Suzuki, Narrating the Self, 45–46; Scott, “Artists Stretch Their Legs,” 21–49.
Feng, “Tan suxie,” 5; Zhao Wangyun, “Yao chuangzuo,” 13; Ni Yide, “Huashi suibi,” 22–23.
Wu Xueshan, “Meijie yishi xingtai.”
Cai Ruohong, “Yinian lai de meishu,” 5.
For a succinct discussion of the Anti-Rightist campaign and the art world, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 188–200.
“Yu gongnong jiehe,” 4.
“During the ‘going down to the countryside’ in 1955, the experience of life was denounced while open-air painting was promoted. When [we] returned to campus to conclude this experience, the discussion only concerned the learning of techniques without any attention to thought reform. During the trip in 1957, [people] only looked for ‘pictorial’ spots to depict, without considering the life of the people or the construction of the nation. The few professors who insisted on diving deep into life and who led students to create a lot of open-air paintings reflecting the life and feelings of the people were not given attention. When students’ open-air paintings were chosen for exhibition, [they] only chose the landscape ones that stressed nothing more than [the techniques of] color, water, and lines.” See “Xiangdang jiaoxin,” 8. For similar discussions, see “Zichan jieji,” 2; “Laodongzhong quhua,” 7.
“Xiangdang jiaoxin,” 8; Yuan Yunfu, “Xingwu miezi,” 14; “Zichan jieji,” 2; “Laodongzhong quhua,” 7.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 6–7, 20.
For a collection of studies on landscapes of industrial construction, see Guan Shanyue meishuguan, Jianshe xin Zhongguo.
Chen Lüsheng, “Jianshe xin Zhongguo,” 13.
“Wei zhengqu meishu chuangzuo,” 9. For a brief discussion of the life and work of Zhang Xuefu, see Zhang Ying, “Ziyun jizhu.” For Ai Zhongxin’s own discussion on the creation of the painting, see Ai Zhongxin, “Huishi sanji,” 14.
Pan Jiezi, “Rang hua’er kaide gengmei,” 14.
For a brief account of the construction of dams in 1950s China, see Shapiro, Mao’s War, 21–66; Pietz, Yellow River, 130–93.
Occasionally, it was those in charge of the construction project who invited artists. Wu Zuoren’s visit to Foziling Reservoir is an example; see Shang Hong, Wu Zuoren, 109.
“Wei zhengqu meishu chuangzuo,” 11. For a detailed study on Liu Zijiu, see He Yanzhe and Liu Jiajing, Liu Zijiu.
Zhang, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 6–7.
Wan Xinhua, “Tushi gexin,” 122.
Maksimov, “Guanyu goutu,” 45–50.
Maksimov, “Guanyu goutu,” 42.
This is well reflected in Maksimov, “Guanyu goutu,” 41–42.
Zhang, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 30.
Zhang, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 30.
Zhongguo qingnianbao, August 30, 1958.
For Xie Ruijie’s well-acclaimed Geological Inspection at Sanmenxia on the Yellow River (1955), see Zou Yuejin, Xin Zhongguo meishushi, 51. Xie Ruijie majored in Western-style painting at the Shanghai Art Academy; see Cao Xinlin, “Jingshen qinghuai,” 22; Xie Ruijie, “Shuoshuo wo zhe yisheng,” 9–11. Li Shuoqin majored in Western-style painting at Xinhua Art College in Shanghai. For Li’s art and life, see Zhang Jichang, “Woguo zhuming guohuajia,” 18–23.
These efforts led to many awkward compositions that revealed painters’ technical struggle. For instance, see He Tianjian’s 1957 work Rock Quarry at Danjing, in Wan Junchi, Ershi shiji Zhongguo xueyuanpai, 147.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 6.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 7.
Hay, “Body Invisible?” 64.
Qiu Shiming, “Guanyu guohua chuangzuo,” 38; Sun Qifeng, “Guanyu Zhongguohua de toushi,” 43–44; Luo Shuzi, “Shanshuihua,” 37–38.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 7.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 7.
Zhang Wenjun, “Xuexi Zhongguohua chuangzuo,” 6.
For instance, see Wang Chengyi, Xin’anjiang shuidianzhan.
For a clear and succinct account of the origin and political significance of the Shisanling Reservoir, see Zhuoyi Wang, Revolutionary Cycles, 100–103.
See Renmin meishu chubanshe, Shisanling shuiku.
Dong’s selection of a high viewing position, which enabled this majestic view, becomes even more apparent when compared with a photograph taken from a similar angle by Xue Zijiang (1910–62); see Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, Shisanling shuiku, n.p.
Wan Xinhua, “Tushi gexin,” 124.
Laing, Winking Owl, 44–45.
For a succinct explanation of revolutionary romanticism, see Lan, “‘Socialist Realism,’” 88–105; Bichler, “Coming to Terms,” 37–39.
Goldman, “Party and Intellectuals.”
Ge Lu, “Chuangzaoxing de zaixian,” 12.
Ge Lu, “Chuangzaoxing de zaixian,” 12.
Chang Youming, “Shafulasuofu [Savrasov] de Baizuiya feilaile.”
Maksimov was unimpressed by the kind of landscape that was merely “geographic” documentation of the variety of topographic features in China. Instead, he proposed a “correct understanding of landscape painting”: “The power of landscape painting is determined by whether the image in the painting is poetic. If this element, [the poetic], is strongly expressed in the landscape painting, the painting will be rich in content, loaded with emotion, and capable of arousing viewers’ emotions.” Maksimov, “Sulian huajia,” 10.
For a focused discussion, see Fong and Murck, “Three Perfections.”
“Baihua yingchun,” 7. Wu Zuoren published an article around the same time that argues “open-air painting while facing the view” (duijing xiesheng) is not always necessary. See Wu Zuoren, “Fengjinghua yaobuyao duijing,” 2.
“Baihua yingchun,” 7.
It was highlighted as one of the most successful pieces of this exhibition by reporters and reviewers alike. See “Baihua yingchun,” 6; Lao She, “Yingchun huazhan,” 6. Guan Songfang is among those modern Chinese painters who once had considerable influence but have fallen into obscurity since. He was born to a Manchu aristocratic family that took a Han last name after the fall of the Qing imperial dynasty. Guan started painting at an early age but never studied under a master. His training was mostly based on copying premodern masterpieces, which were available to him thanks to his close relationship with Manchu aristocratic circles. In the late 1920s, he and Pu Xinshe (1896–1963) were the leaders of the Songfeng Painting Society (Songfeng huahui), a Beijing-based organization
Lao She, “Yingchun huazhan,” 6. For Lao She’s lifelong interest in painting, see Xie Honggan, “Shu Yi,” 98–101.
For a reproduction of this painting, see https://auction.artron.net/paimai-art39120855/.
Ye Qianyu, “Guamu kan shanshui,” 3.
“Baihua yingchun,” 7.
Ye Qianyu, “Guamu kan shanshui,” 4.
Guan Songfang, “Zhongguohua yao fang yicai,” 10.
Lan, “‘Socialist Realism,’” 91; Bichler, “Coming to Terms,” 36–39.
For a brief overview of the painting, see Sturman, “Landscape,” 188–90.
Guan Songfang, “Zhongguohua yao fang yicai,” 10.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5. Yu Ben’s stylistic change was noted by most contemporary critics and commentators; see Xie Jun, Yongheng de pusu, 89, 93, 99–100, 117, 128, 131, 141–43. Yu Feng was trained as a Western-style painter but played multiple roles as editor and organizer in left-wing art circles. During the 1950s, she held such important positions as deputy secretary-general of the Association of Chinese Artists and director of exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China. For a biography of Yu Feng, see Li Wanwan, Yu Feng.
For Yu Ben’s career in Canada, see Chen Jichun, “Yu Ben zaonian.” Like most Chinese oil painters who suffered from the lack of a market, Yu’s experience in Hong Kong was far from easy. He was particularly known for realistic depictions of destitute commoners. His sympathy for the masses and fine technique won him respect from the visiting Xu Beihong, who would play a role in Yu’s final relocation to mainland China. For Yu Ben’s biography, see Zhu Qi, Xianggang meishushi, 72–73; Zhonggong Taishan shiwei dangshi yanjiushi, Taishan wenhua mingren, 11–20.
Guangzhoushi Dongshanqu qiaowuzhi, 47–48.
For a few examples, see Yu Ben huaji, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26.
Yu Ben traveled along with Yu Feng, the renowned painter Wu Zuoren, and Wu’s wife, Xiao Shufang. Wu Zuoren, Yu Feng, and Xiao Shufang all occupied important positions in the art world and were close friends; Yu Ben had little interaction with this group before or after the tour. The team went to Harbin from Beijing, then visited Mudanjiang City and the famous scenic spot Jingpo Lake. They were hosted by the Harbin Municipal Branch of the Chinese Artists Association. Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue traveled to the area around the same time, and the two teams met in Harbin and traveled to Jingpo Lake together. However, the two trips resulted from separate initiatives that reflected the shared desire of the central and local governments to increase the visibility of the northeast. For Yu Ben’s trip, see Shang Hong, Wu Zuoren nianpu, 133; for Fu’s and Guan’s trip, see Wan Xinhua, “Guan Shanyue Dongbei xiesheng.”
This piece was listed in the collection of the National Art Museum of China—see Zhongguo xiandai meishu, 15—but it cannot be found in the National Art Museum of China database.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5.
Hanyu dacidian, 378.
Wu Zuoren, “Zuohua bixian liyi.”
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5.
Yu Feng, “Xiesheng he liyi,” 5; emphasis added.
The team was composed of five established senior painters, Fu Baoshi, Yu Tongfu (1897–1937), Qian Songyan, Ding Shiqing (1900–1976), and Zhang Jin (1906–88); mid-career painters who were also cultural cadres or trusted party members, including Ya Ming, Wei Zixi (1915–2002), and Song Wenzhi (1919–99); and young instructors and students from local art academies, including Wang Xuyang (1932–), a young teacher from the Luxun Art Academy, Sui Guanrong (1932–), a young teacher from the Nanjing Art Academy, and three students of guohua, including Zhu Xiuli (1938–), Tai Qiyou, and Huang Mingqian (1936–). The list comes from Huang Mingqian’s memoir, which remains the most detailed account of this tour; see Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan. For brief discussions of this tour in English, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 263; Laing, Winking Owl, 38.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 254–64.
The proposal was rejected by the Jiangsu Painting Institute, which planned to keep this group in its own collection; see Jiangsu Provincial Archive 4015-003-0188, 6–7.
Ya Ming recalled that Cai Ruohong, then the vice president of the Artists Association, disparaged the tour because “old painters in Beijing had already run around without any worthy outcome.” See Wan Xinhua, “Tushi gexin,” 132.
In fact, without direct intervention by Jiang Weiqing (1910–2000), secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, the leader and most famous guohua painter at the time, Fu Baoshi, would already have been relocated to Shanghai to serve at the painting institute to be established there. When the proposal to relocate Fu to Shanghai reached the Provincial Party Committee, Jiang refused to approve it and instead put forward the proposal that Jiangsu should have its own painting institute. See Ma Hongzen, Xin Jinling huapai, 32. For provincial cadres’ involvement in the early open-air painting tours of Jiangsu painters, see Wan Xinhua, “Tushi gexin,” 109–42.
“Jiangsusheng Zhongguohua zhanlanhui,” 9.
For the painting, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 260–63.
Fu Baoshi, “Sixiang bianle.” Published in Renmin ribao, February 26, 1961; reprinted in Jiangsusheng guohuayuan, Shanhe xinmao; and in Fu Baoshi et al., Zhuangyou wanli hua danqing.
Fu Baoshi, “Sixiang bianle.”
For Ya Ming’s biography, see Andrews, Painters and Politics, 260–63; Ma Hongzeng, Xin Jinling huapai, 36–37, 192–218.
For a few examples, see Shanghai Municipal Archive C37-2-489; C37-2-591; C37-2-613; C37-2-763; C37-2-661. Also see Jin Yongquan, Meiyisheng kuaimen, 22–62.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 112–13.
For a recent, innovative study on famine, see Wemheuer, Famine Politics.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 10.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 13.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 205.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 117, 115.
Fu Baoshi, “Sixiang bianle.”
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 166.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 205.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 205.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 121.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 129.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 121.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 31.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 50, 102–4, 106.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 119.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 24–28.
See, for example, Fu Baoshi, The Summit of the Tatra Mountains, 1957, in Chung, Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution, 116.
The most in-depth study on Qian remains Ma Hongzeng, Qian Songyan yanjiu. The biographical information below comes from this study. Qian was born to the impoverished family of a village schoolteacher in Yixing, Jiangsu Province. He showed great interest in painting at an early age and practiced by copying The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting as well as Dianshizhai Pictorial in his father’s collection. Qian also benefited from the rich visual resources of the lower Yangzi Valley, such as temple murals, local painting-mounting workshops, and wooden relief decorations on buildings. His talent was further developed when he went to the Number Three Provincial Teachers College in Wuxi. Painting was an integral, although not main, part of the curriculum of the teachers college. Qian was exposed to basic skills and knowledge of Western-style painting such as sketching from life, linear perspective, and color theory, but his main interest remained in guohua. A supportive art teacher lent him collotype reproductions of premodern paintings, and Qian frequented mounting stores to study the works on display. On graduation in 1923, Qian started the typical career of a guohua painter, holding teaching positions in grade schools and art schools while actively selling paintings on the side.
For examples, see Qian Songyan.
Ma Hongzeng, Qian Songyan yanjiu, 6–21; Ma Hongzeng, Xin Jinling huapai, 35–36, 40.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 4, 27; Qian Songyan, Yanbian diandi, 29.
Qian was proud of his observation of the difference in tile arrangement in the roofs of northern and southern China. See Qian Songyan, Yanbian diandi, 20–21.
Qian Songyan, Yanbian diandi, 8.
Huang Mingqian, Bimo jiangshan, 101.
Qian Songyan, Yanbian diandi, 29–30.
Qian Songyan, “Chuangzuo Hongyan diandi,” 10–11; Pan Jiezi, “Zan Hongyan,” 12–13.
Note that Qian Songyan’s new style resonated with Li Keran’s stylistic transformation. Because of Li’s iconic work Ten Thousand Crimson Hills, of which the artist made many versions during the 1960s, some critics used the term “red landscape” to refer to this new
Ma Hongzeng, Xin Jinling huapai, 63.
It is not coincidental that he is remembered as not just an outstanding artist but a true intellectual of uncompromised integrity; see Yin Shuangxi, “Yige zhishuaizhengzhi.”
Michael Sullivan states that Wu’s “oils reveal a sensitivity of color and of touch unmatched by Xu Beihong, Liu Haisu, or even his own teacher Lin Fengmian.” See Sullivan, “Wu Guanzhong,” 6. For similar opinions, see Lucy Lim, Wu Guanzhong, especially the essays by Richard Barnhart and James Cahill, as well as Farrer, Wu Guanzhong.
For the academy in Hangzhou, see Bao, Lin, and Lane, Art and Artists, 49–50. For a detailed biography of Wu Guanzhong, see Farrer, Wu Guanzhong, 38–45. For brief biographies of Lin Wenzheng, Wu Dayu, and Cai Weilian, see Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists, 7, 96, 174.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 3:67.
For Dong Xiwen’s 1954 trip to Tibet, see Zhou Gonghua, Youhua minzuhua, 104.
Wu Guanzhong, Wo fu danqing, 157.
Cao Qinghui, “Xu Beihong meishu jiaoyu,” 118–23.
Wu later recalled that Shao was included in the trip as a personal favor to a colleague. Wu Guanzhong bairitan, 99; for Wu’s own recollection of the trip, see Wu Guanzhong wenji, 3:106–9.
For the exhibition, see a report published in People’s Daily, March 12, 1962, 2. See also Renmin meishu chubanshe, Xizang xiesheng huaji.
Ai Zhongxin, “Youhua fengcai,” 5; Wu Guanzhong, “Tan fengjinghua,” 27–28.
Renmin ribao, February 25, 1962, 6.
Renmin meishu chubanshe, Xizang xiesheng huaji.
Lillian Tseng, “Bianjiang yu neidi,” 676; Shang Hong, “Xixing wudao,” 189.
See Dong Xiwen huaji, 69, 89.
Ai Zhongxin, “Youhua fengcai,” 5.
For Luo Gongliu’s training, see Luo Gongliu and Liu Xiaochun, “Tanlu: yu Luo Gongliu duihua,” Meishu yanjiu 2000, no. 3: 8–12.
For a long list of such criticisms, see Zhu Sha, Sulian meishu, 185–86.
Konstantin M. Maksimov wrote: “Those painters who can only use factory-made primary colors cannot be counted as colorists. On the contrary, great colorists are great because they use the primary colors made by factories, but only through their own experience of the visible world. They cultivate these colors, transforming them into something noble and creating invaluable mixtures from them so that, when we see their paintings, it is difficult to speculate which colors constituted this and that color relation.” See “Youhua,” 11.
Maksimov, “Youhua,” 11.
Shanghai Municipal Archive, C37-2-125-24, 13. For biographies of Guan Liang, see Sullivan, Modern Chinese Artists, 44; Ke Wenhui, Guan Liang.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:12.
For the increasing emphasis on color and light among Soviet painters, see Reid, “De-Stalinization,” 177–201; Reid, “Soviet Art World.”
For contemporaneous discussions on the nationalization of oil painting, see Dong Xiwen, “Cong Zhongguo huihua”; Wu Zuoren, “Dui youhua ‘minzuhua.’”
Wu Guanzhong, “Tan fengjinghua,” 28.
Wu Guanzhong, Wu fu danqing, 36.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:259.
Wu Guanzhong, “Tan fengjinghua,” 28.
Wu Guanzhong, “Tan fengjinghua,” 29.
For a detailed study on the Jinggang Mountains in the context of Party history, see Averill, Revolution.
Wu Guanzhong, “Jinggangshan.”
For instance, see Wu Zuoren, “Dui youhua ‘minzuhua.’”
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:89.
Wu challenged the idea that open-air painting trips would always bring stimulation. He stated that what seemed new and exciting might quickly turn banal, and novelty of the subject was always a relative matter, as an enormous cactus that excites viewers of the northeast would hardly arouse or satisfy a viewer from Yunnan. See Wu Guanzhong, “Tan fengjinghua,” 27.
Wu is probably the most prolific writer among modern Chinese painters. For his impressive list of publications, see Wu Guanzhong wenji, 3:527–28.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:17.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:83, 89.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:75.
For a reproduction of The Potala Palace, see Shui Zhongtian and Wang Hua, Wu Guanzhong quanji, vol. 2, 108.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:66.
For the sculpture, see Zhongguo meishu quanji, 12:184–85.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:216; Sullivan, “Wu Guanzhong,” 7.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 1:213–14; 3:147–59; 3:185–96.
For instance, Wu Guanzhong dismissed Tsuguharu Foujita (1886–1968), who had become the most successful painter from the East in the Parisian art world, and considered his work shallow and self-exoticizing. Wu Guanzhong wenji, 3:155, 371. For a study on Foujita, see Birnbaum, Glory.
Wu Guanzhong wenji, 3:67, 338, 370–74.
Epilogue
For a catalogue of the exhibition, see Li Xiangyang and Xu Jiang, Reactivation.
For the artist’s statement on the piece, see the Shanghai Biennale web archive, http://www.shanghaibiennale.org/en/artist/detail_past/389/58.html/ (accessed January 15, 2018).
Gao, Inside/Out, 162.
For recent English scholarship on Qiu, see Cheng, “De/Visualizing Calligraphic Archaeology”; Eugene Wang, “How Was a Gesamtkunstwerk”; Hopfener, “Qiu Zhijie’s Self-Conception”; Hopfener, “Qiu Zhijian as Historian.”
Qiu has published extensively on Total Art; see Qiu Zhijie, “Total Art”; Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo; Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishulun.
Wu Chengjun, “Zhongguo shanshuihua”; Zhu Xiaohong, “Waichu xiesheng”; Li Taixuan and Luo Mengxing, “Fengjing xiesheng.”
For accounts on this transition, see Debevoise, Between State and Market; Hung Wu, Contemporary Chinese Art, 352–62; Meiqin Wang, “Officializing the Unofficial.”
Zhongguo meishu xueyuan, Man’ge huaiyi, 433.
Henri, Total Art. For the Chinese translation, see Henri, Zongti yishu.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 7–8.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 23–25, 34–59.
Qiu, “Total Art,” 78.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 142–70.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 150.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 154.
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 150–54.
For instance, in 2009, the Research Institute of Contemporary Art (Zhongguo dangdai yishu yanjiuyuan) was established under the National Institute of Art Research (Zhongguo yishu yanjiuyuan) based in Beijing, an organization that is both a think tank and a graduate training institute directly under the leadership of the Ministry of Culture. About twenty well-acclaimed contemporary Chinese artists, including Qiu Zhijie, accepted the honor of becoming its members.
For a general overview of China’s higher education expansion, see Xiaoyan Wang and Jian Liu, “China’s Higher Education,” 213–29.
The statistics for this category did not exist before 2008 or after 2015. See http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01&zb=A0M0G02&sj=2015 (accessed January 12, 2018).
Wang Yi, “Hubei yishu xiesheng,” 263.
Chen Luohui and Yan Jinling, “Xiesheng jidi,” 116.
Liu Qirang, “Shaanxi yishu xiesheng,” 77.
For the digital portal, see http://47.104.101.251/AP/desktopE_cargo.html (accessed January 10, 2019). For an insightful article that touches on the embrace of timeless picturesque views by important Party artists, although of an older generation, see Wu Xueshan, “Gu Yuan.”
Xu Huan, “Xiesheng jidi de bianqian,” 48.
Association for Artists, Henan Province, “Henansheng meixie shenzha xin moshi,” November 10, 2017, http://www.henanshengmeixie.com/Item/Show.asp?m=1&d=4306/ (accessed January 15, 2018).
Qiu Zhijie, Zongti yishu chuangzuo, 8.