Title: Reproducing Chinese Painting: Revised Histories, Illustration Strategies, and the Self-Positioning of Guohua Painters in the 1930s
Abstract:Many Chinese painters working in the medium of ink painting, or guohua, in the 1930s saw their medium at a historical turning point.They perceived a necessity to strengthen ink painting conceptually a...Many Chinese painters working in the medium of ink painting, or guohua, in the 1930s saw their medium at a historical turning point.They perceived a necessity to strengthen ink painting conceptually and formally in order for it to persist in a globalizing modern world.This essay studies how modern ink painters positioned their works through both an analysis of their texts and a study of reproductions in publications related to the Chinese Painting Association (Zhongguo Huahui).Many painters worked as editors for book companies, journals, or pictorials, and they were highly conscious of the possibilities and limitations of particular reproduction techniques.An analysis of the editorial arrangements, choices of printing techniques, and textual framings of the reproduced works sheds light on the social structures of the Chinese art world of the 1920s and 30s, and on the role that the editors envisioned for themselves, their associations, and modern ink painting in general.According to its mission statement, the Chinese Painting Association (Zhongguo Huahui 中國畫會), founded in 1932 by several prominent guohua 國畫 ("national painting") artists working in Shanghai, had three main goals: "(1) to develop the age-old art of our nation; (2) to publicize it abroad and raise our international artistic stature; (3) with a spirit of mutual assistance on the part of the artists, to plan for a [financially] secure system." 1 One of the activities by which the association aimed to fulfill the first two of these goals was the publication of a journal, Guohua yuekan 國畫月刊, or National Painting Monthly, and of a catalogue of works by its members across the country, titled Zhongguo xiandai minghua huikan 中國現代名畫彙刊 (Collection of Famous Modern Chinese Paintings). 2 The texts as well as the illustrations in the journal and the catalogue reflected the programmatic impulse that led to the foundation of the Chinese Painting Association.Because it became the largest art organization in Republican China and the only one officially registered with the government, its key publications are of crucial importance for a differentiated understanding of how artists working in the medium of guohua defined their practice visually and theoretically.Moreover, these artists positioned their artistic practice with regard to other media or other historical moments, most notably in relation to "Western" (i.e., European) painting and its global transformations.This aspect isRead More
Title: $Reproducing Chinese Painting: Revised Histories, Illustration Strategies, and the Self-Positioning of Guohua Painters in the 1930s
Abstract: Many Chinese painters working in the medium of ink painting, or guohua, in the 1930s saw their medium at a historical turning point.They perceived a necessity to strengthen ink painting conceptually and formally in order for it to persist in a globalizing modern world.This essay studies how modern ink painters positioned their works through both an analysis of their texts and a study of reproductions in publications related to the Chinese Painting Association (Zhongguo Huahui).Many painters worked as editors for book companies, journals, or pictorials, and they were highly conscious of the possibilities and limitations of particular reproduction techniques.An analysis of the editorial arrangements, choices of printing techniques, and textual framings of the reproduced works sheds light on the social structures of the Chinese art world of the 1920s and 30s, and on the role that the editors envisioned for themselves, their associations, and modern ink painting in general.According to its mission statement, the Chinese Painting Association (Zhongguo Huahui 中國畫會), founded in 1932 by several prominent guohua 國畫 ("national painting") artists working in Shanghai, had three main goals: "(1) to develop the age-old art of our nation; (2) to publicize it abroad and raise our international artistic stature; (3) with a spirit of mutual assistance on the part of the artists, to plan for a [financially] secure system." 1 One of the activities by which the association aimed to fulfill the first two of these goals was the publication of a journal, Guohua yuekan 國畫月刊, or National Painting Monthly, and of a catalogue of works by its members across the country, titled Zhongguo xiandai minghua huikan 中國現代名畫彙刊 (Collection of Famous Modern Chinese Paintings). 2 The texts as well as the illustrations in the journal and the catalogue reflected the programmatic impulse that led to the foundation of the Chinese Painting Association.Because it became the largest art organization in Republican China and the only one officially registered with the government, its key publications are of crucial importance for a differentiated understanding of how artists working in the medium of guohua defined their practice visually and theoretically.Moreover, these artists positioned their artistic practice with regard to other media or other historical moments, most notably in relation to "Western" (i.e., European) painting and its global transformations.This aspect is