Feng Zikai was born in 1898 in Tongxiang in the Zhejiang province, just after the First Sino-Japanese War. He was the youngest of seven girls and was raised by a wealthy and educated family. His art career began once he started at the Zhejiang First Normal School. There, he was taught by Li Shutong, a Westernizer who tried to push Western styles such as nude painting and sketching in his teachings. Once Feng graduated, he became an art teacher in Shanghai. He used the values of the May 4th Movement in his teachings. (Wikipedia 2020) In 1921, he left for Japan shortly after Japan’s victory in WWI. Here he studied Japanese and European art, and later brought this knowledge to China. He took another art teacher position, and he also became an essayist and artist for radical political magazines. (Wikipedia 2020) He published unique political comics, known as “manhua,” or impromptu sketches, and soon Chinese cartoon art was known as “Zikai Manhua.” (Feng 1970) He described this as, “painting styles that employs a simplified brushwork to express meaning.” (Feng 1970) He focused on tragedies of war and suffering that falls upon daily lives of ordinary people.
Figure 1. Drunken Old Farmer. Feng Zikai. Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper. 1947. Mutualart.com (https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Drunk-Old-Man/5D3319F8CC473351)
Sources
“Feng Zikai.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Zikai.
Feng Zikai. (1970, January 1). Retrieved from https://www.lambiek.net/artists/f/feng_zikai.htm
