Figure 1: Feng Zikai “1 want to become an angel. / Soaring high in the sky, / Following the enemy planes, / And grabbing their bombs.” Scroll, ink on paper. Feng Zikai, Jianwen I (August 1, 1928: 2), Guangzhou.
This work by Feng Zikai is one that he created to reflect his own, his family’s, and other Chinese citizen’s experiences during the war against Japan in the mid-twentieth century. This piece is ink on a scroll format and is one of the more traditional pieces that he created. This painting is black and white, with simple detail in the people and the background, yet Feng was not attempting to create some artistic masterpiece. The purpose of this piece as a whole is send a message from Feng to the viewer. (Hung)
As we can see, the emphasis of this work is an angel catching the bomb heading toward the group of Chinese people. Even with the little detail, we can see from their expressions how helpless and frightened they are while stranded in the middle of rural China with no protection. There is a house in the distance, but these people might have left it knowing it will not protect them from the bombings. Most of them are looking up in fear, but I notice one person who is covering their eyes and face, as if they don’t want to see what danger is coming. Other people are not looking above but are looking ahead. This might be because they know this angel has come to save them and they are looking towards a better future. It is interesting that all of the people are huddled together, being there for one another in a time of crisis. Feng is trying to convey that as the Chinese were bombarded with war, they still stuck together in life or death.
The angel is another very important aspect to this piece. One book states, “Feng developed a style and approach all his own by combining traditional Chinese brush strokes with contemporary social settings, often lacing them with humor and religious purport.” (Hung 1994) In this piece, he is using an angel, a common religious symbol to make a point about the war. According to this book, the caption beneath this art piece says, “I want to become an angel, Soaring high in the sky, Following the enemy planes, And grabbing their bombs.” (Hung 1994) The angel seems to represent what Feng wishes he could have done for the people of China, or that the people of China need any angel to save them, whether that be the Chinese government or a miracle. On the other hand, it could mean the only thing that could save them is a divine being, and in other words, nothing can physically save them from the Japanese. The people in this piece could represent Feng’s family, or could represent all of China’s innocent citizens, yet either way, Feng wishes he could stop the madness and save his people.
Sources
Hung, Chang-tai. War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1994 1994. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft829008m5/
Feng Zikai, Jianwen I (August 1, 1928: 2), Guangzhou.
This work caught my attention because, like the work I analyzed, it involves explosives. It goes to show that Cai, the artist I’m working on, was not the only Chinese artist at the time interested in explosives. Despite the fact that these two use very different mediums in creating their pieces (ink on paper versus photographing explosives) they both are attempting to make a commentary on war and violence. The insight from Bridget’s analysis that helped me consider my own more closely was when she talked about the angle as a “symbol”. Her artist is using the symbol of an angle like Cai uses that of a mushroom cloud. Neither are their direct meaning but instead take on bigger roles like signs of protection, strength, or fear. Going to show that when looking at art you have to look beyond the image itself and to the message the artist is trying to send by creating it.
This piece is very interesting. Although its themes doesn’t exactly pertain to the Yue Minjun piece that I analyzed, your comment about the Chinese people being helpless with little to no protection is appealing to me. This relates to the painting that I analyzed in the way that the subjects in this piece were defenseless as well. In addition, your observation about one of the subjects covering their face interests me. In the piece that I analyzed, the subjects who were about to be murdered had smiles on their faces, as if they were trying to convert their fear to over-exaggerated happiness to depict how wrong the situation they were in was. Furthermore, your thought about the subjects in the painting looking away from the fear, towards a better future is noteworthy. Perhaps the subjects in Yue’s painting were smiling and looking away because they were actually going to be in a better place when they were dead. I can definitely go in more depth about the physical appearances of the subjects in Yue’s paining, while relating that to their emotions, as you did in your analysis.
Your mentioning of the scene being in a rural location caught my attention. I had been mentioning the landscapes of the paintings that I have been looking at but I had not thought to express that the landscape was rural or urban. This might be helpful for my later analysis of paintings because the location of the painting tells us who the subjects are and their background in life (ie, rural populations are less wealthy and are looking for better government where they are equals).
This work caught my attention because it has a theme and concept that is so different from the work I analyzed. Because of the special period time this drawing was created that China was experiencing war against Japanese army. Feng Zikai presented his wishes towards Chinese people that the war can end. I think it expanded my horizons to look at those work did by Chinese artist during WWII.