https://www.shanghartgallery.com/galleryarchive/artists/name/fengmengbo/bio

This a website that has biography’s of many Chinese Artist. I think this is a very valuable site because it is timeline focused. The site provides a timeline of my artists career with specific points in his career when he has had important exhibits, the names of the exhibits, and the locations of the exhibits. This could be useful when creating an analysis of my artist and when trying to find a specific type of work, Many times when doing research one of the most difficult parts is actually finding a specific piece on the web. This site will help find pieces of work but also help prove points through showing the artist progression.

Two Images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics by Chang-Tai Hung is a scholarly article from the Cambridge University Press that analyzes the influence of woodcuts in Chinese politics. This article provides valuable insight on the relationship between the rise of the Communist party and the modernist woodcut movement. It further delves into the background of the movement and examines its founding father, Lu Xun. The author praises Lu Xun for his contribution to modern art in China and further introduces other well-known woodcut artists such as Li Hua, Wo Zhang, and Gu Yuan. This article provided immense detail about the political aims of woodcut prints and how the CCP strategically used this medium against their political enemies and for promoting the revolution. It analyzed important artists who influenced both the art movement and Chinese politics.

After reading this lengthy article I learned a lot more about my artist, Lu Xun. For instance, Lu Xun was significantly influenced by German graphic artist, Kat Witz; the Russian engraver, Vladimir A. Favorsky, and the Belgian woodcut artist, Frans Masereel. All of which introduced Western techniques of linearity and sharp contrast. Lu Xun borrowed these Western techniques and introduced a new style of woodcut print to China. Both the simplicity of a woodcut and new style of sharp contrast allowed Lu Xun to produce effective messages that promoted social and political change in China. Lu Xun and many other leftists started to believe that this was the new medium for art. Not only could this sway the opinion of the public through effective aesthetics, but it was cheap and easy to mass produce. This article provides interesting information about the modernist woodcut movement in China and its integral relationship with communist politics.

Work Cited:

Hung, Chang-Tai. “Two Images of Socialism: Woodcuts in Chinese Communist Politics.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 39, no. 1, 1997, pp. 34–60.

 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/179238.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A93a3148d5ce61f0d7aeaa9482a48b6e8

As I was researching this week I came across an academic article by Chang-Tai Hung called ‘The Fuming Image: Cartoons and Public Opinion in Late Republican China, 1945 to 1949’. Hung is a professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and his article talked about several political artists in the late 1940s, including Ding Cong. Throughout the article, Hung highlighted each artist’s techniques, views, and opinions of Chinese politics, and how they combined to create strong pieces of art that served a purpose. He described that Ding’s strongest attribute was his ability to play on the contradictions of the Chinese government, and his drawings show the juxtaposition of rich and poor, oppressors and oppressed, and power abuser and victim. This article will help me understand the nuances of Ding’s works during the peak of his career, before he was censored and eventually exiled. Understanding what fuels an artist’s passion, in Ding’s case to draw these significant cartoons for the common people, is always helpful in learning about an artist.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/179329.pdf?casa_token=-IYwS9yYKmcAAAAA:VDWkuBSVjDx6_isrrM3USA5OIobAfkUacfocgoywwdC3FTZSMV9Rk3pFtVRBumKnDECTWtiJtONn6CVtv8pBLQAt70ltcRc1xsOBRyQo3gii5qXNoYc

Hung, Chang-Tai. “The fuming image: Cartoons and public opinion in late republican China, 1945 to 1949.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36, no. 1 (1994): 122-145.

Widewalls is an online art gallery that features tens of thousands of works from established artists as well as those emerging onto the contemporary art scene.  Regarding Chen Danqing, Widewalls provides an in-depth biography and sophisticated collection of works, as well as numerous exhibitions and auction results.  Unlike most other sites that I have visited in my investigation of Chen thus far, the biography provided offers knowledge about Chen during his youthful, formative, and early adult years, all in the unique context of art and his most profound influencers.  Not only does the site provide a unique biographic perspective for Chen, but offers the insight and experiences of others, including a former pupil of Chen who admiringly claims that “Chen has never been just a painter.  He was an intellectual with a social conscience” (Cuddy 2014, Widewalls).  The exhibition and auction result sections of the site also give viewers comprehensive analysis into the prices which his pieces have sold for as well as where he has published and displayed his art.

Widewalls as a source will provide me with a unique and holistic lens to continue analyzing Chen Danqing as a person as well as an artist.  With extensive information on where Chen has published his work for exhibitions as well as auction results, the site will allow me to understand who his target audience is, if he indeed has one, and who these auctioneers may be and where their interests lie.  Moreover, the anecdotes and information provided by the biography will provide me with a more sophisticated foundation to understand the roots of Chen’s realist yet alternative technique of painting.

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Works Cited

Cuddy, Dylan. “Chen Danqing.” Widewalls, 2014. Accessed April 30, 2020.

Chen Danqing

For this blogpost I decided to examine the International Institute of Social History’s presentation on political posters found within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I decided to select this particular site for this blogpost as I feel the site provides some basic background regarding the PRC political posters that I was missing previously. In particular, I feel the information provided within the first 4-5 pages will be essential to my project. I also plan to use some of the propaganda presented within this presentation as part of my final project, although most of the posters will be coming from other sources I’ve already found. In summation, this source will help layout a solid base to then build upon. 

http://www.iisg.nl/publications/chineseposters.pdf

Pace Gallery, a leading contemporary art gallery that focuses on 20th and 21st century artists, shares commentary on Yue Minjun’s work that bring insight into my developing topic. Pace describes Yue in a similar fashion to many others – as a founding member of the cyclical realism movement that emerged in China in the mid-1990s, a leader in Chinese contemporary art, and as a progressive artist that has challenged political oppression in the country. Pace quotes Yue, who stated that “he has always found laughter irresistible.” That is, Yue’s exaggerated laughing self-portraiture figure along with his automatic smile, “masks the underlying emotions” of the subjects in his work (Pace Gallery). There is almost so much bad going on, that the subjects in Yue’s pieces have to laugh their sadness away (Egna 2020). Evidently, Yue’s work amplifies the disturbing past and current events in China. In addition, Pace shares that Yue has challenged socialist paintings, by recreating iconic events in China and replacing the “heroes” in them with his laughing face. Yue states, “those typical socialist paintings in China looked very realistic but were indeed surreal. They served for heroic fantasies, and the images of great people or the heroes in the paintings could well justify the fabricated scenes” (Pace Gallery). Thus, Yue believes that scenes that Chinese political regimes promoted were many times augmented, with fabricated messages.

After reading this write-up on Yue, I have begun to think more about Yue’s shift in artistic style, and how he essentially developed a politically uncensored technique that diverged so much from other coerced Chinese work. Additionally, I will further research Yue’s recreation of socialist-type art, as altering grim events through his work seems to be important to him. 

Work cited

Max Egna, Yue Minjun Execution Analysis, April 17th, 2020

https://muse.union.edu/aah194-spr20/2020/04/17/execution-analysis-max-egna/

“Yue Minjun.” Pace Gallery. Accessed April 29, 2020.

https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/yue-minjun/.

This link shows an installation Cai did in 2017 in Philadelphia. It was his biggest installation in the United States in the past decade before. The installation was entitled “Fireflys” and was 27 pedicabs decorated with colorful lanterns of all shapes made in Cai’s home province in China and brought over to the U.S. This work was commissioned to celebrate the centennial of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and Cai was successful in drawing the public’s eye to this celebration by allowing them to ride in these pedicabs along the parkway.

I picked this piece to talk about for today’s blog post in order to show that Cai’s work goes above and beyond gunpowder. He also uses lights and colors to portray his messages. I think this installation is a good contrast to the mushroom cloud photographs that I had talked about previously. Giving Cai a light and celebratory side to his work, something that lifts people up as opposed to reminding them of past tragedies.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Fireflies

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.

Li Keran, Red over the Mountains as if the Forests are Dyed, oil on paper, Dimensions: 69.5h x 45.5w cm

Source: https://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2015-11/16/content_22465548.htm 

Red over the Mountains as if the Forests are Dyed is an oil painting that was made in 1989 by Li Keran. Li Keran has made a series of ‘red landscape’ paintings. Since Li Keran passed away in 1989, this was one of his final works. This piece shows how his style and form evolved over his life and career. This painting shows the transition from the traditionalist perspective that he learned from Qi Baishi and Huang Binhong to the Western perspective where Li Keran uses landscapes, light, shadowing, and more vivid coloring. Mao Zedong released a collection of poems. This painting is representative of one of the poems written by Mao Zedong (Qin Yuan Chun•Changsha). The title of the painting is an excerpt from a verse from the poem (“Red over the Mountains…”). 

The poem sets the scene in Autumn where all the leaves are changing to the color red. In the middle of the composition, there sits a small village that sits upon the ever-changing beauty of the mountain. The landscape creates a sense of grandeur depicting the impressiveness of nature. To obtain the look as if the red paint was dyed on the canvas, Li Keran used special minerals in the pigments such as cinnabar to create the vibrant red leaves in the trees (“Red over the Mountains…”). The medium of the painting is oil paint and color on paper. The painting is taller than wider to emphasize the landscape of the mountains. The painting is very realistic and portrays the beauty of nature, which was very characteristic of Western art. The beauty of this landscape creates a great sense of pride for those in the Republic of China. 

References 

“Red over the Mountains as If the Forests Are Dyed – Li Keran – Google Arts & Culture.”   Google Arts and Culture. China Modern Contemporary Art Document. Accessed April      17, 2020.           https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/red-over-the-mountains-as-if-the-forests-are-dyed/zAFnEYxpnRbZ2A