HUMA 5625 Painting and Modernity in China: Qing and After
Spring 2017 Tuesday 10:30-1:20 pm
Room 5508
Fu Li-tsui
Course Description
This course will trace the expression of modernity in Chinese painting from the Qing
Dynasty (1644-1911) through the 1980s. Our exploration will focus on paintings in
ink and mineral or water-soluble pigments on paper or silk in such traditional formats
as the hanging scroll, handscroll, folding fan, and album. Works in Western
media—oil, charcoal, pencil, lithography, or photography will not be excluded, but
will be considered mainly for comparison. Issues for discussion include: phases and
spaces of modernity, urbanity and modernity, figure painting and representation of
body, realism and westernization, dialogue with foreign cultures, modern institutions
of patronage, market, and exhibition.
Course Outline
W2 2/7 Introduction: Locating the Modern
Vinograd, Richard, “Cultural Spaces and the Problem of a Visual Modernity in the
Cities of Late Ming Chiang-nan,” in Papers from the Third
International Conference on Sinology, History Section (Taipei,: Institute of
History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 2002) pp. 327-60.
Martin Powers. “Reexamining the ‘West’: Shifting Perspectives in the Narrative of
Modern Art,” in Chinese Painting and the Twentieth Century: Creativity in the
Aftermath of Tradition, edited by Cao Yiqiang and Fan Jingzhong (Hangzhou:
Zhejiang renmin meishu chubanshe, 1997), pp. 465-496.
Richard Vinograd, "Relocations: Spaces of Chinese Visual Modernity," in Chinese
Art, Modern Expressions (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004),
162-181.
W3 2/14 Ink Painting and the Modern World
萬青力《並非衰落的百年》, 第一章、第二章、第三章。
Shan Guolin. “Painting of China’s New Metropolis: The Shanghai School 1850-1900”
in A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-Century
China, edited by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen (New York: Guggenheim
Museum, 1998), pp. 20 -34 ( text), plus plate 17-33.)
“Chinese Art in the Age of Imperialism: The Opium War to the Treaty of
Shimonoseki, 1842-1895,” in Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi shen, The Art of
Modern China (Berkeley: University of Califronia Press, 2012), pp. 1-25.
1
Kuiyi Shen, “Traditional Painting in a Transitional Era, 1900-1950,” in A Century in
Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-Century China, edited
by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998),
pp. 80-95 (text), plus plate 40-54.)
W4 2/21 Ink Painting and the Modern World: the Shanghai School 1850-1900
Richard Vinograd. “Portraits and Positions in Nineteenth-Century Shanghai,” in
Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), pp. 127-155.
Jonathan Hay. “Painters and Publishing in Late Nineteenth-century Shanghai,” Art at
the Close of China’s Empire, Phoebus Occasional Papers in Art History, vol. 8,
pp. 134-188.
Shen Kuiyi, “Patronage and the Beginning of a Modern Art World in Late Qing
Shanghai,” in Jason C. Kuo ed., Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s
(Washington DC: New Academia Publishing, 2007), pp. 13-27
W5 2/28 Ink Painting and the Modern World: the Shanghai School 1850-1900
Britta Erickson, “Uncommon Themes and Uncommon Subject Matters in Ren
Xiong’s Album After Poems by Yao Xie,” in Jason C. Kuo ed., Visual Culture in
Shanghai 1850s – 1930s (Washington DC: New Academia Publishing, 2007), pp.
13-28.
Reberta Wue, “Deliberate Looks: Ren Bonian’s 1988 Album of Women,” in Jason C.
Kuo ed., Visual Culture in Shanghai 1850s – 1930s (Washington DC: New
Academia Publishing, 2007), pp. 55-78.
Yu-chih Lai, "Remapping Borders: Ren Bonian's Frontier Paintings and Urban Life in
1880s Shanghai," The Art Bulletin 86, no. 3 (September 2004): 550-572.
賴毓芝〈伏流潛借:1870 年代上海的日本網絡與任伯年作品中的日本養分〉,《國
立台灣大學美術史研究期刊》，第 14 期 (2003.3), pp. 159-242.
W6 3/7 Ink Painting and the Modern World: The Epigraphic School of Painting and
the Japanese Contact
Aida Yuen Wong, “Literati Painting as the ‘Oriental Modern’,” in Parting the Mists
(Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), pp. 54-76.
Aida-yuen Wong, “A New life for Literati Painting in the Early Twentieth Century:
Eastern Art and Modernity, A Transcultural Narrative,” Artibus Asiae, vol 60, no.
2, 2000, pp. 297-326.
Aida Yuen Wong, “Wu Changshuo’s Japanese Circle: Between Patronage and Style,”
in Parting the Mists (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), pp. 77-99.
2
賴毓芝,《上海與關西南畫圈的往來》, in The Proceedings of the International
Conference for Chinese Modern Paintings Researches, The Kyoto National
Museum Project, 2009, pp. 43-67.
盧宣妃〈陳師曾 “北京風俗圖中的日本啟示〉
《國立台灣大學美術史研究期刊》，
第 28 期 (2010.3), pp. 185-266.
W7 3/14 Ink Painting and the Modern World: Traditionalists in a Transitional Era
Julia Andrews. "The Traditionalist Response to Modernity: The Chinese Painting
Society of Shanghai," Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen," in Jason C. Kuo ed.,
Visual Culture in Shanghai 1850s – 1930s (Washington DC: New Academia
Publishing, 2007), pp. 79-94.
Britta Erickson, “Qi Baishi and Noguchi, Square and Circle,” in Isamu Noguchi/Qi
Baishi/Beijing 1930, Long Island City, NY, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and
Garden Museum, 2013.
Tamaki Maeda and Aida-Yuen Wong, “Kindred Spirits: Fu Baoshi and the Japanese
Art World,” in Anita Chung, Chinese Art in the Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi
(1904-1965) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 35-41.
Hong Zaixin, “Twentieth Century Chinese Landscape Painting in the West: the Case
of Huang Binhong,” in Ershi shiji shanshuihua yanjiu wenji (Shanghai: Shanghai
shuhua chubanshe, 2006), pp. 525-55.
W8 3/21 Looking to the West
Christina Chu. “The Lingnan School and Its Followers: Radical Innovation in
Southern China,” in A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of
Twentieth-Century China, edited by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen (New
York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998), pp. 62-79 (text), plus plate 34-39.)
Fang Wen. “The Westernizers,” in Between Two Cultures: Late Nineteenth and
Twentieth Century Chinese Painting from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2001), pp. 75-136.
W9 3/28 Looking to the West: The Reformers and Westernizers
David Der-wei Wang, "In the Name of the Real," in Chinese Art Modern Expressions
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 28-59.
Eugene Wang. “Sketch Conceptualism as Modernist Contingency,” in Chinese Art
Modern Expressions (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 102-161.
3
David Clarke, “Iconicity and Indexicality: The body in Chinese art,” in Chinese Art
and Its Encounters with the West (Hong Kong University Press, 2011), pp.
115-132.
W10 4/4 Ching Ming Festival
W11 4/11Ink Painting after 1949
Julia F. Andrews, “The Victory of Socialist Realism: Oil Painting and the New
Guohua,” in A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of
Twentieth-Century China, edited by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen (New
York: Guggenheim Museum, 1998), pp. 228-237 (text)-272 (images).
Julia Andrews. Traditional Painting in New China: Guohua and the Anti-Rightist
Campaign," Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 49, no. 3 (Aug. 1990), pp. 555–585.
W11 4/18 Mid-Term Break
W12 4/25 Ink Painting in China After 1949
David Clarke, “Raining, Drowning and Swimming: Fu Baoshi and Water,” in Art
History Art History, 2006, v. 29 n. 1, p. 108-144+199-200
Richard Vinograd. “Strategic landscape,” in Studies on 20th Century Shanshuihua
(Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2006), pp. 292-302.
Eugene Y Wang, “The winking Owl: Visual Effect and its Art historical thick
Description,’ Critical Inquiry, vol XXVI, no. 3, spring 2000, pp 435-473.
Wan Qingli. “Li Keran and His Exhibition Paintings,” in Chinese Art Modern
Expressions (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 182-211.
W12 4/25 Ink Painting outside of China After 1949
Peter C. Sturman, “Grids, Ground Planes, Fragments and Fractures: Modernism and
the Chinese Landscape,” in Studies on 20th Century Shanshuihua (Shanghai:
Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2006), pp. 335-355.
Arnold Chang. “The Landscape of C.C. Wang (Wang Jiqian),” in Studies on 20th
Century Shanshuihua (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2006), pp.
602-617.
Anning Jing. “Landscape Painting of the Contemporary Painter Li Huayi,” in Studies
on 20th Century Shanshuihua (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2006), pp.
618-631.
W13 5/2
Presentation: 20th-21st Century Masters
4
W13 5/9 Presentation: 20th-21st Century Masters
Assessment
1. Reading reports and discussions
30%
During the semester, each of you and one other student will form a group to
present readings and lead discussions two to three times. Other than a brief
summary and critique of the readings, prepare at least three questions for
discussions.
2. Presentation on a chosen ink painting master (oral with powerpoint)
25%
Choose an artist to work on. At this stage, you just need to present some
representative or significant works that you will introduce, raise questions or
hypothesis, for brainstorming with your classmates.
3. Final research paper
30%
3. Attendance, preparation and participation in discussion
15%
All students are expected to do the weekly readings and participate regularly in
the seminar discussion. If you miss a seminar, you will be responsible to turn in
summaries of texts that were discussed on the day of your absence (these
summaries will not be returned to you until the end of the semester).
Preparing for a reading report/discussion:
1. Ask yourselves these questions while you read the texts: What is the core
argument of the author? How does it compare with others we have read? What is
innovative or controversial about the argument, if anything? What is the
relationship between the author's interpretive stance and method and the pictures
he or she is studying? How can the former illuminate the latter, if it does at all?
Will they help us to understand other works we are studying in this course? Think
about bringing in comparisons (for instance, if discussing oil painting by a
Chinese artist who studied the work of Matisse in Paris it might make sense to
bring in a painting by Matisse as a comparison).
2. Summarize for your classmates the core arguments and major achievements of the
text. Point out its weakness, if any.
3. Prepare two to four questions for discussions and chose one to four images to
facilitate the discussion.
5
List of Artists for you to work on for your final project:
(This is just a short list. You are free to find a topic on your own. Please consult with
me before you decide on a topic.)
Artists from Mainland China
徐悲鴻、林風眠、劉海粟、高劍父、高奇峰、關山月、溥心畬、張大千、傅抱石、
李可染、黃永玉、石魯、吳作人、錢松嵒、陸儼少、關山月、朱屺瞻、葉淺予、
程十髮、關良、吳冠中、新文人畫展覽的畫家
Artists from Hong Kong
趙少昂、楊善深、丁衍庸、黃般若、呂壽琨、王無邪、管偉邦、馮永基、黄孝逵、
梁嘉賢、蔡德怡
Artists from Taiwan
黃君璧、江兆申、劉國松、鄭善禧、楚戈、何懷碩、余承堯
Overseas Chinese Artist
王季遷、趙無極、曾幼荷、李華弌、張洪
Course Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs):
1
Describe the development of Chinese painting in the 19th and 20th centuries
2
Identify major issues in Chinese painting’s search for modernity
3
Identify and use methodologies adopted in researches on Chinese painting
4
Critique and discuss readings from secondary and primary sources
5
Conduct independent research and write a research paper
6