A History of Art in Twentieth-Century China

This book represents the third revised edition of 'A History of Art in 20th-Century China,' before published in Italy in 2009 and subsequently released by SOMOGY in France in 2014. The English-language work provides an updated and refined exploration of the history of Chinese art in the 20th century. The introduction to this book refers to the original English-language publication foreword, which is primarily a text aimed at the English reader's perspective.

The profound and radical transformations taking place in Chinese art throughout the twentieth century had their genesis in the late Qing dynasty, When the impact of Western science and culture gave rise to a new questioning and self-examination in the Chinese intellectual and cultural worlds. In the arts, new schools, styles, debates, and issues arose, reflecting not only artists' changing perspectives, but also the impact of the sweeping changes in Chinese politics, economy and society.

The last two decades have seen the publication of a number of specialized studies focusing on specific aspects of Chinese art in the twentieth century (including the art of Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as mainland China), and covering specific periods of its history, such as the Republican era of 1912 to 1949, the “Maoist era of 1949 to 1976, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" of 1966-76, and the post-Cultural Revolution years. By contrast, the present study encompasses the art-historical narrative of the last one-hundred-and-fifty years. Based on extensive research and drawing on a wealth of visual documentation, the book chronicles this period in a thorough, lively and critical manner, providing readers with a comprehensive framework from which to build an understanding of Chinese art in the 20th century and into the 21st.

Taking the consequences of the Opium War (1840-42) in the late Qing period as his point of departure, the author investigates the emerging impact Western art in China, focusing, in particular, on changes in the arts scene after the 1911 Revolution, including the overseas study movement, the impact of Western educational systems and philosophies, the attitude of the Chinese traditionalists towards Western art, and the political tendentiousness of art under specific historical circumstances.

Another major moment of transition occurs in 1942, with the publication of Mao Zedong's Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art. The influence of the Talks was far-reaching, complex, and profound. Lu Peng's discussion illuminates the decisive impact of the Talks on the ideological interpretations of art and its functions in society, as well as their seminal importance in evaluating and understanding the developments in Chinese art in the PRC ensuing fifty years, from the latter period of the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution.

In the post-Cultural Revolution period, newly emerging modern art movements echoed in many ways the search for new artistic languages of the “Westernization movements" of the 1920s and 1930s. In this light, the experimental arts scene of the 1980s can be regarded as part of an irreversible thought liberation movement. In the 1990s, the efforts of artists and art critics laid the foundation for Chinese art to enter the international art arena during the age of “globalization." The artists and at movements of Taiwan and Hong Kong are also an integral part of this historical narrative: during the 1950s through the 1970s, a period when mainland China virtually was cut off from the rest of the world, the work of Taiwanese artists maintained an important link between the Chinese art world and the global cultural community. Finally, against the background of an increasing globalization of artistic language, the author introduces the new dramatic new developments in Chinese contemporary art occurring in the first decade of the new century. At the same time, this book can be used as a reference book for students studying the history of modern Chinese art, because there are currently no systematic textbooks on the art history of this period in domestic professional art colleges.