Zheng Shengtian
In early 1962, I stumbled upon a book translated and compiled by Lin Fengmian, the founding president of the Hangzhou National Academy of Art, in a used bookstore in Beijing’s Dongan Market. The book was entitled Arts from around the World in 1935 . By the time I was studying at the Academy (which had been renamed the Central Academy of Fine Arts – East China Campus) between 1953 and 1958, Lin had already left and become a recluse, living in an apartment on Nanchang Road in Shanghai. We had only heard of this legend of the previous generation from our professors and senior students. Ever since the “Criticism Campaign against New Schools’ Painting” of the early 1950s, Lin’s art, along with Modern style works by other faculty members and students, were absent on campus.[i]
In the preface of Arts from around the World in 1935, Lin Fengmian wrote:
We wish to take a closer look at the state of art around the world in 1935. This year, Chinese art has received a great deal of publicity in Europe, which can be considered a true honour to us.[ii]
By “publicity”, Lin was probably referring to the International Exhibition of Chinese Art held in London, which was unprecedented in size for an event of its kind. “Chinese art has never been given such prominent exposure in Europe,” he noted.[iii] Actually, Chinese art had already attracted a fair amount of publicity in the previous two years, as Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker describes in this volume. As early as May 1933, Xu Beihong had organized a Chinese modern painting touring exhibition in Europe, which debuted in Paris and then moved on to Italy and Russia. On January 20, 1934, a contemporary Chinese painting touring exhibition organized by Liu Haisu, opened at the Prussian Academy of the Arts in Berlin and was later taken to Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, the Hague, Geneva, Bern, London and reputedly Prague. In March of the same year, an exhibition jointly organized by Lu Xun and Song Qingling was held in the Galerie Billiet – Pierre Vorms in Paris, in which 78 woodcut prints and paintings were displayed.[iv] It was not until 1935 that Liu Haisu returned to China in glory. However, it is important to note that 1935 was not, by any measurement, a peaceful and prosperous year in the history of modern China. The year started in January with the most critical meeting in the history of the Chinese Communist Party at Zunyi. During the meeting, leading figures such as Bo Gu and Otto Braun (1900-1974), known to the Chinese as Li De, a German advisor sent by the Communist International, were criticized for contributing to the party’s disaster in the Jiangxi Soviet area, and Mao Zedong’s leadership in the party and the army was officially established. In May 1935, the Red Army arrived in Shaanxi after completing what has been known as the Long March, which covered some 25,000 Chinese miles, and began to establish a base in the Shaanxi-Gansu area. While the Nanjing-based Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek ) government reached the pinnacle of its power after succeeding in the Fifth Military Encircling Campaign against the Communists, the ambitious Japanese army had stormed through the Shanhaiguan Pass in large numbers from northeastern China. In fact, northern China was gradually falling into the hands of the Japanese. In 1935, China was plagued by internal and external problems, which were aggravated each day. It was indeed quite extraordinary that, in spite of the turbulence of the period, Chinese art was frequently being celebrated overseas and developing domestically in a dynamic and diversified way.
Lin Fengmian’s small volume was part of a series titled The World in 1935, published by the Commercial Press in Shanghai. It offered primarily an overview of artistic activities in Europe during the year. Most of the articles were selected and translated from two French magazines, le Mois and l’Art Vivant. Among them were a critique of Fauvism and Cubism, a retrospective of the German painter, Max Liebermann, who passed away that year, and a review of exhibitions held in Paris and Brussels. The book, published in July 1936, covered various artistic activities up to December 1935. In other words, readers in Shanghai were fully informed, within six months, of the latest developments in the art scene in Europe, oceans away. Seventy years ago, long before the invention of the Internet, fiber optics, and jet airliners, this timely transmission of information could be considered almost instantaneous. Hence, it is not difficult to see the extent to which people in Shanghai understood and appreciated Western art .Among the publications about Western art that were regularly published and distributed in Shanghai in the early 1930s are the following titles: Art Community (Yishujie), New Art (Xinyishu), Art Periodical (Yishu Xunkan), Art Exhibition (Meizhan), Art (Yishu), Fine Art Magazine (Meishu Zazhi), Artistic Life (Meishu Shenhuo), Apollo (Yabolo), White Swan Art (Bai’e Yishu), and Friends of Art (Yiyou). [v] Some widely circulated life-style magazines, such as Young Companion (Liangyou Huabao), The Universe (Huanqiu) and Times (Shidai), also had frequent coverage of art. Like movies, fashion, western-style architecture, and the ubiquitous café, Western art had become an indispensable part of the modern culture of Shanghai in the 1930s. Professor Leo Ou-fan Lee, an authorative observer of Shanghai in the 1930s, writes:
After all, the English word "modern" (and the French "moderne") received its first Chinese transliteration in Shanghai. In popular parlance, the Chinese word “modeng” has the meaning of being "novel and/or fashionable," according to the authoritative Chinese dictionary, Cihai. Thus in the Chinese popular imagination, Shanghai and "modern" are natural equivalents.[vi]
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In the 20th century, Shanghai became the gateway through which modern art was imported into China from the West. This role played by Shanghai can be traced back a long way in history. Western painting was first introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty, as early as the 7th Year of Wanli (1579 AD).[vii] Missionaries and merchants later brought religious paintings and commercial oil paintings to China. The first school in China to provide instruction on Western painting techniques was the Xu Jiahui Tushanwan Studio in Shanghai. In 1864, the Catholic Church of Shanghai Diocese founded the Tushanwan Orphanage, with an affiliated art studio that provided training to those engaged in the painting of sacred images. The studio operated for over 80 years. Such well-known artists as Ren Bonian, Zhou Xiang and Zhang Chongren had all studied there. Xu Beihong had called Tushanwan “the cradle of Western painting in China.” In 1910, Zhou Xiang founded on his own the Chinese-Western Painting Correspondence School and Stage Set Learning Center near today’s Xizang Road (Middle) in Shanghai. In 1913 Liu Haisu, Wu Shiguang and others created the Shanghai Tuhua Meishu Yuan (Shanghai School of Painting & Fine Arts) , which was the predecessor of the Shanghai College of Fine Arts. In 1914, the College officially launched its Western painting program. In both China and Japan, Western-style painting was referred to as Xihua (Western Painting) or Yanghua (Foreign Painting) to be distinguished from ink painting, which was practiced in the traditions of the East. Ni Yide had long maintained that “these terms are problematic”:
So-called Western painting is no longer found only in the West. It has become a painting medium used by artists internationally. Paintings produced by Chinese artists, whether they are of the old or new style, can all be regarded as Chinese painting. In classifying types of painting, the only criterion we can properly use is the material employed, for example, oil, watercolor, ink , and so on.[viii]
In China, the term “Western painting” (Xiyanghua) was common because the characters xi and yang (meaning Western and foreign) carried connotations such as “trendy” and “fashionable.” It was not until after 1949, when xi and yang took on negative connotations under the revolutionary ideology of the time, that Western painting was renamed oil painting or printmaking according to the materials and media employed.
At the turn of the 20th century, individual Chinese students began to go overseas to study Western art. There were two favorite destinations at the time: Japan and Europe. Li Shutong, one of the first students to study in Japan, matriculated at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1905 and returned to China in 1910. The Tokyo School of Fine Arts was then dominated by the impressionist plein air style that Kuroda Seiki brought back to Japan from France. By the 1920s, it had developed a rich spirit of academicism. Artists who studied at the Tokyo School thereafter, including Wang Yuezhi, Chen Baoyi, Guang Liang, Ding Yanyong, and Xu Xinzhi, primarily studied under Takekazu Fujishima, who was also in charge of the Kawabata Art School, where Ni Yide and others had studied. In his memoir, Guan Liang recalls:
During this period, Japanese art was undergoing a developmental phase. Art works representing different European and American styles were frequently brought to Tokyo for exhibition…. The exhibitions from Western Europe featured mainly works of modern, innovative styles (such as impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism, and fauvism), which were different from what we were learning in school.[ix]
That was the most open period in the history of Japanese art and culture. Not far from home, Tokyo became an attractive destination where Chinese students could experience for themselves the pulse of European art.
Before the First World War, only a few students, such as Wu Fading and Li Chaoshi, went directly to Europe to study painting. After the war, due to the influence of the Work-Study Movement, the number of students going to France was rising gradually. Among these students, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was the most admired institution. Some students also went to Belgium and Germany. In the view of the art historian Li Chao, those who studied in France can be divided into two groups:
The first group followed the classical academic approach in the tradition of the post-18th century European academism, which the group then actively promoted in China. The key proponents of this group include Xu Beihong, Li Yishi and Yan Wenliang. The second group followed various modern styles… that were centered in France in the early part of this century. This group took action to attack and reform China’s tedious art scene. The major proponents of this group include Liu Haisu, Lin Fengmian, Wu Dayu, Pang Xunqin, Wang Jiyuan, Pan Yuliang and so on.[x]
In 1924, with the support of Cai Yuanpei, Chinese students studying in Europe held a large Chinese art exhibition at the Palais du Rhin in Strasbourg. In his foreword to the exhibition, Cai Yuanpai wrote:
The great talents exhibited here are not mere imitators of the Europeans. They are capable of producing works with a purely Chinese style as well as experimental works that integrate European and Chinese stylistic elements.[xi]
Actually, many of the painters from both groups were keen on blending Eastern and Western cultures, except that they were pursuing this goal through different avenues.
In the 1920s, students began returning to China from abroad. Many of them moved to Shanghai, which was known as “the Paris of the Orient.” As the largest port in China, Shanghai not only enabled young artists yearning for knowledge to travel easily to Japan, Europe and North America, but also became a place where artists could settle and begin their careers after their return to China. Ni Yide once wrote:
Shanghai is a place that we all admire. Although we are not given a chance to live in Paris, which is a city of art, at least, in China, we have to be in Shanghai, which is the hub of the newly emerging art. It has a vibrant spirit, and one can easily experience all kinds of new excitement.[xii]
In the 1930s, there were over 30 overseas-trained artists working in the Shanghai area. A significant point to note is that those artists who were educated in Europe, and those educated in Japan, worked in different circles once they returned to Shanghai. For the French-educated artists, their organizations, such as the Oriental Painting Society (Dongfang Huahui) and the Heavenly Horse Society (Tianmahui), and their schools, such as the Shanghai College of Fine Arts and Xinhua College of Art, were all located in the French Concession on the west side of Shanghai. As to the Japanese-educated artists, their organizations, such as the White Goose Painting Society (Bai’e Huahui) and the Times Society of Arts (Shidai Meishushe), were based in the Japanese Concession around Hongkou and Jiangwan, north of the Suzhou River. These two areas constituted the major centers in Shanghai where events associated with Western painting took place. They gave birth to the so-called “French school” and “Japanese school” that had a far-reaching effect on the subsequent development of oil painting in China. Shanghai’s colonial mixture of political environment and cultural heritage created a metropolitan culture that was unique.
In the 1930s, Shanghai was the main stage on which the Western Painting Movement was unfolding. Liu Haisu was a popular figure in Shanghai’s cultural circles. However, as the first artist to use a nude model, he was persecuted, and for that he declared himself an “artistic rebel.” The Shanghai College of Fine Arts, run by Liu, incorporated diverse ideas and styles by offering a lot of academic freedom. It thus became one of the cradles that nurtured many modern Chinese artists. During this time, Lin Fengmian, overseeing the National Academy of Arts in Hangzhou, was at the height of his creative powers. Under his leadership, the Art Movement Society of the National Academy organized four large art exhibitions in Shanghai and Nanjing. His three grand oil paintings Suffering,” “Humanity,” and Grief constituted a poignant trilogy of his understanding of life.[xiii] Upon returning from Europe, Xu Beihong was first invited by Tian Han to teach at the Nanguo College of Arts, and then invited by the Central University in Nanjing to head up its Fine Arts Department. As Xu was frequently traveling between Shanghai and Nanjing, his academic influence was gradually felt in the South as well. His historical paintings, Tian Heng and the Five Hundred Heroes and Expecting, were completed during this period. Yan Wenliang, a conscientious and tenacious individual, brought back 460 plaster copies of classic sculptures and a vast collection of books from Europe and founded the Suzhou College of Fine Arts, along with its sister campus in Shanghai. Yan’s contribution to the development of modern art education in China should not be overlooked. Ni Yide was a multitalented man of culture. He was not only the author of the romantic novel Autumn at Lake Xuanwu, but also wrote books such as Introduction to Modern Painting and Modern Art. Deeply influenced by Andre Derain and Albert Marquet, Ni had a unique style that was plain but forceful. Among other artists, Wu Dayu was a passionate advocate of abstract painting, Fang Ganmin, an avant-garde painter for his time, worked in a style that resembled cubism. Pan Yuliang, Guan Zilan and Qiu Ti were able to break into the primarily male-dominated art world, each with her own unique style. In 1932, the author Fu Lei wrote:
The sky is gloomy and hazy. Wars flare up everywhere. It resembles the times that gave birth to Michelangelo, Raphael and Da Vinci, as well as the times around 1830 that gave birth to Delacroix and Hugo.[xiv]
Perhaps, Fu Lei’s prophecy was somewhat exaggerated. It did, however, express the artistic ferment and expectation in China and in the Shanghai art world of the 1930s.
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In the 1920s and 1930s, the literary and artistic communities in Shanghai were caught up in two major debates concerning how Western art should be viewed and introduced into China. The effects of these debates - so-called Realism versus Modernism and Liberalism versus Nationalism - on the development of arts and literature in China over the next half-century, are difficult to overlook.
Since the 1920s, numerous overseas-trained artists had been promoting modern styles such as Fauvism and Surrealism in China. Nevertheless, quite a few artists, who did not consider these art movements to be relevant or important, advocated that Chinese artists should learn instead from European realism and naturalism. The debate between these two contradictory positions continued for a long time. The battle of words between Xu Beihong and Xu Zhimo was the most representative of all such debates. In April 1929, the Department of Education under the Nationalist government sponsored the First National Art Exhibition in Shanghai. It was a fairly large exhibition, covering seven artistic areas: Chinese calligraphy and painting, seal-engraving, Western painting, sculpture, architecture, art and craft, and photography. It also featured works of foreign artists. A total of 2,346 pieces of artwork were on display. During the exhibition, a newsletter known as Art Exhibition Newsletter was published. An article by Xu Beihong entitled “I am bewildered” was published in the fifth issue of the newsletter on April 22, 1929. In his article, Xu harshly criticized Europe’s modern painting movements by stating that the “exclusion of such shameless works as those by Cezanne, Matisse and Bonnard” from the exhibition deserved the highest praise. He compared the introduction of modern art into China with the purchasing of “imported morphia and heroin,” while he praised artists such as Ingres, Delacroix, Millet, Courbet, and Chavannes.[xv] Xu Beihong had been studying traditional Chinese painting since his childhood. In 1919, he went to France and studied under Dagnan-Bouveret, who was a student of Corot’s. He did not return to China until 1927. Because of the interruption of his governmental student funding during this period, he transferred to a school in Berlin where the cost of living was lower. Xu was enrolled in Hochschule fur Bildende Künste in Charlottenburg and studied for two years under its principal, Arthur Kampf (1864-1950). The styles and aesthetic canons of these two realistic painters had a decisive effect on Xu Beihong. In his autobiographical article “My Recollection”, Xu recounted his experience in Germany:
In the summer of 1921, I suffered from a severe stomach problem. The pain was unbearable. In addition to the suffering, my tuition fees did not arrive. I moved to Germany and stayed in Berlin, where I studied under Prof. Arthur Kampf. We had a close relationship….I found that, in their approach to art, the Germans were fascinated by the strange and absurd, and very few artists had a grand and elegant style. ‘Sir,’ I asked Kampf, ‘you are a revered senior artist in the art world and are in charge of an art school in Berlin. Do you feel responsible for this fascination for the absurd?’ Kampf replied, ‘Well, they are mad. What can I do?’(…) Kampf’s outstanding and imposing style, however, did not enjoy much popularity with others.
Xu Beihong also recalled that he once came across paintings by Kampf and Franz von Stuck in a gallery. Due to inflation in Germany, these paintings were relatively inexpensive. In an effort to acquire these paintings, Xu attempted to raise as much money as he could. However, he only managed to borrow a small sum, with which he purchased two of Kampf’s paintings.[xvi]
Xu Zhimo (1897-1931), a renowned modern poet and essayist, went to Britain in 1921 to study political economics. In the two years that he spent at Cambridge, he became immersed in Western culture and came under the influence of Euro-American romanticism and that of the Western poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Keats and Walter Pater Upon his return to China, he moved to Shanghai in 1926, holding teaching positions at Guanghua University, Daxia University and the Central University in Nanjing. In 1927, with others, he founded the influential Xinyue Bookstore. In the following year, he became the chief editor of the Xinyue Monthly, from which came the term Xinyuepai (or the Xinyue School). Xu Zhimo had a long essay published in the same issue of Art Exhibition Newsletter in which Xu Beihong’s article appeared. He entitled his essay “I am ‘bewildered’ too,” providing a rebuttal to Xu Beihong’s criticism. Illustrating his argument with the example of the famous British critic Ruskin who inappropriately accused the artist Whistler, he made the point that Xu Beihong’s criticism had been motivated merely by emotion and had not done justice to the artists he criticized. He also referred to Cezanne’s artistic ideals and struggle to exemplify the values that the modern artist embraced and the role he played in history. Although he maintained a respectful tone to Xu Beihong throughout the essay, Xu Zhimo was forthright in his criticism when he said, “Your response represents a reaction - a reaction toward a movement which you consider totally anarchic.”[xvii]
In his rejoinder “Bewilderment Unresolved,” Xu Beihong further emphasized his admiration for realism. He considered “form” to be the basic element of art. “Without form, there is no art.”[xviii] In another letter “Bewilderment Unresolved (Continued),” he criticized Cezanne again. This time he made reference to his teacher’s view. He said:
Dagnan-Bouveret once mentioned an incident where he was looking at Degas’ collection. Upon seeing Cezanne’s still life, in which objects were represented upside down, he sighed, ‘que ees pauvres naturen ivres mortes’(which is a play on the French word for still-life ‘nature-morte’ and can be translated as ‘that poor drunk-dead still life’).
The views of the two Xu’s represented two trends toward the study of Western painting at the time. Xu Beihong was advocating realism as a tradition from which to learn, whereas Xu Zhimo affirmed the innovative and independent spirit of modernism. Another person who entered this battle of words was the painter Li Yishi. In his early years, Li studied in Britain. He was a colleague of Xu Beihong’s at the Central University and also a member of the National Art Exhibition’s administration and selection committees. In his article “I am not ‘bewildered’,” Li argued, from a pragmatic perspective, that modernism did not suit the needs of China. He said:
From society’s point of view, even if Xu Beihong’s statements were inaccurate, and Cezanne and Matisse were completely genuine in their artistic efforts, I still hold the view that they should not be promoted in China. This is because the people in China have been in a bewildered state of mind for over 20 years, and, given the current situation of the country, we should use the power of art to ease people’s mind and comfort their heart. If works like those of Cezanne and Matisse are made popular in China, thereby stirring up the public, I am sure that the consequences will be grave to society![xix]
Although Li’s point of view was a compromise, it appeared reflective of general attitudes of the time, which held that, in consideration of the social responsibility of art, it would be preferable to be conservative rather than to be “avant-garde” for its own sake. In addition, in China, there has been a long tradition of regarding literature as a vehicle for conveying Dao or the truth. If painting functions as a means to facilitate “educating the people and harmonizing their relations,” realism as an artistic strategy should naturally be more effective. Therefore, as some art historians have observed, in spite of the eight years he spent in Europe when the Modernist debate was at its height , Xu Beihong brought back the tradition of classical realism. It could well be that Xu was also influenced by debates in Europe and especially Germany regarding a new, socially and politically engaged realism.This commitment to realism was well received in his country, indicating that Xu’s choice might have been more appropriate to the context of China at that time.
Another battle of words broke out in the late 1930s. This debate was started by the literary circle of the day, and yet it had a significant and lasting effect on the art world as well. In the first half of the 20th century, “enlightenment (Qimeng)” and “national salvation (Jiuwang)” were two important concepts for analyzing modern Chinese thought. “Enlightenment”refers to intellectuals’ efforts since the May 4th Movement of 1919 to employ the democratic ideas of the West to criticize and reform what was regarded as a backward and feudal society in pre-revolutionary China. . However, as China’s internal and external problems were aggravated by the day, many intellectuals who were advocates of modern, Western-style democratic thinking were confronted by a dilemma. In the midst of national calamity, not many could maintain the ideas of liberty and democracy. A large number of writers and artists began to support the notion of “national salvation” at the expense of liberal and democratic ideals. In fact, it is not unusual that intellectuals were then, as now, being compelled to make a political choice in a situation of national or international crisis .
As the issue of “enlightenment” and “national salvation” impacted upon the artistic community, it naturally became associated with the Realism versus Modernism debate described above. In fact, Li Yishi’s compromise can be regarded as a footnote to the idea of putting “national salvation ahead of enlightenment”. A painter, Xu Zexiang, stated it more plainly:
At this moment, China is plagued by all kinds of calamities, natural and human-made. It is being invaded and devoured by foreign powers. Our people have been caught in this whirlpool of suffering. We are at a critical point where our national existence is in jeopardy… China’s artistic community should assume its due responsibility and exercise its artistic authority. It should do away with all movement-based distinctions and establish a core consciousness… in response to the need of this epoch and the need of the people, by helping them develop a will that is strong as steel and a passion that is burning like fire, and laying down a true foundation for an emerging art![xx]
Advocates of “national salvation” maintained that the idea of stylistic freedom, promoted by the proponents of Western painting, was irrelevant to the time: “This is the time for artists to go to the streets and stay in touch with the people. As to movements and ideologies, they are not of high priority to the artist himself.”[xxi]
The first modern art society in China was Juelanshe (the Storm Society), which emerged in 1931 and ended in 1935. The society represents one of the waves that was going against the mighty tide of putting “national salvation ahead of enlightenment.” In Chinese, Juelan means a crushing wave that breaks a dike, implying forceful impact and shock. In English, it is often translated as the “Storm Society.” It is unclear where this translation originated, but the connotation is similar. The Storm Society Manifesto, composed by Ni Yide, had this to say:
Since the beginning of the 20th century, a new atmosphere has emerged in the European artistic community, comprised of the outcries of the Fauvists, the twists of the Cubists, the vehemence of the Dadaists and the cravings of the Surrealists. (…) It is time for a new atmosphere to emerge throughout the 20th-century artistic community of China.
The society sounded the clarion call of liberalism: “We believe that painting is by no means the slave of religion, nor a mere illustration of literature. We will freely and cohesively construct a world of pure shapes.”[xxii] Following its founding in 1932, the Storm Society organized four exhibitions. Its core members included Pang Xunqin, Ni Yide, Wang Jiyuan (who withdrew from the society after the second exhibition), Zhou Duo, Zhou Zhentai, Duan Pingyou, Zhang Xian, Yang Taiyang, Yang Qiuren and Qiu Di (who joined in 1933). A few other artists, such as Guan Liang, Chen Chengbo, Li Zhongsheng and Liang Xihong, also participated in some of the society’s exhibitions and activities. The society , consisting of only a small circle of artists, did not succeed in realizing its earthshaking goals as stated in its manifesto.
In November 1935, the society held its fourth exhibition in Shanghai. When the exhibition closed, the society announced its dissolution. Pang Xunqin wrote:
The fourth exhibition was held at the Zhonghua Art School, the same venue as our first exhibition. Very few visitors came on the last two days, which were cloudy. It was in such a quiet and indifferent atmosphere that the society came to the end of its history.[xxiii]
The rise and rapid fall of the Storm Society was a tragedy of our time. After the society was dissolved, Pang Xunqin left Shanghai for the much more precarious city in the north, Beijing, to take a teaching job. Sadly and quietly, young Zhang Xian died of an illness. Yang Qiuren, once a member of the Storm Society, made the observation that the members of the Society
inevitably did not understand, or perhaps did not understand very clearly, the reality of their time. They were out of touch with reality. (…) Whether from the perspective of collective or individual development, the dissolution of the Society did have a positive meaning.”[xxiv]
Yang’s point of view was clearly in line with China’s official and very critical attitude since 1949 toward modern art. Nevertheless, the contradiction between the subjective ideals held by the Storm members and the objective reality at the time, as mentioned by Yang, was indeed the major cause for the dissolution of the society. At the end of 1935, the December 9th Student Movement led by the Communist Party erupted in Beijing. In 1936, Zhang Xueliang brought about the Xi’an Incident where he seized the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, in order to persuade him to postpone his war on the Chinese communists. The incident led once again to a cooperation between the Communists and the Nationalists in order to resist the encroaching Japanese. Leo Ou-fan Lee described the situation as follows:, “When the threat of war hanging like a dark cloud eventually turned into real shellfire in 1937, the entire modernist structure in Shanghai was destroyed.”[xxv] The disappearance of the Storm Society not only stilled the once vibrant artistic community in Shanghai, it also signified that the curtain had finally fallen on this debut performance of modern art in China.
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I was born at a time when the Anti-Japanese war had already broken out nationwide. When I came, at the age of 16, to the Art Academy in Hangzhou, students had almost no access to the historical materials of the 1930’s. The small book of Lin Fengmian which I found in Beijing’s market was a surprise discovery to me. It raised my curiosity about Lin and his contemporaries. However, on the campus, Lin’s name was rarely mentioned. His old house in Jade Spring, West of the city was dilapidated and shabby, occupied by other residents. It was not until 1962, that an exhibition of Lin Fengmian’s ink paintings was held for the first time at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. I can recall how excited my friends and I were on leaving the exhibition hall, feeling drunk from this extraordinary artistic treat. We ran into a renowned art critic who held a high ranking position at the Propaganda Department of the Government. His face wore a scornful expression as he commented: “That is nothing new! Didn’t we see this several decades ago? ” However, for my generation and those which followed, we had had no chance to see or learn about what had actually happened 70 years ago. I began to dream of an exhibition which would unveil this forgotten history to the public.
In 1999, Ken Lum and I were traveling through Hangzhou and Shanghai with a group of international curators and museum directors. Observing the rapid developments and changes which were taking place in these cities, we spoke at length about the faded past of these vital, modern centres and their forgotten heroes. One year later, I received an e-mail from Ken Lum , saying that Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker from the Museum Villa Stuck in Munich was very interested in organizing an exhibition about Modernism and Shanghai. “I am in, ” I quickly replied. I couldn’t have been happier about the great opportunity to trace the footsteps of our elder generation.
As we planned for this exhibition, most of the people mentioned above had already passed away. Only Yang Taiyang of the Storm Society is still alive and well. I had the honour, however, to study under a few of those artists. In the 1950s, Yan Wenliang, Ni Yide, Fang Ganmin and Guan Liang were all teaching in the Oil Painting Department of the Academy in Hangzhou. During that time, Soviet Socialist Realism was the only and dominant approach. Veteran artists of the previous generation were all keeping a very low profile, with limited teaching opportunities. We really enjoyed attending “Master Yan’s” lectures. He was a witty speaker who gave life to dry subjects such as perspective and the theory of colour. His pure but delightful Suzhou accent made listening to him as pleasurable as listening to a Suzhou ballad. Nobody wanted to leave his class. Students often visited him at home to see the impressionist sketches he had done in Europe. Since Yan’s paintings were rather realistic, he had never been criticized before the Cultural Revolution.
Fang Ganmin, who did not enjoy the popularity of Yan , was not so fortunate. During the early days of the People’s Republic, he was assigned to work at the Nanjing Military Academy. He had done some historical paintings that glorified political and military leaders. His ingratiating paintings, however, were not well received, and his style fell out of fashion. In 1958, he was re-assigned back to the Art Academy in Hangzhou, but had not been given much responsibility. Since most students had no idea of what Fang had achieved artistically, they showed him no respect. As soon as the Cultural Revolution began, Fang became the first target of assault and insult by radical students, who took him around the campus and poured ink all over him in public. Sometime later, he was locked up, by the Red Guards along with Yan and Ni, in a “cattle shed”. Although I was a younger instructor at the time, I was also punished in a “cattle shed” for my objection to the excessive behavior of the “rebels.” [xxvi]
Guan Liang was one of our fellow sufferers. He had always been a very quiet person and had virtually abandoned Western style oil painting a long time before. Instead, he had been immersed in painting Chinese opera characters with ink. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, I discovered in our department’s storage room over 200 ink paintings that the Red Guards had confiscated from his home. I quietly had the paintings returned to him in Shanghai; he was ecstatic to see these paintings again.
Of these veteran artists, only Ni Yide joined the Communist Party on the eve when the Communists came to power in China. He held leadership positions at the Art Academy and in the Art magazine. However, his paintings still retained his own brand of modernism. In his everyday life, he kept a sophisticated manner with refined taste. He conducted himself more like a liberal intellectual. During the Cultural Revolution, this style naturally made him the target of Red Guard’s criticism during the Cultural Revolution. I can still recall the embarrassing sight of the well-dressed Ni Yide being forced to perform heavy and filthy cleaning duties. He was severely traumatized physically and emotionally, as he never had experienced such humiliation in his entire life. In 1970, he passed away in great sadness.
The only time I saw Lin Fengmian was during the Cultural Revolution. Lin was arrested in 1968 on some unwarranted charges and was locked up at the No. 2 Detention Center in Shanghai’s Nanshi District. Wearing a gray sweater, he looked rather depressed and dispirited. It was difficult to visualize what he would have been like in his prime. In jail he wrote a poem, which reads:
With little talent for painting, I tried working late into the night:
The light was dying and the ink spent.
Still, I recall my youth, though my soul has long departed;
And, I’m all gray in these times of trouble.[xxvii]
The poem describes the helplessness of an artist who struggled his whole life to realize his ideal of “creating art for an era.” It also illustrates the pain and hardship endured by those who pursued modern art in the 20th century China.
March 2004, Delta, BC
[i] The term “New Schools’ Painting” refers to the style of painting influenced by Western modernism. In the spring of 1951, the Central Art Academy (East China Campus) initiated a campaign to criticize the so-called “New Schools’ Painting Group.” Some of Lin Fengmian’s students and colleagues were either criticized or forced to leave the academy. Lin resigned that summer and left Hangzhou. See Wang Di, Lin Fengmian and the New China’s Art of 17 Years, in Proceedings of International Symposium on Lin Fengmian and the 20th Century Chinese Fine Art, vol. 2, China Art Academy Press, 1999, p. 499.
[ii] Lin Fengmian, Arts from around the World in 1935, Commercial Press, 1936, p. 1.
[iii] Ibid., p. 90.
[iv] The exhibition was praised by the French newspaper, l’Humanite which also published the exhibition’s program. The works of Ye Fu, Tie Geng, Ye Luo and Chen Yanqiao were featured. The exhibition closed on March 29, 1934.
[v] Li Chao, History of Oil Painting in Shanghai, Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1995, pp. 59-60.
[vi] Lee Leo Ou-fan, Shanghai Modern, Mao Jian, transl., Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 4.
[vii] Xiang Da, “Western Influence on Chinese Art during the Ming and Qing Dynasties,” Oriental Journal, 27:1, 1930. In 1579, the Italian missionary Michaele Ruggieri brought colour paintings of Christ to China.
[viii] Ni Yide, “On Issues of Western Painting,” originally published in Shengliu, 5:41; See Collected Essays of Ni Yide on Art, Lin Wenxia, ed., Zhejiang Art Press, p. 79.
[ix] Guan Liang, A Memoir of Guan Liang, Shanghai Shuhua Press, 1984, p. 20.
[x] Li Chao, History of Oil Painting in Shanghai, Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1995, p. 64.
[xi] Xu Jiang, ed., Lin Fengmian’s Road, China Art Academy Press, 1999, p. 28.
[xii] Ni Yide, “Contemporary Artists,” originally published in Touring the Art Community, See Collected Essays of Ni Yide on Art, Lin Wenxia, ed., Zhejiang Art Press, p. 265.
[xiii] The Art Movement Society was an art organization founded by Lin Fengmian in Hangzhou in 1928. It can be considered a continuation of the Overseas Art Movement Society (originally named the Phoebus Society after the Greek Sun God), which he and his friends, such as Lin Wenzheng, had founded in France. From March 3 to March 9, 1934, the society held its fourth annual art exhibition at the China-France Friendship Association in Shanghai’s French Concession. One of the works exhibited was Lin Fengmian’s painting “The Suffering of Humanity, ” which was previously criticized by such Nationalist Party leaders as Jiang Jieshi and Dai Jitao. Jiang said, “How can people suffer so much under the leadership of Nationalist Party?” See Lin Fengmian on Art, Gu Liu and Peng Fei ed., Henan Art Press, 1999, pp. 258, 263.
[xiv] Fu Lei, “On Liu Haisu,” in Art Trimonthly, 1:3, September 21, 1932.
[xv] Xu Beihong, “I am Bewildered,” Art Exhibition Newsletter, Issue 5, distributed by the editing team of the First National Art Exhibition, April 22, 1929.
[xvi] Xue Beihong, Beihong’s Essay on Art, pp. 170-172.
[xvii] Xu Zhimo, “I am Bewildered too,” Art Exhibition Newsletter, Issue 5, distributed by the editing team of the First National Art Exhibition, April 22, 1929.
[xviii] Xue Beihong, “Bewilderment Unresolved,” Art Exhibition Newsletter, Issue 5, distributed by the editing team of the First National Art Exhibition, April 22, 1929.
[xix] Li Yishi, “I am not Bewildered,” Art Exhibition Newsletter, Issue 5, distributed by the editing team of the First National Art Exhibition, April 22, 1929.
[xx] Xu Zexiang, “Creating Art for the Masses by Mingling with and Mobilizing Them,” Art Monthly, January 1933. See Western Painting: Its 50 Years in China, Zhu Boxiong and Chen Ruilin, ed., People’s Art Press, p. 512.
[xxi] Ibid., p. 511.
[xxii] “The Storm Society Manifesto,” See Collected Essays of Ni Yide on Art, Lin Wenxia, ed., Zhejiang Art Press, pp. 44-45.
[xxiii] Pang Xunqin, The Road We Have Been Through, Joint Publishing, 1986, p. 185.
[xxiv] Yang Qiuren, Artist Journal, Issue 31, p. 22.
[xxv] Lee Leo Ou-fan, Shanghai Modern, Mao Jian, transl., Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 143.
[xxvi] During the Cultural Revolution, a “cattle shed” was a cell to lock up the so-called “class enemies” in a school or work place. Those that were locked up would lose their freedom like prisoners.
[xxvii] Feng Ye, “In Memory of My Adoptive Father as Bells Ring in My Dream,” in Proceedings of International Symposium on Lin Fengmian and the 20th Century Chinese Fine Art, vol. 2, China Art Academy Press, 1999, p. 679. In the Cultural Revolution, Lin Fengmian was arrested in 1968 for being suspected of the so-called “espionage.” He was released from prison in 1972. During the four years of imprisonment, Lin was severely traumatized physically and emotionally. In 1977, Lin immigrated to the then British colony, Hong Kong. He passed away in 1991.