Art History, Narratology, and Twentieth-Century Chinese Art (Routledge Research in Art History) [1 ed.] 1032461527, 9781032461526

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Art History, Narratology, and Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art

This study constructs a framework of narratology for art history and rewrites the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art from a narratological perspective. Theoretically and methodologically oriented, this is a self-​reflective meta-​art history studying the art historical narratives while narrating the story of modern and contemporary Chinese art. Thus, this book explores the three layers of narrative within the narratological framework: the first-​hand fabula, the secondary narration, and the tertiary narrativization. With this tertiary narrativization, the reader-​author presents three types of narrative: the grand narrative of the central thesis of this book, the middle-​range narrative of the chapter theses, and case analyses supporting these theses. The focus of this tertiary narrativization is the interaction between Western influence on Chinese art and the Chinese response to this influence. The central thesis is that this interaction conditioned and shaped the development of Chinese art at every historical turning point in the twentieth century. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, critical theory, Chinese studies, and cultural studies. Lian Duan is a senior lecturer in Chinese at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Routledge Research in Art History

Routledge Research in Art History is our home for the latest scholarship in the field of art history. The series publishes research monographs and edited collections, covering areas including art history, theory, and visual culture. These high-level books focus on art and artists from around the world and from a multitude of time periods. By making these studies available to the worldwide academic community, the series aims to promote quality art history research. American Artists Engage the Built Environment, 1960–79 Susanneh Bieber The Materiality of Terracotta Sculpture in Early Modern Europe Edited By Zuzanna Sarnecka and Agnieszka Dziki Contagion, Hygiene, and the European Avant-Garde Edited By David Hopkins and Disa Persson Historical Narratives of Global Modern Art Irina D. Costache and Clare Kunny Art History, Narratology, and Twentieth-Century Chinese Art Lian Duan A Data-Driven Analysis of Cemeteries and Social Reform in Paris, 1804–1924 Kaylee P. Alexander Weak Painting After Modernism Material Strategies 1968–1978 Craig Staff Art and Monist Philosophy in Nineteenth Century France From Auteuil to Giverny Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Art-History/ book-series/RRAH

Art History, Narratology, and Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art Lian Duan

Designed cover image: Yue Minjun: Execution (1995, courtesy of the artist) 岳敏君《处决》 First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Lian Duan The right of Lian Duan to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 9781032461526 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032463049 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003381044 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003381044 Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

This book is dedicated to Dr David Pariser, my MA and PhD supervisor, for his lifelong intellectual guidance; the Boucher Meunier family, for the three-​decade-​long friendship of Pierre, Carole, Marie, and Pascale; and my mother, who did all she could for my and my siblings’ education, even in difficult times.

In memory of Bo (1963–​2023), my dearest brother, a brilliant mathematician, scientist, and engineer, with a literary mind and free spirit. You are always in my heart, forever.

Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements

viii x

Introduction: A Meta-​Art History

1

1 Before 1949: Context and Modern Art

14

2 Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art

50

3 1979–​1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation

86

4 1985–​1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-​Garde Movement

118

5 The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization

154

6 Towards a Conclusion: Conceptual Art through to the 2020s

187

Glossary: A List of Chinese Names and Terms Index

205 210

Illustrations

1.1 Liu Haisu: A Portrait (1930, Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum, courtesy of Lu Peng) 刘海粟《肖像》 1.2 Guan Zilan: Portrait of Miss L (1929, National Art Gallery of China, Beijing, courtesy of Lu Peng) 关紫兰《少女像》 2.1 Shang Yang: Boatmen of Yellow River (1981, courtesy of the artist) 尚扬《黄河船夫》 2.2 Tang Muli: Acupuncture Anesthesia (1972, National Art Gallery of China, courtesy of the artist) 汤沐黎《针刺麻醉》 2.3 He Duoling: Spring Breeze (1982, National Art Gallery of China, courtesy of Lu Peng and the artist) 何多苓《春风已经苏醒》 3.1 Yuan Yunsheng: Water-​Splashing Festival, the Celebration of Life (1979, detail, courtesy of Lu Peng) 袁运生《泼水节-​生命的赞歌》 3.2 Wu Guanzhong: Setting Sun, Fishing Harbor (1980, courtesy of Lu Peng) 吴冠中《夕阳渔港》 3.3 Wang Keping: Idol (1980) and Silence (1979, courtesy of Lu Peng) 王克平《偶像》与《沉默》 4.1 Xiao Lu: Dialogue (1988, Taikang Manual Life Insurance, Beijing, courtesy of the artist) 肖鲁《对话》 4.2 Gu Wenda: United Nations: The Babel of the Millennium (1998–​1999, MoMA, SF, courtesy of the artist) 谷文达《联合国-​仟禧年巴比伦塔》 4.3 Xu Bing: The Book from the Sky (1998, Hong Kong Museum of Art, courtesy of the artist) 徐冰《天书》 4.4 Xu Bing: A Case Study of Transference (also named Cultural Animal, 1994, courtesy of the artist) 徐冰《一个转换案例的研究》（又名《文化动物》） 5.1 Fang Lijun: Yawn (1992, courtesy of the artist) 方力钧《打哈欠》 5.2 Yue Minjun: Liberty Leading the People (1995–​1996, collection of Uli Sigg, Switzerland, courtesy of the artist) 岳敏君《自由引导人民》 5.3 Zhang Xiaogang: Bloodline: Big Family 12 (1995, private collection, courtesy of the artist) 张晓刚《血缘：大家庭12号》 6.1 Dai Guangyu: Manufacturing the Corporal Print (1997, courtesy of the artist) 戴光郁《制造印痕的行为》 6.2 The Gao Brothers: The Paid Hugs (2002, courtesy of the artist) 高氏兄弟《一次雇佣的拥抱行为》

25 43 59 68 81 94 99 112 138 148 149 151 166 170 177 190 196

List of Illustrations  ix 6.3 The Gao Brothers: The Execution of Christ (2009, collection of Adrian David, Belgium, courtesy of the artist) 高氏兄弟《处决耶稣基督》 6.4 Cai Guo-​Qiang: Inopportune: Stage One (2004–​2011, courtesy of the artist) 蔡国强《不合时宜：舞台一》

198 199

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Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks first go to the artists discussed in this book, especially those who provided me with first-​ hand research materials and copyright for reproducing their artworks: Cai Guo-​Qiang, Dai Guangyu, Fang Lijun, the Gao Brothers, Gu Wenda, He Duoling, Hou Yiming, Shang Yang, Shen Jiawei, Tang Muli, Xiao Lu, Xu Bing, Yue Minjun, and Zhang Xiaogang. I further extend my thanks to art historian and critic Lu Peng, whom I referred to most in this book. Lu gave me permission and copyright to reproduce images from his books of all the artworks not by the artists listed above. During the four years of writing this book, I revised every chapter again and again with the help of my editors and friends. I wish to thank Dr Lynn Goldwater, who read Chapters 2 and 5 and provided helpful suggestions. In this regard, I would also like to thank Helen Wing, PhD, and Wang Yi, MSc. This book is about influence and response, and my writing of it is in response to the influence of some great scholars. Among them are two to whom I especially wish to extend my gratitude: Dr Mieke Bal and Dr Yiheng Zhao. As a translator of Bal, I took inspiration from her writings on narratology and visual analysis, including her most recent books, Narratology in Practice (2021) and Image-​Thinking (2022). I also took inspiration from Zhao’s writings on New Criticism, semiotics, and narratology, particularly A General Narratology (2013) and When the Teller is Told About (2013). Not coincidentally, my Chinese translation of Bal’s Semiotics of Narrative (2017) was included in and published as part of the translation series that Zhao edited. I wish to thank my students at Concordia University, Montreal, who responded to my teaching of Chinese art and wrote papers on the subject, which have always inspired my writing. I wish to thank Dr Isabella Vitti, editor at Routledge, for her scholarly insight. Without her professional judgement and constructive suggestions, this book would not have been published in such a timely fashion. Some chapters in this book have been revised and published as individual articles: Introduction, Signs and Media 1 (2020), 1–​15, Sichuan University, Brill; Chapter 1, The Waterfall and the Fountain: Comparative Semiotic Essays on Contemporary Arts in China, edited by Massimo Leone et al., University of Turino, Canterano: Aracne, 2019; Chapter 2, Chinese Semiotic Studies 4 (2022), Nanjing Normal University, De Gruyter. Writing this book was an experimental practice; I take sole responsibility for any errors it may contain. LD

Introduction A Meta-​Art History

Art history is a study of art in a broad sense and a narrative of the development of art in a narrow sense, while narratology is a study of narrative concerning what to tell and how to tell it. Theoretically and methodologically oriented, this book is a rethinking of the historical narrative of art and a rewriting of the development of Chinese art under Western influence in the twentieth century. The historical thesis of this rewriting is that the interaction between Western influence on twentieth-​century Chinese art and the Chinese response to this influence has conditioned and shaped the development of Chinese art at every historical turning point in the twentieth century. Presenting this thesis, I divide art historical narrative into three layers: the first-​hand fabula of artworks and research materials, the secondary narration by art historians, and the tertiary narrativization of readers. The narratological thesis is that a critical and re-​interpretive reader of art history transforms into a possible integral author of the tertiary narrativization by utilizing the first-​hand fabula and responding to the secondary narration in the process of rewriting art history. In this book, as a reader-​ author with an integral identity, I present my tertiary narrativization through three lenses. First, a wide-​angle lens shows a broad view of art history: Under Western influence, twentieth-​century Chinese art is divided into two mainstreams, Western-​style art and traditional-​style art, with a sub-​split in each. Second, a median-​distance lens captures a closer view of these two sub-​splits: The realist and modernist art in the first mainstream and the conservative and innovative art in the second mainstream. Third, a telephoto lens dissects the close-​up pictures of individual cases, detailing the two views and supporting the historical and narratological theses. Narratology provides a descriptive, analytical, and interpretive framework for theorizing the story of art from multiple perspectives. Pertinently, rewriting the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art is meta-​art historical, like what Aristotle said about philosophy: It is a thinking on thinking. Fung Yu-​Lan (1895–​1990), a Chinese philosopher and historian of the twentieth century, articulated that the thought about thought operates at a higher level (1976, 94). This level validates meta-​art history. Subject and Approach The subject and approach of this meta-​art history correspond with the above “what to tell” and “how to tell it.” As for “what,” according to Hayden White (1928–​2018), a narrative story of history consists of historical events organized in a chronological order based on their connections (1973, 5–​7). Art historical writing is no exception. To rewrite art history, I must first unfold these events. But “how” to unfold them? White considered DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-1

2 Introduction that history needs to be interpreted at three explanatory levels: emplotment, formal argument, and ideological implication (1973, 7, 11, 22). This interpretive method makes his narrative critical and self-​critical, hence he labelled it a metahistory. As for interpretation, in the 1960s, literary theorist Morris Weitz (1916–​ 1981) proposed a four-​stage interpretive procedure in his Shakespearean study (1965). Three decades later, art educator Terry Barrett (1945–​) revised Weitz’s scheme for art criticism as per postmodern conceptions and elaborated the four steps of description, interpretation, evaluation, and theorization (Barrett 1994, 2021). In my writing of art criticism, I have tried to enrich this process with two additional steps and thus increase the number to six: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, judgement, and theorization. Again, regarding “what,” the subject of Western influence and Chinese response is my historical theorization of the development of Chinese art in the twentieth century. This theorization is based on my description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and judgement of the historical events of Chinese art. Similarly, the narratological subject of the three layers in meta-​art history is a methodological theorization of “how” to tell the story. Concerning historical theorization, Western influence on Chinese art occurred in three consecutive periods in the twentieth century, each displaying unique cultural traits: The first wave of Western influence reached China in the early first half of the century, the second reached China indirectly via the Soviet Union in the early second half of the century, and the third reached China directly again in the last two decades of the century. Numerous avenues allowed Western influence to reach China. In this study, I summarize four: the exhibition of Western art in China, the teaching of Western art and art theory in China, the study by Chinese students of Western art and art theory in the West, and the translation of Western publications on art into Chinese. The Chinese response to Western influence is complex, as it involves Chinese artists’ and art theorists’ search for cultural identity through artistic and critical practices. In the following chapters, I will explore this response through the above lenses in three respects. The first is a general observation with a grand narrative about the division between the two mainstreams and the sub-​splits in each of them. The second is a more specific historical elaboration of the Chinese response from the four generations of artists and theorists of the last century. In this respect, the artistic practice of the first-​generation artists in the first half of that century showcased the split between the two mainstreams and the sub-​splits. Then, the second-​generation artists’ adoption of Socialist Realism from the early 1950s to the late 1970s showcased the West’s indirect influence via Soviet art. In the 1980s, the third-​generation artists embraced Western Realist art. However, since the late 1970s and particularly the mid-​1980s, the fourth-​generation artists embraced Western Modernist art and gradually mingled the two mainstreams together at the end of the twentieth century, which I refer to it as the “great confluence” of the two mainstreams. The third respect concerns individual cases, such as the artists of the 1990s, who tried to join the international contemporary art arena in the globalized and glocalized setting. These cases support the previous respects. Moreover, early twenty-​first century artists ventured into domestic and international art markets, showcasing the commercial turn of contemporary art and declaring the eventual death of avant-​gardism. In terms of its methodology, meta-​art history may remind readers of Roland Barthes’s (1915–​1980) notion of “utterance and utterance of that utterance” (1972, 97) and his

Introduction  3 distinction between two types of texts: the readerly and the writerly. This book may further remind readers of the Barthesian distinction between two types of writers, the écrivant and the écrivain; the former being a transitive writer, and the latter, an intransitive writer who cares more about the writing itself (Barthes 1972, 147). Nonetheless, my writing is integral of the two types of texts, and my authorial identity associated with this writing is integral of the two types of writers as well. But how to be integral? While art history tells the story of art, narratology for art history tells how to tell the story. Therefore, I must now briefly tell the story of narratology. Different from the common historical notions of “classical” narratology and “post-​ classical” narratology (Herman 2007, 12), I divide the development of narratology into four phases: premodern theories since Aristotle, modern theories from Russian formalism to French structuralism in the twentieth century, postmodern theories since deconstruction, and contemporary theories since the turn of the twentieth century. Modern narratology was first developed in literary study in the mid-​twentieth century and later became a general approach to narrative, including narrative of art. Literary narratology studies fictional narratives, whereas general narratology is not limited to these. As for the difference, art historical narrative is not fictional but empirical and related to, in certain aspects, archaeological and archival excavation and interpretation. Although narratology for art history is not about fiction, it does not forbid an art historian to utilize the critical notions of literary narratology. It is legitimate to generalize the critical theories of literary narratology. In fact, they are already converted into general narratology. So why not convert them again from general to specific for art history? To justify this conversion, I need the general and the specific to be more self-​reflexive, which is one of the main characteristics of meta-​art history. Inspired by modern literary narratology and contemporary general narratology, this study intends to outline a narrative model and construct a narratological framework for the narrative practice of rewriting art history in the academic milieu of today. This authorial intention is self-​consciously reflexive. Namely, this study aims to rethink the narrative of art history from the perspective of narrative itself, hence, narratology for art history and meta-​art history. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Canadian literary scholar Linda Hutcheon (1947–​) elaborated on the narrative notion of metafiction from a postmodern point of view as self-​referential or autorepresentational: “It provides, within itself, a commentary on its own status as fiction and as language and also on its own process of production and reception” (1985, xii). To Hutcheon, the interaction between author and reader makes the text metanarrative. Then, after the postmodern era, this notion developed in contemporary critical theories. British scholar Paul Cobley (1963–​) introduced the notion of metanarrative to narratology and distinguished two narrative levels (2014, 158). The first is the description of past events without the involvement of the voice of the first person “I.” In this case, the narrator does not directly speak in his or her narrative. The second is a current discourse in the present tense, which involves the first-​person voice. In Cobley’s theory, the speaker “I” takes part in the event of the narrative as a character in the story he or she tells, corresponding to an artist who tells the story of his or her involvement in a historical event of art. Writing this book, as the narrator, I wish to push the theory of the two-​level metanarrative one step further and propose a third level for the narrative of art history. I suggest integrating the past and present tenses in the reflexive and self-​critical discourse, involving the first-​person voice “I” that comments on how to tell the story of

4 Introduction art. Thus, throughout my writing, I use the first-​person voice to tell the story of Chinese art and reflect on how to tell the story, including using my interviews, conversations, and other communications with artists, art critics, art historians, and other scholars of art. Art history is a narrative of nonfiction. Professionals teaching literary writing usually tell their students to “show, don’t tell.” However, a teacher of literary nonfiction, Phillip Lopate (1943–​), tells his students something different: to show and to tell. To Lopate, his “to tell” demonstrates a writer or narrator’s self-​consciousness about his writing from a double perspective: What to tell and how to tell it. Although Lopate deals with the writing of literary nonfiction, to me, the writing of art history is no exception, precisely because art history is not literary writing but speculative, critical, and scholarly. At this point, I would like to pay attention to how Lopate writes about his idea: I would argue that literary nonfiction is surely the one arena in which it is permissible to “tell.” In personal essays and memoires, we must rely on the subjective voice of the first-​person narrator to guide us, and if that voice never explains, summarizes, interprets, or provides a larger sociological or historical context for the materials, we are in big trouble. We are reduced to groping in a dark tunnel, able to see only two feet in front of us. (Lopate 2013, 29) In the above, the writer uses the first-​person voice “I” and thus explains, summarizes, and interprets his theory about avoiding the “big trouble” in nonfictional writing. Concerning an art historian’s self-​awareness of storytelling, Charles Harrison (1942–​ 2009) remarked on how to choose a verb when discussing art: “I use the term represent here rather than depict, since it covers a wide range of ways in which works of art may evoke or refer to their subjects” (2009, 9). To Harrison, the choice between the two verbs, “represent” and “depict,” is decided by the connection between the painting under discussion and the subject of that painting. In my opinion, it is the author who makes this decision, since he or she sees the connection. Due to the nature of such a metanarrative, the subject and approach in this book are inseparable; they are bound to the thematic question: Why Western influence and Chinese response? More than a half-​century ago, the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–​1975) faced a similar question about “the unit of historical study” in his A Study of History: Should a historical study be isolated? After a retrospective consideration of some critical issues in the development of English history and the history of some other European nations, Toynbee concluded with a negative answer and pointed out that one nation’s history is but a small part of a bigger history (1987, 3). Accordingly, the relationship between part and whole is mutually dependent and decided, despite the spatial and temporal boundaries. My study specifies this relationship by the interaction between Western influence and Chinese response. Periodizing Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art Rewriting twentieth-​century Chinese art, I periodize its development into three broad phases: modern art in the first half of the twentieth century, Socialist Realist art since the 1950s, and contemporary art from 1979 to the present.

Introduction  5 In general, the development of art is framed by social, political, ideological, and cultural histories. However, it remains relatively independent, and this independence differentiates art history from the general and other specific histories. More than a hundred years ago, when art history was just established as a new discipline in modern academia, Heinrich Wolfflin (1864–​1945) characterized the art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in accordance with their respective styles, such as their linear and painterly difference. This periodization is continued and developed by later art historians, with various revisions, such as the authors of the century-​old popular textbook Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. It has been updated and reprinted again and again since 1926, all the way through to today in the early 2020s. With this scholarly pretext in mind, I must rethink the criteria for periodization. While I value visual form and formal elements in discussing art, I do not think that style is the sole criterion for periodization. Instead, the determining criteria have many faces, not only intrinsic but also extrinsic. In the terminology of today’s critical theory, art history is a part of cultural and social history, and it is determined by both internal and external conditions. In my historical narrative, I try to find the connections between the internal and external factors and explore how they work together in shaping the development of Chinese art. To my understanding, Western influence is not only political, ideological, social, economic, and cultural but also conceptual and stylistic, as is the Chinese response to this influence. Thus, I incorporate these factors alongside artistic considerations when periodizing Chinese art in the twentieth century. Due to this consideration, I specify that the first phase of the development of twentieth-​ century Chinese art started in 1919 and stress the historical and cultural importance of the May Fourth Movement, which opened the door for Western influence. Nevertheless, my discussion of the origination of modern Chinese art will go back to the contextual premodern time in the nineteenth century. Then I divide the second phase into three sub-​periods: the period dominated by Socialist Realist art from 1949 to 1966; the ten years of Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, dominated by the propagandist red art; and the two-​year transitional period from 1976 to 1978. I label this second phase as a “broken period” in the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art, since it neither continues the earlier modern art nor connects to the later postmodern art. I consider that, during these 30 years, Chinese art went astray and was on a “wrong path” due to its socialist propaganda nature. In this regard, I am the first among scholars in the West and China to use the “wrong path” to speak about this 30-​year period of development of Chinese art and the first to name it a “broken period.” However, I am not a historical nihilist; I recognize its presence in twentieth-​century Chinese art due to governmental promotion. Similarly, I specify the third phase as contemporary art with three sub-​periods: the revival of modernist art from 1979 to 1985; the avant-​garde movement from 1985 to 1989; and the postmodern art of the 1990s. Nevertheless, in my case analyses of the artists from this phase, I extend my discussion of their development and artworks up to the present in the first two decades of the twenty-​first century. When periodizing Chinese art, the notion of “contemporary art” is troublesome, from which a question arises: Can the study of contemporary art be a historical narrative, or can contemporary art be a part of art history? In the past ten years, some art historians and critics in China have argued over this problem. So far, no conclusions have been drawn. On this topic, I emphasize the difference between art history and art criticism.

6 Introduction The former is more concerned with what has happened to art in the past in a diachronic dimension. In contrast, the latter is more concerned with what is currently going on in a synchronic dimension. In the West, scholars do not use the term “history” to refer to their study of contemporary art but use “art of today” or “art now.” However, since I intend to retell the story of art and rewrite the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art, I use the inclusive term “history” for modern, postmodern, and contemporary art, as it helps me better delineate my narrative. The Anxiety of Cultural Identity Western art and art theory have strongly influenced Chinese art in modern times. However, behind this seemingly simple fact, there are some critical twists and complications, involving the ways in which Chinese artists and scholars have responded to this influence. An art historian is not only a storyteller but also an interpretive explorer with an analytical eye and a critical pen. Keeping this in mind, I wish to examine the complexities behind modern Chinese art. For this purpose, I pay attention to a key issue hidden beneath the surface: The Chinese anxiety about Western dominance in the world of art and art historical narrative. In this regard, I make the point that the development of Chinese art in modern times is largely a history of the Chinese response to Western influence. Scholars have offered various interpretations of the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art and various theories as to what has defined its progress throughout the last century. Art historians using a sociological approach regard the development of art as a part of social history, whereas those adopting a formalist approach regard it as a stylistic development. Interestingly, an art historian from Taiwan proposed a socio-​political interpretation, claiming that it was Mao Zedong Thought that determined the development of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century (Lin 2002, 20). Although I do not oppose that interpretation, I believe that it is just a part of the issue. On the one hand, Marxism is one aspect of Western influence and Mao Zedong Thought is one aspect of the Chinese response. On the other hand, although this scholar grasped a part of the issue, he failed to make it a more general theorization. Due to this consideration, I propose a different interpretation, which is the historical thesis presented above, and offer a further elaboration. In the early twentieth century, the interaction of Western influence and Chinese response caused a split in Chinese art between the Western style and the traditional style, forming two mainstreams that ran side by side and interweaved in the development of Chinese art throughout the twentieth century. Then, towards the end of the century, contemporary Chinese art reached a point of confluence, gradually merging the two divided mainstreams together. This confluence is the latest development of Chinese art and the latest response to Western influence. Investigating the key issues in this development, I address how Chinese artists and scholars have responded to Western influence. To ground my opinion, I refer to the critical concept of “purposeful misreading” or “intentional misreading” in literary studies and offer the notion of the “anxiety of cultural identity.” Purposeful misreading is crucial in localizing Western art forms and concepts in the globalized cultural setting. In other words, the purpose of the Chinese misreading is to construct its own modern and contemporary art, which is also a way to search for and reconstruct its own cultural identity. At both individual or personal and national levels, the aim is to convert Western art

Introduction  7 forms and concepts to Chinese ones, which serves the purpose of advancing Chinese art and culture. In terms of theoretical sources, in addition to some recent inspiring theories, my idea of the “anxiety of cultural identity” is mainly informed by two great thinkers from the twentieth century: Arnold J. Toynbee and Harold Bloom (1930–​2019). Earlier, I mentioned Toynbee’s study of history. In this study, he proposed the idea of “challenge and response” (Toynbee 1987, 60), which supports his basic argument about the development of civilization. According to Toynbee, this development results from human responses to certain challenges, namely, environmental and human challenges. Of the two, the human challenge is more cultural, which is relevant to my interpretation of Chinese art: The two interwoven aspects of the external challenge and the internal response. The relationship between the two is interactive. Regarding the challenge from Western civilization to others, Toynbee’s opinion seems time-​defying: Is not this very challenge being actually presented under our eyes to the primitive inhabitants of Tropical Africa by the impact of our Western Civilization –​a human agency which, in our generation, is playing the mythical role of Mephistopheles towards every other extant civilization and towards every extant primitive society on the face of the Earth? The challenge is still so recent that we cannot yet forecast the ultimate response that any of the challenged societies will make to it. We can only say that the failure of the fathers to respond to one challenge would not condemn the children to fail in face of another challenge when their hour came. (Toynbee 1987, 72–​73) At this point, I wish to clarify that I do not directly apply Toynbee’s theory to my study but revise it, replacing the somewhat aggressive term “challenge” with a more workable one –​“influence.” Influence is different from challenge. The former brings change to the influenced, and the latter stimulates defensive resistance since it could be hostile towards the challenged. With this difference, my thesis of “influence and response” also differs from Toynbee’s. In my view, Western influence is not the coup de grace to the development of Chinese art. Instead, it is a positive influence, stimulating constructive responses for a healthier development. How does the response work? Toynbee brought up a Chinese philosophical dichotomy, the yin-​yang interaction, and the concept of the hero. The latter can turn the passive yin-​force into the active yang-​force in responding to challenges. In the case of early Chinese civilization, the hero belongs to the “particular members” of the challenged civilization: If certain members of that wide-​ spread race created a civilization while the rest remained culturally sterile, the explanation may be that a creative faculty, latent in all alike, was evoked in those particular members, and in those only, by the presentation of a challenge to which the rest did not happen to be exposed. (Toynbee 1987, 74) Toynbee’s hero, who responded to the challenge, reminds me of a similar personality in Bloom’s poetic theory: the “strong poet.”

8 Introduction Bloom is one of the most influential Yale School critics and is still considered a leading literary scholar in the early twenty-​first century. Since the 1970s, he has developed a theory about literary influence in his study of the development of English poetry. According to Bloom, poets from younger generations realized that they were newcomers to the poetic world. Due to the shadows of the old masters, there was insufficient space for them to demonstrate their talents; the shadows made them anxious. However, some were “strong poets” who were creative and rebellious. They challenged the old masters by purposefully misreading and revising them. In Bloom’s opinion, the anxiety of William Shakespeare was to fight the shadow of another poet-​dramatist of his time, Christopher Marlowe (1564–​1593). Although Marlowe had a decisive influence on Shakespeare, Shakespeare, as a strong poet, eventually developed his own style through a purposeful misreading and revising of Marlowe’s work and consequently surpassed him. Interestingly, Bloom’s theory of influence is itself influenced by the Freudian theory of the Oedipus complex, which partially comes from Sigmund Freud’s (1856–​1939) study of classical literature, especially Shakespeare. Ironically, the Freudian concept of the Oedipus complex inspired and shadowed Bloom, just as Shakespeare’s Hamlet inspired and shadowed Freud. While Freud developed his psychoanalytic literary theory in the shadow of Shakespeare, Bloom developed his poetic theory in the shadow of Freud. Along this line, I intend to link Bloom’s theory of influence to my own study by examining how Western influence created similar anxiety for Chinese artists and scholars of art, who struggled to establish an independent identity in order to gain a place and status in the world of art and art history. Defusing the Intrinsic-​Extrinsic Opposition This self-​reflexive meta-​art history is beyond the binary opposition between modernist intrinsic study and postmodern extrinsic study. Regarding the methodology of critical theory in Western academia, broadly speaking, the 1960s is a historical watershed that differentiates the border-​crossing extrinsic contextual study from the earlier formalist intrinsic textual/​visual study. At that time, Roland Barthes and his followers brought modern semiotics, narratology, and image study to the final stage of their development. Unfortunately, they did not break down the intrinsic confinement. The breakthrough was achieved by Jacques Derrida (1930–​2004), who deconstructed this confinement and paved the way for postmodern and contemporary extrinsic study. In other words, while Barthes looked back and brought intrinsic study to its zenith, Derrida looked ahead and opened a new world for the future. Regarding the extrinsic study thereafter, contemporary theory is undoubtedly involved with its immediate predecessor, post-​structuralist and postmodern theory, though they are different, temporally and conceptually. In the 1970s and 1980s, the postmodern is more deconstructive, subverting the modernist-​formalist intrinsic doctrine. Then, from the 1980s to the fin de siècle, the contemporary became more reconstructive by developing some up-​to-​date extrinsic theories. In art history, the link between postmodern and contemporary is the so-​called “New Art History,” which is interdisciplinary and integrative. Within this historical context, I bring in the theory and methodology of Mieke Bal (1946–​), who has developed her semiotic and narrative reading of images into visual and cultural analyses. Bal regards narratology as a semiotic theory and notes in her essay “Interdisciplinary Narratology” that “narrative itself, as a mode of communication, has

Introduction  9 specific semiotic features” (1994, 21, 25). For Bal, since narrative can determine the production of meaning in semiotic interaction, it “must be considered as a discursive mode which affects semiotic objects in variable degrees” (1994, 21, 25). Integrating this general conception in her analytical reading of images, Bal makes her semiotic narrative more specific: “Narrative in visual art tend[s]‌to focus on the question of how images are able to narrate stories” (1994, 194). Bal’s “how” testifies to the central thesis of this book, namely, the development of modern Chinese art tells the story of Western influence and Chinese response. At this point, I wish to emphasize the significance of the contextual narrative, which lies in the fact that while I tell the contextual story of Chinese art, Chinese art also tells the story of its context. The two are mutually dependent on each other. The contextual narrative provides a new perspective for image reading that is not intrinsically limited in the process of meaning making. Regarding image reading and meaning making in a contextual narrative, I must further refer to Bal: Trying to understand how images affect viewers in today’s image-​saturated world, I have found semiotics helpful as a perspective, a set of conceptual tools, and a caution. As a perspective, it helps to consider a work of visual art as an object whose relevance derives from the processes in which it functions. Thus it takes art out of a formalist and autonomist idealization and takes the work as dynamic. (Bal 1998, 74) Moreover, in Bal’s reading of images, visual analysis is both synchronic and diachronic. With a strong sense of history, Bal developed her interdisciplinary semiotic approach beyond structuralism, from postmodern New Art History to contemporary visual cultural study. She first described her method as visual analysis, and then, with a political agenda and a feminist ideology, she described it as cultural analysis. On the topic of historical sense in visual cultural study, Bal elaborated on her conception about the past and the present at the very beginning of her introductory chapter in The Practice of Cultural Analysis: Exposing Interdisciplinary Interpretation: Cultural analysis as a critical practice is different from what is commonly understood as “history.” It is based on a keen awareness of the critic’s situatedness in the present, the social and cultural present from which we look, and look back, at the objects that are always already of the past, objects that we take to define our present culture. Thus, it can be summarized by the phrase “cultural memory in the present.” … cultural analysis seeks to understand the past as part of the present, as what we have around us, and without which no culture would be able to exist. (Bal 1999, 1) Bal’s historical sense stresses the importance of the present inclusiveness of the past and the mutual condition of the past and the present, social and cultural. For my rewriting of the development of Chinese art in modern times, I problematize the existing interpretations and bring a sound to the silent assumptions about them. Here the historical sense is crucial. It confirms my construction of the contextual narrative of Chinese art under Western influence.

10 Introduction With this historical sense, I can turn to construct my art historical narrative beyond the intrinsic-​extrinsic opposition. Relevant to the constant changes in historical conditions, the so-​called historical sense concerns at least four aspects of these conditions. The first is the artist’s time, which is the time when a certain work of art is created or when a historical event takes place in the development of art. The second is the time referred to in artworks, such as the biblical time in a religious painting by a Renaissance artist. The third is the reader’s time, which is the moment when the work is read and interpreted. Consequently, the fourth aspect is the reader’s time of referent, or the implied time, which is the time that the interpreter aims at when discussing the hidden message in a work of art. The implied time could be the past, the present, or the future. Notably, the interactive relationship among the four aspects of my historical sense allows the contextual narrative to work. I am not a formalist, nor anti-​formalist. In my narratology for art history, I value both internal and external studies, and use the term “contemporary narratology” to refer to my integral approach, which takes the best from the two. The Narrative Model and the Narratological Framework This integral approach beyond the binary opposition is demonstrated in the narrative model and narratological framework I constructed for the meta-​art history. Referring to the topics in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (2007), I consider that the notions of narration, time/​space, character, dialogue, focalization, genre, and so forth are internal, whereas gender, ethics, ideology, cognition, identity, and so forth are external. How do the two integrate and work together? I value the importance of context, which frames each of the internal and external notions individually, while also framing the internal and external ones as a whole. As for the notion of context, it has two sides: the internal and the external. The internal context is within the four borders of a piece of paper; on it, a text is written or printed. A word, a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph is contextualized by the other words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs before, after, and around it. Analogously, for a human figure depicted in a painting, the background behind it and the images around it constitute the internal context. In contrast, the notion of external context concerns historical setting, political environment, intellectual milieu, and so on. For a painting, the link between the two contexts is the frame, which divides and connects the internal and external contexts. To further integrate internal/​external and textual/​contextual studies, I must move on to the topic of the narrative model and narratological framework. The narrative model is a functional platform for the narrative elements, like the high-​rise platform on a construction site. However, the model is singular, one-​layered, and one-​dimensional, whereas a framework is built for the model –​multiplying it, enriching it, enhancing it, and strengthening it. This framework is plural, multi-​layered, and multi-​dimensional. Since narratology is the study of narrative, the function of the narratological framework is to help describe, analyse, interpret, evaluate, and judge the narrative and its model –​ putting the narrative theory into practice, and hence giving birth to the meta-​narrative concept. The framework provides not only a system for a narrative study of art history but also a metanarrative study of the narrative itself from multiple perspectives of the internal, external, and integral points of view. In short, the narratological framework is

Introduction  11 a theoretical and methodological system constructed with frames that are one inside the other, like a television screen’s picture within a picture, or the Russian nesting dolls, the matryoshka. The preliminary work was presented in my recent book Semiotics for Art History (2019). In it, I outlined the following integrated model of visual communication: Context → (Encoding/​Encoder → Image/​Text → Decoding/​Decoder) → Context In this model, the function of context is clear. Then I integrate the internal and external studies by emphasizing two different perspectives within the parenthesis of the above model: first, the interaction between the encoder and the image, and second, the interaction between the decoder and the image. Subsequently, I emphasize the third perspective, the image/​text, which connects the two opposite perspectives. Thus, I revise the above model and develop it into a narrative model for rewriting art history: Context → (Narrator/​Author ↔ Image/​Text ↔ Viewer/​Reader) ← Context Regarding the role of the author from the first perspective, while modern narratologists proposed the notion of “implied author,” contemporary narratologists took one step further and specified the author as “model author” and “empirical author.” Similarly, regarding the role of the reader from the second perspective, while modern narratologists proposed the notion of “implied reader,” contemporary narratologists distinguished “model reader” from “empirical reader” (Eco 1995, 8). Regarding the third perspective, modern narratologists stressed the intrinsicality of image/​text, whereas postmodern narratologists emphasized its extrinsicality. I break down the boundary between the two by going back and forth over the frame. Concerning the three perspectives, premodern theorists gave the right of interpretation to the author, whereas modernist theorists gave this right to the text/​image itself by negating the authorial intention and declaring the death of the author. Although postmodernists gave the right of interpretation to the context and reader by claiming the “end of art” (Danto 1997, 24), some contemporary theorists gave the right back to the text/​image by declaring the death of the reader (Harrison 2001, 171). Unlike them, since my interpretive position is border-​crossing, my critical perspective is integral. Thus, I can outline my narratological framework: External Studies → External Context (Historical Pre-​Text → Cultural Con-​Text) → Internal Studies → Internal Context (Textual Context) → (Narrator/​Author) ↔ Central Image/​Text (First-​hand Fabula-​Secondary Narration-​Tertiary Narrativization) ↔ (Viewer/​Reader) ← (Textual Context) Internal Context ← Internal Studies ← (Cultural Con-​Text ← Historical Pre-​Text) External Context ← External Studies In this framework, the integral context demonstrates its structural function, framing and connecting author, central image/​text, and reader, and making the framework a whole. In practice, it helps me organize the chapters of this book from the outside in, approaching the contextual topic, then the issue of reader/​author transformation, and finally reaching the central text with explorations of the issues of evental folds and characterization.

12 Introduction As for the wholeness of the above model and framework, my opinion is supported by other scholars, though with differences. In the introduction to A History of Western Hermeneutics (2013, 2016), the Chinese scholar Pan Derong (1951–​) listed author, text, and reader as the three main components of the hermeneutic whole (Pan 2016, 7). He emphasized the connection between the three and pointed out that a scholar must find a fulcrum to connect them. However, he did not indicate what this fulcrum was or where to find it. In reality, a fulcrum is a sole point. Unlike Pan, I have developed the above model and framework from four points of view: context, author, image/​text, and reader. Among these four, context is structurally crucial, framing all viewpoints as a whole and framing each individually. In this framework, the context is not a sole point but a multiple and integral one. This book is theoretically and methodologically explorative, and the way of writing this book –​chiefly, my tertiary narrativization in the first-​person voice –​is experimental. Such exploration and experimentation may displease some scholars. Therefore, I would like readers to consider two questions. First, is there an orthodox way of writing art history? If yes, what is the doctrine? For the development of art history as a scholarly discipline, postmodernists proposed the concept of New Art History in the late twentieth century, which is relevant to the next concept, Visual Culture. In China, scholars are currently discussing the new concept of Open Art History, which is interdisciplinary and relevant to New Art History. At this point, I wish to state that the writing of art history needs a critical rethinking and conceptual and methodological changes for its future development, hence self-​reflection is necessary. Second, I must ask a similar question and state the same about narratology. The so-​ called “classical” and “post-​classical” narrative theories need to be developed in the twenty-​first century. They should not cling to the orthodox doctrines of the early and the late twentieth century. In this regard, I call for the application of recent critical theories to narrative study and the study of art history. December 12, 2018–​December 3, 2022, Montreal References Bal, Mieke, ed. 1999. The Practice of Cultural Analysis: Exposing Interdisciplinary Interpretation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bal, Mieke. 1994. On Meaning-​Making: Essays in Semiotics. Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press. Bal, Mieke. 1998. “Seeing Signs: The Use of Semiotics for the Understanding of Visual Art.” In The Subject of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspective, edited by Mark A. Cheetham, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey, 74–​93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barrett, Terry. 1994. Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary. San Francisco: Mayfield Publishing Company. Barrett, Terry. 2021. Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images, 6th ed. San Francisco: Mayfield Publishing Company. Barthes, Roland. 1972. Critical Essays. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Cobley, Paul. 2014. Narrative. London: Routledge. Danto, Arthur C. 1997. After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Eco, Umberto. 1995. Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Introduction  13 Fung Yu-​Lan. 1976. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: A Systematic Account of Chinese Thought from Its Origins to the Present Day. New York: The Free Press. Harrison, Charles. 2001. Conceptual Art and Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Harrison, Charles. 2009. An Introduction to Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. Herman, David, eds., 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. New York and London: Methuen. Lin Xingyu 林惺嶽. 2002. Zhongguo Youhua Bainian Shi 中国油画百年史 [History of One-​ Hundred-​Year Chinese Oil Paintings]. Taipei: Artists Publishing House. Lopate, Phillip. 2013. To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction. New York: Free Press. Pan Derong 潘德荣. 2016. Xifang Quanshixue Shi 西方诠释学史 [A History of Western Hermeneutics]. Beijing: Peking University Press. Toynbee, Arnold J. 1987. A Study of History (abridgement of volumes I–​VI by D.C. Somervelle). New York: Oxford University Press. Weitz, Morris. 1965. Hamlet and the Philosophy of Literary Criticism. London: Faber and Faber. White, Hayden. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-​Century Europe. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

1 Before 1949 Context and Modern Art

This chapter elaborates on the narrative model and narratological framework for rewriting the development of Chinese art and explores the relationship between context and text. The context consists of external and internal aspects, and the text consists of three narrative layers. With the help of this model and framework, this chapter examines the fundamental change in Chinese art in the first half of the twentieth century and expounds on the central thesis of this book. Correspondingly, the thesis of this chapter is that the preliminary response to Western influence in the early twentieth century is shown in the great divergence in modern Chinese art, splitting it into two mainstreams: traditional-​style art and Western-​style art, with a sub-​split in each. The split and sub-​splits continued throughout the entire century, and the interplay of the two mainstreams showcases the uniqueness of the development of modern Chinese art. This uniqueness reveals the Chinese anxiety about cultural and national identity, which, in return, acts as the drive behind the Chinese response to Western influence. To begin with, I must make some terminological clarifications. First, the notions of “context” and “text.” In the study of art history, “context” refers to the setting of art, involving the social, historical, political, intellectual, conceptual, and artistic background (Mattick 1996, 72). “Text” in premodern times generally refers to a literary work. However, alongside the rise of formalist criticism in the mid-​twentieth century, this notion is differentiated from “work.” In a semiotic sense, “text” plays the role of a signifier, while “work” is the signified. Nevertheless, since the prevalence of post-​structuralism and postmodernism in the late twentieth century, “text” is considered the unity of signifier and signified. Closely related to the two is “frame.” In a literal and analogical sense, there is a frame around a picture; it is in between context and text, differentiating the two. The frame is inclusive of the painting and exclusive of its external setting. However, Jacques Derrida (1930–​2004) unbonded the frame, debunked the binary internal-​external concept of the frame by associating it with context, and broke the limit of the frame, stressing its semiotic function (1987, 98). Derrida’s notion of the frame extends beyond its literal connotation and reaches towards analogical denotations (Richards 2008, 33). The Derridean vision of the frame inspires my understanding of the interaction between context and text. In this chapter, “frame” is a specific term for the contextual change and the relocation of the text. In the same vein, I will further refer to Mieke Bal’s notions of “frame” and “reframe.” The second terminological clarification involves “modern art,” “modernist art,” and “Modernist art.” The first is a temporal term referring to Chinese art in the first half of DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-2

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  15 the twentieth century, while the second is not only temporal but also conceptual and stylistic, referring to, in general, the non-​traditional art of the twentieth century. With the first letter capitalized, the third refers to the specific art movement of the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this chapter, I will present my topics through three lenses. As mentioned in the introduction, the first is a wide-​angle lens for the central thesis of this book about twentieth-​ century Chinese art. The second is a median-​distance lens for closer views of the two mainstreams and their respective sub-​splits throughout the twentieth century. The third is a telephoto lens for the close-​up images of individual cases, detailing and supporting the above two views. Since the views through the first two lenses are relatively broad, I will not limit my discussions to the first half of the twentieth century but extend them to the present day when necessary. The Importance of Context In the introduction, I presented a narrative model and developed it into a narratological framework. The significance of this framework lies in its function and structure. Regarding function, the context provides the text with an operational field, i.e., the textual space, where the text is created, encoded, interpreted, and valued. In addition to the context-​ text relation, there is also an inter-​textual interaction, including the intertextuality among the secondary narrations, which partially contextualizes the tertiary narrativization. Regarding structure, context exists in two aspects: the external and the internal. The former is found beyond the page borders of a text, demonstrating its non-​textual nature, and the latter is found within a text’s page borders, showing its textual nature. The external context consists of historical pre-​text and cultural con-​text, whereas the internal context consists of textual context and the central text, which is the very centrepiece of the text itself –​there is no clear-​cut borderline between them. In other words, in the process of reaching the central text from the outside, the notion of context in the model and framework is border-​crossing. The importance of context may be common sense. However, since modern narratology is developed from formalist structuralism, not all narratologists pay attention to the importance of context, and this attention makes a difference. In the 1960s and 1970s, French structuralist narratologists started constructing internal systems for narrative models. Based on and developed from their preliminary works, in the 1980s, American narratologist Gerald Prince (1942–​) outlined a foundational model in his book Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative (1982) and built a basic model for narratology: narrator → narration → narratee. Although Prince did not present his model in this format, I summarize it based on his discussions in the first chapter on narrating: Narration takes the central place in the narrative process, connecting the author and the reader at two opposite ends (Prince 1982, 7). Theory develops and changes. In the first decade of the twenty-​first century, American narratologist Rick Altman (1945–​) set a new model in his book A Theory of Narrative (2008) and gave the central place to narrative focus. He discussed the single-​focus, dual-​ focus, and multi-​focus systems in literary and visual narratives. Although his narrative model is built in the 2000s, and his perspective is uniquely different from that of the earlier narratologists, Altman’s new theory is still narration centred, and the importance of narration is stressed in his discussion of the multiple spaces and foci in the paintings

16  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art of Pieter Bruegel (c.1525–​1569) (Altman 2008, 191). In his model, context is somehow less important. Since the early 2010s, the development of narratology has slowed down, and the study of narrative has faded from the scholarly frontline in social science and humanity studies. Now is the time for narratologists to look back, rethink, and place the final brick on the building of narrative theory to complete its theoretical system –​namely, a narratological framework. In this milieu, British narratologist Paul Cobley published the second edition of his summative account on this subject, simply titled Narrative. Cobley presents a model in the first chapter, which is a descriptive presentation of the internal components of narrative study. The thoughtful title of this chapter, “In the Beginning: The End,” begins a loop and confines his discussion of narrative in an intrinsic sphere. More interestingly, Cobley entitled the second to last chapter “In the End: The Beginning,” which seems open-​ended but actually completes the loop. However, there is a twist: He briefly discussed the process of narrative reading, which involves both reader and author (Cobley 2014, 186). Unfortunately, in Cobley’s historical narrative of narrative history, the topic of context is simply left out. In the above, we can see the theoretical development from the narration-​centred model of the 1980s to the narrator–​narration-​centred model of the later decades. American narratologist David Herman (1967–​) considered these models “classical approaches” (2007, 12) since they are somehow intrinsic and formalistic. Although Herman acknowledged the efforts made by the scholars of the 1980s and 1990s in exploring the limits of the intrinsic models, I recognize their efforts in exploring and expanding the theoretical limit. For instance, Mieke Bal’s cultural analysis of visual narrative goes beyond internal confinement. She pays attention to the cultural background and artistic convention, which serve as the historical context for visual analysis in her 1991 book Reading Rembrandt and for the cultural analysis of contemporary art in her 2021 book Narratology in Practice. Related to context, a historical narrative of the development of art can do two things to art history. It can take art out of its original context, or “aura” in the terminology of Walter Benjamin (1892–​1940), such as its studio space or church space. It can also frame it back to its original context and reframe it in another context, such as a museum space. I will not plunge into the postmodern debate over the legitimacy of context; rather, I stress the importance of context for its correspondence and coherence with text. In this study of Chinese art, I emphasize the match between the fundamental change in modern Chinese art and its historical pre-​text and cultural con-​text, namely, the match between the great divergence of the two mainstreams and the socio-​political modernization process in early twentieth-​century China. I also stress the importance of the textual and contextual match between Chinese art and its setting. This match legitimizes my reinterpretation of the interaction between Western influence and Chinese response, and between this response and the Chinese anxiety about identity. Regarding the thesis of this chapter, context explains the drive behind Chinese anxiety about identity and multiplies the denotations of historical, political, social, economic, cultural, intellectual, and other external aspects of the development of Chinese art. In this regard, I value the sense of history, in both historicist and New Historicist terms. Before the Second World War, historicists generally regarded history and external historical conditions as singular, linear, one-​dimensional, fixed, stable, and unchanging. However, the postmodern New Historicists held an opposing view, seeing the historical

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  17 conditions as forever changing. Benefiting from the two views, I gain multiple senses of history in outlining my own narrative model. In the introduction to this book, I mentioned at least four aspects of historical sense. Moreover, in the concluding chapter of my book Semiotics for Art History, I listed five aspects: (1) the historical moment when the artist/​author created the work; (2) the historical moment the work refers to; (3) the historical moment when the reader reads or interprets the work; (4) the implied historical moment of the artist/​author, which could be current or future, such as the case of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-​Four (1949); and (5) the implied historical moment of the reader, which could be the past, present, and/​or future. (Duan 2019, 235) The first two are relatively easy to understand, while the remaining three are beyond literal understanding, since I value the present significance of the past. Supporting this trans-​historical point of view, I would like to quote the poignant opinion of Paul Mattick, Jr, on the issue of context: Art is valued precisely for its purported transcendence of history. The object collected and displayed as meaningful in the present, and not just as a trace of the past. Yet this present value essentially involves its historical character or reference –​even in the case of new art. (Mattick 1996, 72–​73) However, I acknowledge that the above historical senses are more temporal, so I would now like to develop the sense of history from solely temporal to spatio-​temporal and give four elaborations developed from a relevant discussion in the introduction of this book. The first of my multiple senses of history concerns the historical condition at the time when an artwork is created by an artist, as well as the time when an art movement happened in history. The second is the sense of the historical condition of the time that an event takes place, which is represented, reflected, or referred to in an artwork and a narrative of art history. I consider that, in these two cases, the historical conditions change less, and what actually changes is the readers’ understandings of the historical conditions due to their own temporal location. Thus, the third is the historical sense of the time when we read about a certain artwork and art history. In this sense, the historical condition seems fixed, but in reality it is not. For an artist and art historian, the historical condition of what the work refers to could be stable, but to readers it is not. A reader is different from the author; the importance of the reader is found in not only a temporal sense of history but also its spatial sense. Thus, the fourth of my multiple senses of history is indeed spatial: To the readers of different locations and cultures, the significance of an artwork is different in accordance with their geographical, regional, national, cultural, and personal experiences and situations. A strong historical sense helps an art historian contextualize the development of art in a narrative discourse. This serves not only to contextualize the Chinese response to Western influence but also to elaborate and legitimize my tertiary narrativization about the anxiety of cultural and national identity as the drive behind the Chinese response in a specific historical period.

18  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Historical Pre-​Text and the Westernization Movement As a general term, “context” denotes multiple background aspects. In a temporal sense, one of these aspects is historical. I name this aspect “pre-​text” because the historical background events essentially occurred before artistic change. In the early twentieth century, pre-​text works as a historical setting, playing the role of historical condition to the great divergence in Chinese art. Throughout the twentieth century, Chinese intellectuals showed great interest in Western culture. Among them, artists, art students, and art scholars enthusiastically embraced Western art and art theory. The background reason for this interest can be found in the Westernization Movement of the late nineteenth century and the New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century, which was intensely politically charged. Fung Yu-​Lan discussed this topic, though he did not use the term “pre-​text,” and listed three direct reasons in his history of Chinese philosophy. However, these reasons are somehow too technical except for the first one, which is China’s defeat in the Sino-​Japanese war (1894–​1895). According to Fung, the defeat and other national “humiliations at the hands of the West, shook the confidence of the Chinese people in the superiority of their own ancient civilization, and therefore gave them a desire to know something about Western thought” (Fung 1976, 326). Traditionally, China was a cultural exporter to its neighbours in East Asia: Korea and Japan in the northeast, Vietnam and other nations in the south, and almost all the Southeast Asian nations. As one of the world’s great ancient civilizations, China started casting its cultural influence on Japan as early as the sixth century. Therefore, the intellectuals of imperial China always considered China culturally superior to the periphery states and felt they could learn little, if anything, from them. But things change. The first crucial change happened in the mid-​nineteenth century, when the Anglo-​Chinese wars broke out on the south coast of China. From 1839 to 1842, due to trade disputes, China fought the First Opium War against Britain and was defeated. Then, from 1856 to 1860, China fought the Second Opium War with Britain and was defeated again. What caused China, the nation with the highest GDP in the world at that time, to lose these wars? Politicians, military officials, and intellectuals concluded that, in addition to its different socio-​political system, China had neither a superior war machine nor the powerful warships and cannons that made the British navy unbeatable. In a word, China acknowledged its technological backwardness and realized its need for industrialization and modernization. The defeats shocked the Chinese imperial court and the intellectual world. In response to these failures, some high-​ranking scholar-​officials of the court, with the emperor’s direct support, launched the Westernization Movement, which aimed to strengthen the Chinese military forces and modernize China by learning from the West. This movement lasted for several decades, from the 1860s to the 1890s, but eventually failed due to a counterattack from the court’s powerful anti-​Westernization factions. In 1898, for a similar cause, another group of scholar-​officials in the imperial court around the newly succeeded Guangxu Emperor (1871–​1908) launched another Westernization Movement –​ the Hundred-​Day Reform. Unfortunately, the powerful conservative factions around Empress Dowager (1835–​1908) disapproved of this reform and prosecuted the reformers, forcing the rest to escape to Europe and Japan.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  19 In Japan, meanwhile, the 1868 Meiji Restoration reinstated imperial rule by enthroning Emperor Meiji (1852–​1912) and opened Japan to the modernized Western world. During the Meiji Era (1868–​1912), the Japanese political and social structure experienced a significant renovation, which finally modernized Japan’s education system, industry, economy, and military force, and made Japan one of the world powers. As a result of the Meiji reform, Japan stepped out of the millennium-​long shadow of Chinese influence. In 1894, the Sino-​Japanese War broke out over Korea, and China was defeated. China’s statesmen, intellectuals, and general population tasted humiliation once again and realized the inevitable and immediate need for modernization. The question about learning from the West was no longer “if,” but “how.” The Meiji Restoration in Japan showed China a path to possible success. Therefore, learning from the West through Japan was more practical and feasible, since Japan was not too far from China and the travel was affordable. Moreover, the Japanese language was not an obstacle, because the Japanese writing system was developed from the Chinese writing system, just as the modern Romance languages were developed from vernacular Latin. Importantly, in Japan, the Chinese could learn what and how the Japanese learned from the West and also how the Japanese reached their goal of modernization. Since the last decade of the nineteenth century, politicians and intellectuals in China have debated the “what” and “how” as regards to learning from the West. The first debate was, arguably, started by a high-​ranking statesman, Zhang Zhidong (1837–​1909), one of the leading figures in the Westernization Movement. As a prominent reformist in the Qing court, Zhang oversaw the projects of industrialization and military modernization. He was a pragmatic thinker. In 1898, he published a lengthy treatise on social, cultural, and educational reform entitled Exhortation to Study (Quanxue pian), with a hidden political agenda for his reform. Its chapter on education can be regarded as a new curriculum for modernizing the millennium-​old Chinese education system. In another chapter, Zhang discussed the topic of “establishing the learning system.” Under this topic, he proposed the crucial idea of “Old Knowledge for fundamental principles and New Knowledge for practical application.” According to Zhang’s elaboration, “Old Knowledge” refers to traditional Chinese learning centred on Confucian teaching, whereas “New Knowledge” refers to Western learning centred on the curriculum of science and technology. Later scholars rephrased this popular discourse into a slogan, “Chinese learning for fundamental principles and Western learning for practical application.” Zhang’s proposal caused great controversy in the court. It was opposed by the conservative faction and debated by the reformist intellectuals. Some valued Zhang’s emphasis on old knowledge and the idea of “Chinese learning for fundamental principles,” and some stressed Zhang’s emphasis on new knowledge and the idea of “Western learning for practical application” (Wei 2013, 1). No doubt many statesmen and intellectuals held their position in the middle ground. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some young reformers from China joined forces in Europe, the United States, and Japan, pushing a new wave of revolution to overthrow the Qing imperial rule. Eventually, the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, led by Dr Sun Yat-​sen (1866–​1925), put an end to the last imperial dynasty of Qing. The fundamental idea behind this revolution was that China’s weakness was a result of its national teaching of Confucianism, the corruption of the political system, and the malfunctioning of the social structure and bureaucratic mechanism, instead of its technological backwardness alone.

20  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Referring to the above historical pre-​text of calling for political and social change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I do not have much difficulty saying that modernization essentially means Westernization to China. However, to some scholars, the idea of modernization was “wholesale Westernization.” To others, the West was just a sampler for change. Once again, what and how to learn from the West were central to the debate, and politicians, as well as intellectuals, always held three opinions and stances: The first was to abandon traditional Chinese culture and completely Westernize China; the second was to continue the old tradition and use the Western sampler to mend Chinese problems; and the third was halfway between these two stances. As pointed out, the drive hidden behind this century-​long debate is the anxiety caused by its identity crisis: the yearning for modernization, the fear of losing Chinese cultural and national identity in the process of Westernization, and the fear of foreign dominance and cultural colonization. This anxiety imposes a predicament on Chinese culture in general, and a dilemma on Chinese art specifically. Cultural Con-​Text and the New Culture Movement In the narrative model and narratological framework, the change in cultural con-​text and the change in art correspond to each other. Meanwhile, the external Western influence and the internal Chinese response also coincide with each other. In this interaction, cultural con-​text connects the external historical pre-​text and the internal textual context. Such a middle ground and linking position make the cultural con-​text unique: It is cultural, intellectual, and artistic. In the early twentieth century in China, against the above historical pre-​text, the dominant concurrent cultural con-​text is the New Culture Movement, with the May Fourth Movement as a vital part. In terms of its political and cultural significance in modern Chinese history, the New Culture Movement is comparable to the seventeenth-​ and eighteenth-​century Enlightenment movements in Europe. In 1915, influenced by the new culture from the West, a group of young scholars in Shanghai launched a magazine called Youth Journal, which aimed to denounce the old Confucian tradition and promote new Western-​oriented culture. In the “Inaugural Editorial,” the editor-​in-​chief Chen Duxiu (1879–​1942) claimed the Western conception of human rights –​namely, equality and freedom –​and welcomed democracy and science, which were referred to as two gentlemen from the West, Mr D and Mr S. To the magazine and to China’s young scholars, the “new” Western culture was so important that, from the second issue, the magazine’s name was changed to New Youth, which instantly became a banner for cultural modernization. In 1917, Chen Duxiu was hired by Peking University as a professor and appointed dean of liberal arts. The magazine, therefore, moved from Shanghai to Beijing, where Chen gathered a bigger group of intellectual elites, who became pioneers and the main force of the New Culture Movement. In terms of his connection to art, a letter written by Chen is immensely important to the Westernization of modern Chinese art. It was in response to an artist’s letter to New Youth, in which the artist promoted the idea of Western “fine art.” Chen, in his response, denounced old traditional Chinese painting, especially the conservative literati painting. Both letters were entitled “Fine Art Revolution” and published in the same January 1918 issue (Mu 2013, 15–​17). The shared opinion of the two letters can be found in an analogy: China was like a water bottle full of the rotten water of Confucianism; to fill it with new water from the West, one must first pour out the old Confucian water.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  21 Another important figure from the New Culture Movement was Dr Hu Shi (1891–​ 1962), who was considered a radical advocate of “wholesale Westernization” and thus at the centre of the controversy over total Westernization. Hu was first educated with Confucian classics at home. In 1910, he went to the United States as an international student to study agricultural science at Cornell University. Then, in 1915, he went to Columbia University for a graduate study of philosophy under the guidance of John Dewey (1859–​1952). Hu returned to China in 1917, assumed a professorship at Peking University, and later became president of the university. A leading scholar, Hu was the first to use and promote the notion of “wholesale Westernization,” which instantly became a key concept for the radical reformers. Hu’s radical stance drew massive support from the younger generation and fierce attacks from the conservatives. However, Hu considered himself in between and claimed that the notion of “wholesale Westernization” was an improper translation from English and should have been rendered as “wholehearted modernization.” Even today, in the twenty-​first century, scholars in China still defend Hu’s stance by saying that he was not radical but in between (Zheng 2006, 4). As important as Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi, another immensely eminent figure in the New Culture Movement was Cai Yuanpei (1860–​1940), an educator, revolutionary, and politician of the new Republic of China who indeed whole-​heartedly advocated modernization and Westernization. Cai was first educated with Confucian classics at home; then, he went to Germany and studied philosophy, psychology, art history, and other subjects in Leipzig from 1907 to 1911. After that, he studied in France and became a leader of the local Chinese student groups. Upon returning to China, he was appointed president of Peking University in 1917. Then, in the 1920s, he assumed high-​ranking positions in the government, including minister of education. A godfather-​like figure in the New Culture Movement and modernization process, Cai published extensively to promote the idea of Westernization and emphasized the importance of art education, or, in his own words, “aesthetic education” (Mu 2013, 18) in his new education system based on the Western curriculum. He also helped many prominent young artists studying in Europe, both spiritually and financially. To a certain degree, the idea of total Westernization was reinforced during the May Fourth Movement, which was the climax of the New Culture Movement. On May 4, 1919, university students in Beijing, joined by local civilians, took to the streets to protest the Treaty of Versailles. According to this treaty, the brewery city Qingdao (Tsing-​tao) in the east coast province of Shandong, once German-​occupied Chinese territory, was to be given to Japan as a trophy of the First World War. Since China was a victorious nation in the war, the demonstrators were angry that, rather than regaining the lost territory from Germany, China was going to lose it again to Japan. Although one of the main goals of the movement was anti-​Western imperialism, or anti-​Western bullying, Chinese intellectuals asked the same questions: Why did the territorial loss happen, and why was China weak? The answers were shown in two key slogans of the May Fourth Movement: “Down with Confucianism” and “Welcome Mr D and Mr S.” To the May Fourth protestors, it was the 2000-​year-​old Confucianism that had made China weak, and only Mr D and Mr S from the West could save China. Why did the two slogans go side by side? The analogy of the water bottle says it all. The slogans show the main idea of the May Fourth Movement, which guided the Westernization process and modernization movement in China in the first half of the twentieth century.

22  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Correspondingly, while the politically charged May Fourth Movement of 1919 pushed the New Culture Movement to its zenith, the Literary Revolution demonstrated this movement in the literary arts. It aimed to abolish the old literary formalities and archaic language, turn to the new Western literary form, and use modern vernacular Chinese in writing. The elite intellectuals of the New Culture Movement and Literary Revolution were the same individuals who were both scholars teaching literature at universities and writers of fiction and essays; they were also avant-​garde playwrights and poets. Among them, Lu Xun (1881–​1936) was a pioneer and key figure. In 1918, Lu Xun published his short story A Madman’s Diary, which was written in modern Chinese rather than classical Chinese, the first literary work to do so. From then on, young Chinese writers started using modern Chinese in prose writing. In terms of his importance, Lu Xun was not only the first to write literature in modern Chinese but also a radical attacker of Confucianism. A Madman’s Diary was inspired by, or was an appropriation of, Russian writer Nikolai Gogol’s (1809–​1852) short story of the same name. However, Lu Xun’s story and idea were very Chinese. While Gogol denounced the old Russian serfdom in rural life, Lu Xun denounced Confucianism, calling it a doctrine of “people eating” and crying “save the children” for the future of the younger generations. As part of the con-​text, Western literature greatly influenced Chinese literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Before the Second World War, pro-​Western literary groups and societies were booming among educated young people, who were mostly Western-​educated, having either attended schools in the West or Western curriculum-​ based schools in Japan and China. Nevertheless, the term “Western” does not mean that these young people shared the same cultural values and literary-​artistic conceptions. Although Western-​oriented, some young intellectuals preferred Western Realism and believed it to be the most suitable for real-​life social change in China, while others chose Modernism. When facing Confucianism, the two sides united to fight the old tradition, but when facing Western influence, the two fought against each other in their opposing adherences to Realism and Modernism. Nonetheless, there was a buffer zone rather than an absolute borderline between Western realist and modernist cultures for these young Chinese intellectuals. As a realist writer, Lu Xun introduced German artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867–​1945) to China for her realist criticism of the First World War and her call for social injustice (Sullivan 1997, 183). However, in terms of artistic orientation, Kollwitz’s art was more expressionistic, or modernist, than old-​fashioned realist. Internal Context with Two Layers Now the gradual approach from external pre-​text to con-​text reaches the internal context, which, as described, consists of two layers: the textual context and central text. The word “textual” indicates that the textual context is inside the page borders or picture frame. In other words, “textual context” is internal, referring to the artistic setting of an artwork. It also refers to the similar setting of the narratives about art and art history and the intertextual relations among these narratives. In the narratological framework, the textual context is the closest to the central text. As such, it is related to the issue of subjective narrative, namely, the subjective selection of topics for the central text. Although art history is not fictional, art historical narrations

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  23 are personal because narrators select pre-​narrated materials in accordance with their narrative purpose. To tell the story of modern Chinese art, I select, subjectively, the historical notion of “fine art” as a cue point and frame it in the internal textual context. Differing from the more general term “art,” “fine art” is an old elitist notion for classical art in the West, namely, the French “beaux-​arts.” This notion was introduced to China in the early twentieth century by the forerunners of the Westernization Movement. It is used to refer to Western art as the model for modernizing Chinese art. This tradition is essential for my subsequent discussion of the Chinese response to Western influence. Since there is no grammatical difference between the plural “arts” and the singular “art” in Chinese, Chinese artists use this term in modern times almost exclusively for visual art, particularly painting. In classical Chinese, there is a general term for arts, yi, meaning “crafts,” but no word for “fine art.” Instead, specific words are used for specific crafts, such as hua for painting, shu for calligraphy, shi for poetry, and yue for music. When the influence of Western art first reached China, Chinese scholars and artists found no proper word to translate the term “fine art” and had to look for a translation in Japanese, since Japan started its Westernization process ahead of China. Ironically, in the 1870s, Japanese scholars adopted the two classical Chinese characters mei and shu to form the new word meishu as the Japanese translation for “fine art.” In classical Chinese, mei means beauty and beautiful, and shu means craft and skill. Hence, in modern Chinese, the literal meaning of the new word meishu indicates the craft of beautification or the skill of making something beautiful. In 1902, a Chinese scholar, Wang Guowei (1877–​1927), first introduced the Japanese translation meishu to China as the Chinese translation for “fine art.” Chinese scholars have adopted this translation ever since. The notion of “fine art” was attractive and fascinating to pro-​Western scholars, artists, and art students alike, who dreamed of studying art in the West. At the beginning of the twentieth century, art students from China, including some established artists, went to the West and Japan to study Western fine art, namely, chiaroscuro drawing, oil painting, and sculpture. The first artist who travelled to the West was, arguably, Li Tiefu (1869–​ 1952); he was later considered the father of Western-​style painting in China –​painting executed using oil on canvas. In 1885, Li studied art in Canada, the United Kingdom, and then the United States, where he was a student, follower, and friend of John Sargent (1856–​1924). In a way, Li Tiefu was a Sargent-​like realist, interested in the Western realist tradition of fine art. In terms of media and techniques, as well as the way of depiction, Li Tiefu’s Western-​ style oil painting is entirely different from Chinese traditional-​style painting. This difference is the first sign of the great divergence between the two mainstreams of modern Chinese art under Western influence. Both like and unlike the realist artist Li Tiefu, Li Shutong (1880–​1942), another forerunner of Western-​style painting, was first a realist and then a non-​realist. He went to Japan in 1905, where he studied art with the most prominent Japanese artist and art educator of that time, Kuroda Seiki (1866–​1924), the father of Japanese Western-​style painting. Seiki had gone to Paris in 1884 and studied realist painting with Louis-​Joseph-​ Raphaël Colin (1850–​1916) in 1886 at the age of 20. Then he turned to Impressionism and, upon returning to Japan, established the first Western curriculum-​based art school in Tokyo. Under the guidance of Seiki, Li Shutong first practiced realist painting and then, like his Japanese mentor, turned to Impressionist painting. In addition, Li Shutong was

24  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art also the first scholar in modern China to write a book on Western art history. Although the book was not published, he used the manuscript as a teaching text for his course on the development of Western art. Unexpectedly, he later converted to Taoism and then Buddhism and died at the age of 62 as a great Buddhist Zen master. Similar to what happened in Japan, the Chinese art education system changed during the process of Westernization. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, art schools in China followed the Western concept of “fine art” for curriculum setting and used the very word in Chinese, meishu, in school names to promote the Western curriculum. Among them, “Shanghai Meishu Zhuanmen Xuexiao,” opened in the 1910s, was one of the earliest art schools. The school’s name means “Shanghai Special Institute of Fine Art,” now commonly translated into English by Western scholars as “Shanghai Painting and Art Institute.” The founder and principal of the school, Liu Haisu (1896–​1994), a brave and radical young artist at the tender age of 19 at that time, was possibly the first in China to introduce life models into the teaching of Western-​style drawing and painting and stirred up considerable controversy and protest among the conservatives. In the West, drawing from life is part of the basic training in fine art. The story of Liu Haisu is a telling example of Westernization in the early development of modern Chinese art and art education. Born in 1896 in Changzhou near Shanghai, Liu studied art from a young age. Around 1910, he entered a private studio in Shanghai to learn Western-​style landscape painting. Two years later, dissatisfied with what was being taught, Liu quit and set up his own art school, enrolling a dozen students. In 1915, he registered the school with the municipality of Shanghai as a formal art institute. To strengthen the Western art curriculum in his school, Liu made several trips to Japan between 1919 and 1927 to learn how the Japanese art educators did the same work, and he even attended the inauguration ceremony of the Imperial University of Fine Art in Tokyo in October 1920. In the meantime, he also wrote books introducing European artists to China, such as French realist Jean-​Francois Millet (1814–​1875) and modernist Paul Cézanne (1839–​1906). Like many other artists of his generation, Liu Haisu started learning Western art through exposure to Realism and then to Modernism, mainly Expressionist art. In 1929, he began travelling around Europe and visited Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. He met and befriended several Modernist artists on that grand tour, including the great masters Henri Matisse (1869–​1954) and Pablo Picasso (1881–​1973). In terms of his artistic ideals, Liu Haisu was a radical avant-​gardist of his time. He advocated modernist rebellion against the established artistic conventions. As mentioned, he was the first art educator and artist in China to introduce life models, both male and female, to the teaching of studio art. Traditionally, the Chinese way of teaching and learning art was to copy masters’ works, not to draw from life. In the eyes of the average Chinese person of that time, drawing from a life model was a Western way; it was too foreign and morally challenging and, thus, too hard to put into practice. In 1914, when Liu hired a male model, the conservatives found it hard to accept. Understandably, in a 1917 exhibition of artworks by the teachers and students of the school, a male nude drawing offended many gallery visitors and the public. Among the offended, the principal of a local girls’ school called Liu “a traitor of art, a burglar of education.” Not surprisingly, the rebellious young art educator enjoyed the labels and used “a traitor of art” as his own favourite nickname. In 1920, Liu hired a female model to pose nude in the school’s studio. As expected, this was even more offensive and outrageous to the general mentality and Confucian morality. As a result, in 1925, some Shanghai newspapers

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  25 denounced Liu as being “as low as an animal,” and some officials from the city hall called the French Consulate to arrest him, since his school was in the French Concession of Shanghai. Eventually, the school was attacked and ransacked one night by conservative burglars (Rong, 37–​44). Liu Haisu is actually cross-​cultural. In practice, he blended Fauvist-​like expressionist colours and Chinese freehand calligraphic brushwork in his Western-​style paintings. If we consider the historical pre-​text and cultural con-​text as external, then the great divergence of Western-​style art and traditional-​style art in the early twentieth century should be internal; it is a part of the textual context. The story of Liu Haisu illustrates the divergence of the two mainstreams and the sub-​split in each of them. Liu Haisu is primarily a Western-​style artist who first practiced realist art and then expressionist art. At the same time, he is also a traditional-​style artist who first practiced traditional ink painting and then experimented with expressionist colours and brushwork in his ink painting. In Liu’s case, the two types of art complete each other, and this mutual completion is also true to the development of modern Chinese art. Other Traditional-​style artists also encountered Western influence. Responding to this influence, some made changes to their art, which is how traditional-​style art is further sub-​split into two trends, although the borderline between the two is not crystal clear. Art historians grouped these artists by geographical locations. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were a few cultural and artistic centres across China; among them, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were the strongholds.

Figure 1.1 Liu Haisu: A Portrait (1930, Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum, courtesy of Lu Peng) 刘海粟《肖像》

26  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art The Beijing School

In the early twentieth century, Beijing was China’s most prominent cultural centre where traditional artists gathered. The most important group was formed by those who inherited the court art tradition of the Qing era, which resisted influence from the West. Although some Jesuit artists from Europe served the Qing court, their influence was confined within the court. Beijing School artists were generally labelled “conservative,” since they conserved the court art tradition, and were named “Jingpai” in Chinese, meaning “Beijing Faction.” However, the Beijing art scene was complex. The traditional-​style art, represented by the old literati painting, found a common language with Western Modernist art, as both favoured spirituality. Facing Western influence and the decline of the ancient tradition, a prominent Beijing artist and scholar, Chen Hengque (1876–​1923), defended literati art while embracing this influence. In his well-​received essay The Value of Literati Painting (1921), Chen noted the spiritual connection between Chinese literati painting and Western Modernist painting. Due to Chen’s advocacy, the concept of spirituality helped preserve traditional-​style art in China. This case is meaningful for the topic of the sub-​split, and I will come back to Chen’s essay later in this chapter. The Shanghai School

The label “Haipai,” or Shanghai Faction, was first used to refer to a group of Shanghai artists from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who had little to do with court art but much to do with literati art. Shanghai is the cultural centre of the lower Yangzi region, where classical literati painting survived and thrived. Throughout the nineteenth century, Shanghai gradually replaced the old centres of literati painting, such as Nanjing, Yangzhou, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. The emergence of Shanghai as a cultural powerhouse in the lower Yangzi region was partially a result of the Taiping Rebellion, which had destroyed the old cultural centres in the mid-​nineteenth century. On the other hand, due to increasing trade with the West, Shanghai had, by the early twentieth century, developed from a small fishing town on the east coast to an international port city and Western-​style modern metropolis. Nevertheless, the term “Shanghai School” became less specific and more general, referring to Shanghai-​based artists who were not necessarily Shanghai natives. These artists were not fascinated with the old court art but carried on the spiritual brushwork of literati art with a commercial taste. At the turn of the twentieth century, the artists of the Shanghai School experienced the pressure of commercialization to make art that was more pleasing to the eye and the bourgeois taste of the nouveau riche. However, some did not surrender to the trend of vulgar commercial art but, on the contrary, made renovations to literati painting. Among them, Wu Changshuo (1844–​1927), Huang Binhong (1865–​1955), Pan Tianshou (1897–​ 1971), Zhang Daqian (1899–​1983), Li Kuchan (1899–​1983), Fu Baoshi (1904–​1965), and Li Keran (1907–​1989) should be named as great masters in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. The Lingnan School

Faced with Western influence, the third faction based in Guangzhou was more self-​ conscious about embracing new art from the West. Guangzhou, a port city where

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  27 commercial art had been made to export to European markets even before the wars, was opened to the West for trade right after the Opium Wars. However, the art of the Lingnan School was not commissioned by the Qing court for the Western market but developed locally under Western influence. In terms of media, techniques, skills, and methods, the art of the Lingnan School was still traditional, belonging to literati art, but in terms of forms and ideas, it shows strong influence from the West. The term “Lingnan” means “south of the mountains,” indicating the region of Guangdong Province, including Hong Kong and Macao, centred around its capital, Guangzhou. Artists of this school and art historians have argued that the label “Lingnan” sounds too local and regional. However, considering the topic of Western influence and Chinese response, I have adopted this label because the anti-​Manchurian (the Qing court) faction and the Republic Revolution of 1911 started in Guangdong Province. The leading artists of the Lingnan School were involved in the revolution and assumed high-​ ranking positions in the revolutionary army. Moreover, the revolutionary artists were pro-​Western and wanted to revolutionize the nation and its art. Indeed, the Lingnan artists considered their art “new” and named it “New Chinese Painting” (xin guohua). Although they were all traditionally trained first, Gao Jianfu (1879–​1951), the leader of this school, studied Western art in Macao, the nearby Portuguese colony, and in Westernized Japan at the turn of the century. His younger brother Gao Qifeng (1889–​1933) joined him in Japan to study art and so did Chen Shuren (1884–​ 1948), another prominent Lingnan School artist. In Japan, the three studied Western art and nihonga, Westernized Japanese painting. Upon returning to China, they took nihonga as a model to Westernize traditional Chinese literati painting. Due to their success, the Lingnan School of Westernized traditional-​style painting was recognized nationwide. Speaking of Western influence on Lingnan School artists, first, these artists promoted the French Impressionist plein-​air practice of direct observation and life-​sketching rather than copying and imitating old masters, as the traditional Chinese artists had done for centuries. Thus, the art of the Lingnan School was more Western, namely, more realistic, naturalistic, and Impressionistic. Second, their subject matters were not only traditional, such as mountains and water, but also featured the modern world –​such as cars, airplanes, and even military tanks –​ in the landscape, which had never been seen before in Chinese art. In his painting Fire in the East Front (1932), Gao Jianfu depicted a war scene in a ruined city. This cityscape, painted with traditional media, is undoubtedly a traditional landscape painting. However, the ruins are a rare subject matter. In traditional Chinese landscape painting, the architecture is usually a magnificent complex of mansions or temples for an imperial and religious retreat, or humble houses and country huts for scholar-​official hermits. In the Chinese cultural tradition, ruins were barely appreciated. In one of Gao’s paintings, a damaged church shows a strong visual association with the ruins in paintings by the early nineteenth-​century German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774–​1840). Aesthetically, however, Friedrich’s ruin scenes are more tranquil and contemplative, whereas Gao’s is more emotional, echoing Impressionist and Expressionist art in the West. Third, as for the techniques of colouring and shading, traditional literati painters preferred monochrome or simple and light colours with few shades. In contrast, the Lingnan artists used more life-​like colours and shades, which made the tonality of their paintings richer and more complex, closer to reality and Western realist art. In Gao Jianfu’s painting Stupa Ruins in Burma (1934), the lighting, as well as the source and direction of the

28  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art natural light, is clearly indicated in the depiction of the two Buddhist towers, with one side being bright and the other dark. In traditional Chinese landscape painting, lighting is not essential, and the source and direction of light are irrelevant. Ancient Chinese artists showed little interest in the sense of three dimensions and rarely used shades to mould it; they drew outlines of the buildings only. In Gao Jianfu’s painting, since he applied lighting and shading, the towers appear round, not flat, with three dimensions, just as a Western realist artist would paint a cityscape with buildings. The above observations demonstrate the changes to Chinese painting under Western influence. In the case of the Lingnan artists, they embraced Western influence, especially the influence of new forms and ideas. Nevertheless, they made paintings with traditional Chinese media and techniques, exemplifying Western influence on traditional-​style art and the sub-​split between the conservative and the renovative traditional-​style painting. The Central Text The above art historical background plays the role of internal textual context, framing the central text as a whole and also framing each of its components individually: the first-​ hand fabula, secondary narration, and tertiary narrativization. The first refers to the pre-​narrated materials, namely, the primary research sources, such as the works of art, the original documents about these works and their artists, and all other relevant materials. The second refers to the narrated texts about these pre-​ narrated materials, which I use as references, such as the writings on modern Chinese art by art historians and scholars. The third refers to my re-​interpretive narrative of the development of modern Chinese art, which is based on my reading of the first and my response to the second. In this regard, the thesis of this chapter comes from my re-​interpretive study of the first-​hand fabula and my critical response to the secondary narrations; my rewriting of art history is integral in a narratological sense. In the dichotomy of fabula versus narration, the latter is also termed sjuzet, or syuzhet, in Russian formalist literary theory, which was introduced to China in the 1980s along with French structuralist narrative theory. Chinese scholars have enthusiastically embraced French theories of modern narratology since then, and theories of postmodern narratology since the end of the twentieth century. Based on the two, Chinese scholars have constructed both literary and general narratological theories in the early twenty-​first century. Among them, Zhao Yiheng (1943–​) demonstrates a strong sense of the interaction of fabula and narration in his book A General Narratology (2013a, 140–​141), especially concerning the author’s role in data selection. According to Zhao, narratologists take the author-​reader difference as an issue of layer division and generally distinguish two layers in narration, the untold story and the told story, with the latter based on the former. Following a dazzling review of Western scholars’ opinions and Chinese scholars’ debates about how to divide the two layers, Zhao points out the insufficiency of two-​layer division and adds a third layer after fabula and narration, which he names “secondary narrativization” (2013a, 106–​108). Since this narrativization is made by the reader of the narration, I would rather rename it “tertiary narrativization.” The notion of the third layer has a century-​long history in modern narrative study in the West. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud distinguished three layers of narrative in his interpretation of dreams: a certain dream, the analysand’s

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  29 biased narrative of the dream, and the analyst’s revised interpretation of the narrative and the narrated dream. According to Madan Sarup, this revision is a “reorganization of the dream so as to present it in the form of a relatively consistent and comprehensible narrative” (1992, 7). Moreover, this revision further “systematizes the dream, fills its gaps and smooths over its contradictions, reorders its chaotic elements into a more coherent fable” (Sarup 1992, 7). Although Freud dropped this revision from the later version of The Interpretation of Dreams (1938, 319), his interpretive revision to the analysand’s secondary narration illustrates my tertiary narrativization. Interestingly, regarding the Freudian revision, my notion of “tertiary narrativization” is also inspired by Harold Bloom’s study of poetic influence and his rereading of Freud’s reading of Shakespeare. According to Bloom, revision or rewriting the same story is an effective way to resist the old masters’ influence in storytelling. As a reader of Shakespeare, Freud reinterpreted Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and, as a reader of Freud, Bloom reinterpreted Freud’s reinterpretation of Shakespeare and thus resisted Freud’s influence on his reading, or tertiary reading, of Shakespeare (Bloom 1994, 371–​372). A well-​known case of Derrida’s reading of Meyer Schapiro’s (1904–​1996) reading of Martin Heidegger’s (1889–​1976) reading of Van Gogh’s painting Shoes (1886, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) also inspired my notion of tertiary narrativization. In this case, the first-​hand fabula is Heidegger’s discussion of the philosophical issue of thingness, illustrated by the shoes in the Van Gogh painting (Heidegger 1971, 32–​36). In his secondary narration, however, Schapiro’s perspective is different from Heidegger’s, which is not philosophical but art historical. In his Rashomon-​like discussion, Schapiro refuted Heidegger, saying that he did not get the shoes right, and retold the “right story” of Van Gogh’s shoes (Schapiro 1994, 135, 143). Then, Derrida’s deconstructive and even destructive readings of Schapiro, Heidegger, and Van Gogh demonstrated a tertiary narrativization of the stories about the shoes (Derrida 1987, 255). In China, today’s scholars have also noticed the importance of the reader’s third-​layer narrative. Hence, arguably, Zhao entitled his book on narratology When the Teller Is Told About (2013b). In the above case, there are at least two other ways to discern the three narrative layers of a text. First, Van Gogh’s painting is the first-​hand fabula, the two texts of Heidegger and Schapiro are different versions of the secondary narration, and Derrida’s is the tertiary narrativization. Second, since Schapiro’s retold story is a response to Heidegger’s, it could also be regarded as a tertiary reading and so could Derrida’s, since Derrida responded to both Schapiro and Heidegger. In any case, Derrida’s deconstructive reading is tertiary. The above renaming of the tertiary narrativization is a critical issue. It concerns our understanding of narrativization in the narrative process. The tertiary narrativization is a metanarrative of art history, which is not only about what to tell in a story but also how to tell it. Thus, in this metanarrative, I keep using the voice of the first person “I,” since I intend to tell the story of Chinese art and also tell my readers how I tell this story. The role of the author in relation to the reader is relative, depending on the different point of view. Suppose the narrator of the secondary narration is the reader of the first-​hand fabula; however, speaking from the tertiary perspective, this reader becomes the author of the secondary narration because he or she selects first-​hand materials for his or her secondary narration. Likewise, in the above narratives about pre-​text and

30  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art con-​text, I was a reader when I selected data from the first-​hand materials, and then I became a secondary narrator when I utilized those selected data and wrote those narratives. Due to the above relativity, the significance of the notion of “tertiary narrativization” can be found in the power struggle between the secondary author and the tertiary reader. In a Foucauldian sense, the secondary author is authoritative and authoritarian, commanding its ruling force to repress the ruled readers. Rising to resist this rule and repression, the tertiary reader rereads the secondary narration and reinterprets the first-​hand fabula. This is comparable to Martin Luther’s (1483–​1546) fight with the Vatican for interpretive power over the Bible, which thus empowered a tertiary reinterpretation. The starting point of the tertiary narrativization is other art historians’ reading of the secondary narrations. Suppose there are many secondary stories about art, such as the one by Lin Xingyu, which I mentioned in the introduction. In the terminology of Zhao Yiheng, these texts are narrated texts, which tell how art has changed and developed in the course of history. For instance, in his secondary narration of Chinese art history, Lin Xingyu considered that it was Mao Zedong Thought that shaped the development of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century. However, there is only one factual development of art: the actual event, or fabula, that happened. Zhao terms this kind of event pre-​narrated text (2013b, 23). To a storyteller, or art historian, fabula is the pre-​narrated story material. To gain first-​hand material for secondary storytelling, the storyteller must do sufficient archaeological and archival work, including field study, library research, internet searches, and so forth. The resulting work is the documented data. Then, based on this data, the storyteller can write or tell a story about art, hence the secondary narration. However, things are not that simple. The complexity of storytelling is that even the same art historian can document fieldwork and archival work differently with different tools and methods, such as written notes, photographs, video, and audio. This is to say that the fabula can be presented and re-​presented in different media and can be distorted in the documentation process. An even more complex problem goes beyond media: the issue of interpretation, which is related to the storyteller’s perspective and intention. Who is the storyteller, what is his or her narrative identity, and why does he or she apply a specific method in the process of documentation and presentation? In short, from what perspective does the art historian look at fabula and document data? A perspective largely decides how the data is identified, selected, collected, stored, processed, packaged, distributed, utilized, and consumed. Indeed, all this complicates the use of fabula in storytelling and further complicates its interpretation. Even worse, other storytellers can use the same fabula in different ways and interpret the data differently for different purposes. In this scenario, a fabula story can be distorted, mutated, and multiplied in a secondary narration. Although there might be only one fabula, there are numerous narrations, and it is no wonder that there are many written stories of the same art history, just like Plato’s idea of the bed and the multiple possible beds made by carpenters and artists. So, like Plato’s question, which secondary narration tells the true story, and is there a true story of art? What is at issue here is the relativity of where the storyteller stands. In my opinion, relativity is found in the division of fabula and narration, and in the dual identity of the

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  31 narrator of art history as both author and reader. Importantly, whether the narrator is a data user or a data collector, he or she is just a writer of art history and not the writer of art history. It is crucial for an art historian to be aware of such relativity and to be mindful of his or her relative position in practical writing and storytelling. Should this relativity be unknown, data handling could cause a problem of factuality, and the written text, or narration, could be misleading. At this point, misinterpretation in the secondary narration becomes possible; thus, reinterpretation in a reader’s tertiary narrativization becomes necessary. There is no doubt that reinterpretation is a response to the secondary narrator’s interpretation. Concerning the issue of relativity in the relationships between fabula and narration, I emphasize the fluid perspective or a shifting point of view that is moving back and forth between narrator/​author and narratee/​reader via narrative text. The fluidity of perspective is relevant to the crucial notion of focalization in the tertiary narrativization. According to Zhao, this narrativization is not the author’s or the storyteller’s, but mainly the reader’s. The reader’s reception of the secondary narration decides his or her retelling of the story with a reprocessing of the first-​hand fabula (Zhao 2013b, 23). The above discussion of fabula versus narration leads to a discussion of internal narrative, namely, the narrative within the textual context, and, further, to the narrative of central text, finally reaching the thesis of this chapter. Still, the internal textual context works in accordance with, or directly frames and conditions, the change in Chinese art in the twentieth century. With this understanding, I will step closer to this book’s central thesis and focus on the interaction of Western influence and Chinese response. The Tertiary Narrativization Referring to the pre-​narrated fabula and the narrated story, I now assume the reader’s position in reading both the first-​hand fabula and the secondary narration. With this reading, I offer my tertiary narrativization, presenting a grand narrative of Western influence and individual stories about the Chinese response to this influence. Three Waves of Western Influence

Chronologically, there were three waves of Western influence on the development of Chinese art in the twentieth century, the first reaching China before the Second World War. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the Europeans discovered the decline of the Chinese empire, the Qing dynasty, the Chinese also discovered the coming of the Western powers. These mutual discoveries ushered in the first wave of Western influence on China directly from the West and indirectly from Japan. As mentioned, Western influence on Chinese art can be seen in two respects: the realist and the modernist. In the first half of the twentieth century, both were new to Chinese art but gradually becoming prevalent in China. However, when the second wave of Western influence reached China, only realism triumphed as a sole influence on the “red art” promoted by the government. This second wave was an indirect one from the Soviet Union. Speaking from a Western point of view, the Soviet Union was not a part of the West, but to Chinese eyes it was. This difference is due to the geographical location of Russia, say, east of Europe and west of China. More

32  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art importantly, it is also due to cultural tradition: The Soviet-​Russian culture was rooted in the Orthodox Christian tradition, and Soviet Marxism originated from the West. This topic will be further elaborated in the next chapter. After the Second World War and a civil war, when the People’s Republic was established in 1949, Chinese artists embraced the Soviet version of realist art –​“red art” or Socialist Realist art. From the 1950s through to the mid-​1980s, Socialist Realist theory dominated Chinese culture, and Socialist Realism dominated Chinese art. Realism was promoted in the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and Communist countries, as it was realistically and pragmatically used as a part of the revolutionary machine, according to Vladimir Lenin (1870–​1924). Due to the shared ideology of Marxism, China officially accepted the Soviet Socialist Realism as a political doctrine for art and renamed it “The Unity of Revolutionary Realism and Revolutionary Romanticism,” or “Unity of the Two.” In the meantime, Modernism was severely condemned and banned in China for its unrealistic nature, bourgeois taste, and capitalist ideology, just as it was treated in the Soviet Union. Due to the “open policy” after the death of Mao Zedong (1893–​1976), the third wave reached China in 1978. Since 1979 and the mid-​1980s, the experimental avant-​ garde art has gradually become a mainstream in Chinese art. This time the influence was direct again and from two sources, North America and Western Europe, but with modernism, not realism. This third wave was complex. Chinese artists and scholars embraced modernism in the 1980s. However, in the West, the 1980s and 1990s were the era of postmodernism, no longer modernism. Although the postmodern concept reached China alongside the third wave in the mid-​1980s, it was not comprehended and accepted until a decade later, after Chinese intellectuals and artists had fully digested modernism. Towards the end of the twentieth century and in the first decade of the twenty-​first century, the Western concept of contemporary art reached China, and conceptual art became the mainstream in contemporary Chinese art, merging the once divided two mainstreams into one. Four Avenues of Western Influence

How did Western influence find its way to China? In general, there are four avenues. First, Chinese students studied art in the West and brought home Western ideas and methods of art. In the early 1870s, the Qing government started sending Chinese students to study in the West, mainly science and technology, hoping to use the new knowledge to modernize China. Chinese students first went to the United States in 1872, then Europe in 1875 and Japan in 1896 (Kao 1998, 146, 155). Soon after, the 1900 Boxer Rebellion and its defeat meant that the Qing government had to pay the Western powers for the resulting damage and loss of life. However, China overpaid. In 1908 American Congress decided to return the overpayment to China on the condition that the money would be used for education, including bringing Chinese students to the United States. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, more Chinese art students started travelling abroad to study Western classical art and modern art, and they brought what they had learned back to China. Before the Second World War, most Western-​trained artists became educators, and some became pioneers in modernizing the Chinese art education system. Among them, Xu Beihong (1895–​1953) promoted realist art upon returning to China in 1927, while Liu Haisu promoted modernism.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  33 Second, from the early twentieth century, Western art professionals travelled to China and taught art there, mainly in the Yangzi delta region. One important figure was American abstract painter Mark Tobey (1890–​1976), who taught art in the mid-​1930s in a newly established art institute in Hangzhou (Clarke 2011, 85). Although Tobey’s teaching career in China was short, his influence remained. He was a Zen practitioner, and his abstract painting had much to do with the Zen spirit in traditional Chinese calligraphy, which posed no significant difficulty for Chinese students and artists alike to appreciate and accept. In the first half of the twentieth century, the new art institutions in China were mostly founded on Western concepts of art and art education. Thus, Western art educators, not only from the United States but also from France and other Western European countries, became the leading force in teaching, along with Western-​trained Japanese and Chinese art teachers. Third, Western publications on art were translated and published in China and enjoyed an enthusiastic welcome from Chinese readers. Meanwhile, Chinese scholars and artists also wrote books and essays on Western art history, theory, and techniques, introducing new concepts, forms, and methods to Chinese artists and art students. As for translations, although there is no precise date for the first Chinese translation of Western publications on art, the earliest book review in Chinese on a teaching book translated from English was published in 1902 (Kao 1998, 148). Among the early Chinese translations of art publications, a popular teaching book of Western art history is worth mentioning. It is a survey of the development of Western art from its beginning through to the nineteenth century entitled Apollo: An Illustrated Manual of the History of Art throughout the Ages (1907) by French art historian Salomon Reinach (1858–​1932), translated by Li Puyuan (1901–​1956), a Chinese art historian and art professor in Hangzhou, and first published by Shanghai Commercial Press in 1937. This book became an instant classic for scholars and students of art in China. Due to its importance in spreading Western influence and its popularity among the readers, the translation was reprinted several times soon after. The latest edition of this translation was reprinted in Shanghai in 2004 as a token of nostalgia for early Western influence and its historical importance. Last but not least, exhibitions of Western art also had a direct influence in China. In the first half of the twentieth century, art exhibitions from the West were relatively rare, and the works were not masterpieces. In the second half of the twentieth century, before 1978, it was not easy for artists and scholars in China to see original Western art, except in exhibitions of Soviet and Russian art. Li Yu (1915–​2010), a renowned art historian and professor of art history in Shenyang, confirmed this situation with his own experience. In the postscript of his teaching book A Concise History of Western Art (1980), Li admitted that he had never set foot out of China or visited any art museums in the West, let alone appreciated original Western art in person (Li 1980, 675). However, after a lengthy ban on Western art in China from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, the first Western art exhibition eventually arrived in China in the spring of 1979. It was a French realist Barbizon School and Impressionist art exhibition called “Exhibition of Nineteenth-​Century French Rural Landscape Painting.” It was held in Beijing then Shanghai, and it brought to China a great number of masterpieces by nineteenth-​century masters, including Jean-​Baptiste-​Camille Corot (1796–​1875), Jean-​François Millet, Claude Monet (1840–​1926), and Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841–​1919), to name but a few. The exhibition instantly caused a sensation among Chinese artists and museumgoers, since it was the first time in the second half

34  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art of the twentieth century that Chinese people had a chance to see original Western art rather than reproductions. Then, modernist and postmodernist exhibitions brought the latest developments of Western art to China. One of these was the 1985 exhibition of American Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925–​2008). To Chinese artists, art students, and scholars, Rauschenberg’s art was shocking and inspiring. Understood or not, outraged or encouraged, the Chinese enthusiastically embraced Western art via exhibitions, often with bewilderment, disorientation, frustration, and ecstasy. At the time, they were not yet intellectually prepared for the new forms and concepts of radical and cutting-​edge Western art. Four Generations of Chinese Responses

How has Western influence been received and responded to in China? Chinese artists throughout the past century can be broadly divided into four generations. Regarding the mainstream of Western-​style art, the first-​generation artists were Western educated, either in the West, Japan, or at home. Whether pro-​realist or pro-​modernist, in the first half of the twentieth century, the first-​generation artists formed the main force of Westernization in the Chinese art world, including in the art education reform based on the Western curriculum. The second-​generation artists were those who, in the 1950s and 1960s, received a Socialist Realist education in the Soviet Union and at home. Due to the common Communist ideology, these artists regarded art as a mirror to reflect revolutionary history and socialist reality, and as a tool to promote revolutionary ideology. Their art was usually political and illustrative, with bright colours, thus it gained the label “red art.” The third-​generation artists in the late 1970s and early 1980s were primarily students of the second-​generation artists. They carried on the Socialist Realist precepts of their teachers while also embracing the influence of realist art from the West. While their teachers glorified the revolutionary history with “red art,” these students told stories with their realist art about the suffering of the ordinary people and denounced what had happened to them during the past decades. Thus, their art gained the name “scar art,” which was no longer bright, but sentimental with gloomy colours. The fourth-​generation artists from the 1980s and 1990s were primarily home-​trained modernist avant-​gardists. Although some were friends of the third-​generation artists, they broke away from the third and second generations and did not connect with the first generation. The artists of the fourth generation spent more than ten years, from 1979 to 1989, experimenting, or imitating, what Western Modernist artists had experimented with in the past 100 years. They tried to make artwork in similar manners and styles to almost all the Western Modernist “-​isms.” With such experiments, the artists of this generation pushed Chinese art into the postmodern phase in the 1990s and the contemporary phase in the early twenty-​first century. The Great Divergence and the Two Sub-​Splits

The key to the above response from the four generations of artists is not only what to learn from the West but also “know-​how.” Beyond art, this was to learn how the West had achieved the goal of modernization. Under Western influence, some artists carried on the heritage of traditional Chinese art, whereas others showed no interest in their heritage and instead followed Western art.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  35 As pointed out already, the development of Chinese art in the modern era ran along two parallel mainstreams, traditional-​style art and Western-​style art. This is the great divergence of Chinese art throughout the twentieth century, contextualizing the art of the four generations. Understandably, traditional-​style art is a continuation of the old way of artmaking with the same material, style, and aesthetic conception. Meanwhile, Western-​style art is an adoption of the Western tradition, with new knowledge of perspective in three dimensions and spatial depth, human anatomy, and Western materials and media for artmaking, not to mention styles and aesthetic conceptions. Why was there such a great divergence? What was the significance behind this divergence? The verisimilitude of Western realist art demonstrated its scientific nature in an artist’s observation and representation of the real world, which was based on the scientific knowledge of perspective and the anatomy of the human body. To some young artists of the early twentieth century, such a scientific nature was precisely what traditional Chinese art was lacking. Notably, the scientific nature attests to the spirit of Mr S in the modernization process of Chinese art. To the young artists, attacking traditional-​ style art and advocating Western-​style art showcased their attitude towards art in the new era. To others, defending traditional-​style art also illustrated their attitude towards the artistic change. In the West, some scholars considered that traditional Chinese painting had already lost its vitality in the early twentieth century, becoming merely a play of skills of handling media (Sullivan 1979, 26). Therefore, Western-​style art gained a chance to fill the vacuum and took up half of the art world in China. Echoing the call for Mr S in the early twentieth century, many Chinese artists and scholars considered that what Chinese art needed in the new century was science and scientism. This need was practical and pragmatic. A Chinese art historian in the United States observed that, to many of the young artists in the early twentieth century, “modern art and Western art were synonymous; and they believed that, by adopting Western forms, China might create an art in keeping with its new domestic and international situation” (Shen 1998, 172). Correspondingly, an art historian in China put traditionalism and scientism in opposite positions and considered that, in the early twentieth century, advocating the scientific nature in art was an ideological issue, which was in line with the political reform and social change of that time (Lu 2006, 119). To some artists, the great divergence between traditional-​style art and Western-​style art is critical; they follow one and ignore the other. Other artists, however, practice both. In the early twentieth century, some young artists first learned traditional Chinese art at home and then went abroad to study Western art. Thus, they could take the best from both and put the two together in a bold experiment. Following the mainstream of traditional-​style art, the traditional painters continued using old-​fashioned media. Some of them can be called fundamentalists, since they strictly followed the old ways of painting, such as the ways of using ink and water, and using calligraphic lines, strokes, and wash. Unlike the conservative fundamentalists, some artists are more open-​minded and willing to try new media, new forms, and new ideas in their practice, thus making their art different, such as using shading for a sense of three dimensions. In artistic practice in the first half of the twentieth century, using shades to create a sense of three dimensions and spatial depth was a new experiment, which eventually gave Chinese painting a new look different from the old tradition.

36  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art This innovative work showcased the sub-​split in the mainstream of traditional-​style painting. Meanwhile, following the mainstream of Western-​style art, Western-​minded artists transplanted Western art to China and started their new experimentation. The so-​called Western-​style painting is a rather broad term, referring to oil painting, watercolour, gouache, prints, chiaroscuro drawing, sketches, and cartoons. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Western-​style mainstream in Chinese art also experienced a sub-​split between the old realist tradition and the new modernist fashion. Before the end of the Second World War, some Western-​style artists followed realism, and some followed modernism. Due to the above-​mentioned political and ideological reasons, in the second half of the twentieth century, Western realist tradition prevailed in China until the 1980s. In terms of the new system of art education in China, whether following the realist tradition or modernist trends, art students are required to receive the same basic training in skills and techniques as in the old times, which derives from the Italian realist tradition of Renaissance craftsmanship in fine art. Nevertheless, after modernism, once the Western influence of postmodernism and then of contemporary art reached China at the turn of the twenty-​first century, all the above divergence and sub-​splits no longer appeared relevant. The mainstream of contemporary art is conceptual. All materials, media, techniques, styles, forms, and ideas are workable. Thus far, in terms of the mainstream, the once divided Chinese art has reunited in the name of contemporary art and is now an essential part of international art. Reframing the Sub-​Split of Traditional-​Style Art Tertiary narrativization is a narrative of the reader, who reframes his or her retold story as the narrative centrepiece. To discuss this topic, I must go back to an earlier issue in this chapter, the narrative process in the parentheses of the narrative model and narratological framework. Earlier, I approached the central text from the outside in, from the left side of the parentheses. Now, as a reader, I approach the central text again but from the right side of the parentheses, from the reader’s point of view. With this approach, I refer to Mieke Bal’s interpretive notion of reading. In her essay “Reading Art?” Bal takes “frame” as a contextual extension of an image, involving a role-​change between author and reader, who deconstructs the original frame and places the framed picture in another frame. According to Bal, reframing helps reinterpretation, simply because without the processing of signs into syntactic chains that resonate against the backdrop of a frame of reference an image cannot yield meaning. But endorsement of this basic principle, that is, awareness of the act of reading and the place of these factors in that act, helps to come to terms with the difficulty of being confronted … with the particular imagery that surrounds us and seems to impose its view –​of us, on us. And, similarly, with the pressure that a simplistic view of “history” puts on us to accept “that’s the way things are” in our culture. (Bal 2006, 298–​299) In the terminology of Bal, “reframing” is to de-​frame a narrative text first and then reframe it with another frame for a new interpretation from the reader’s perspective. In

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  37 this sense, reframing is a border-​crossing reinterpretation. On the one hand, the frame is similar to the external backdrop, and, on the other, it is also similar to the internal “syntactic chains” within the borders of a book page. Such a shifting and ambiguous position of the frame strengthens the significance of reframing and makes it meaningful. With this idea of reframing in mind, I will now look at the above narrated Lingnan School again and see how it showcases Western influence on traditional Chinese painting. First, in terms of the way to make art, the Lingnan School artists promoted the idea of direct observation and life-​sketching, as the plein-​air French Impressionists did, rather than merely copying and imitating the old masters, as the traditional Chinese artists had done in the past. Thus, the art of this school is more realistic and even naturalistic. Gao Jianfu’s depiction of a garden scene in the painting Pumpkin (1940s, collection unknown) is illustrative in this respect. The artist’s treatment of the pumpkin, along with vines, ivy, leaves, flowers, and a garden fence, was based on his direct observation and sketching from life. He made the garden scene more lifelike, with immediacy and intimacy. In particular, his depiction of the roundness of the pumpkin with a grey tonal value, ranging from a bright highlight to a dark shade, created a visual illusion of three dimensions, like a still-​life drawing done with the Western method of chiaroscuro. The traditional way of making a Chinese painting usually follows a specific formula in depicting objects, such as how an old master painted bamboo or trees. Gao Jianfu did not observe any formula but followed his personal observation and developed his own method of realist depiction. In the West, such a realist method was rooted in Renaissance art, but it was new to Chinese art for its scientific accuracy in observation and depiction. Second, as discussed already, the subject matters in the works of the Lingnan School artists were not confined to traditional themes, such as mountains, waters, birds, and flowers, but also included modern objects, such as cars, warplanes, and tanks, which had never been seen before in Chinese art. Third, in terms of the techniques of colouring and shading, as discussed, traditional literati painters preferred monotone or simple colours with no shades. Of course, one could argue that the early Qing artist Gong Xian (1618–​1689) used shading in his treatment of the mountains and valleys for a sense of three dimensions and spatial depth, and that his landscape paintings looked like Italian chiaroscuro drawings. However, examining Gong Xian’s shading, I can see that the light is unnatural; it comes from everywhere and nowhere. Gong Xian seemed to have no sense of the source of lighting and its direction, which is crucial to the realistic depiction in Western art. Gong Xian might have learned something from European monochrome etching, which Western missionaries brought to the churches in Nanjing at that time. However, according to an American scholar of Chinese art history, the church etching was just a speculation with no documents to prove it (Cahill 1982, 172). Although Gong Xian developed his technique of “Dark Gong” and “Light Gong,” he did not grasp the key to Western realistic representation through lighting and shade. As for the sub-​split within traditional-​style art, the difference between the conservative art and innovative art is comparable to the sub-​split between realism and modernism in the Western-​style art. However, there is a twist: Towards the late nineteenth century, some Western Realist artists enjoyed Oriental subjects and Far East methods of flatness in colouring, such as some of the neoclassicists and early modern artists who were fascinated with chinoiserie and japonisme. Then, in the early twentieth century, some Modernists in the West became interested in the spirituality in traditional Chinese art, such as Mark

38  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Tobey, who admired the art of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, which was spiritually inspiring for his abstract painting. This twist complicates the interaction between Western influence and Chinese response, confusing the relation between old traditional-​style art and modern Western-​style art. Chen Hengque is relevant here and may help clarify the confusion. For this purpose, I offer two discussions: One is about his essay on traditional literati painting, and the other is about his figure painting in literati style. Chen’s essay “The Value of Literati Painting” (1921) is probably the most important early twentieth-​century text to defend and promote traditional literati painting. In it, Chen first elaborated on the definition of literati painting and refuted its critiques. Then, he appraised literati painting for its spirituality in contrast to objective realist art and appraised its spirituality as comparable to the abstract art of calligraphy. Finally, he concluded that it was the artist’s personality/​morality (renpin), education/​knowledge (xuewen), talent/​ sensibility (caiqing), and idea/​thought (sixiang) that made literati painting a high art. In his essay, Chen valued literati artists’ cultivated taste and regarded it as the essence of literati painting. This taste is related to the artist’s personality and education, not the technique or skill in artmaking alone. He further differentiated literati taste from the realism of photographic likeness. In other words, to appreciate literati painting, one does not have to value the visual resemblance in art but the artist’s personal expression conveyed in his or her artwork. Since resemblance or likeness was not the primary concern for literati artists, some critics claimed that literati painting was ugly and coarse due to its seemingly uncontrollable freehand brushwork and considered it inaccessible to ordinary people. Rebuking this opinion, Chen asserted that, as a form of high art, literati painting was not for laypeople but for a well-​educated few. In his view, only the educated mind could understand its composition, conception, delicacy, profundity, and intelligence. According to Chen, these qualities led to spirituality, which was the opposite of a superficial representation of likeness and shape. In Chen’s essay, “shape” (xingshi) sounds like “form” in Western art theory. However, within Chen’s discourse on resemblance and likeness, “shape” should be considered a Chinese term for superficial appearance or visual representation, which is the opposite of the inner spirit. According to Chen, the idea of spirit or spirituality in literati painting can be traced back to the ancient art theorist Xie He (479–​502?) and his concept of the inner breath (qi). The inner breath is the artistic vitality embodied in art, giving it life. Regarding the breath of life (qiyun), Chen claimed that, based on Xie He’s idea of forceful brushwork (gufa yongbi), an artist should make the strokes as strong as possible. Chen likened the brushwork to a fleshly shape with strong bones inside. Chen’s opinion was that, by having inner spiritual breath and strong bones within the brushwork, an artist can ignore the superficial shape, not to mention the likeness and resemblance, since it was the spirit that mattered. To support his argument, Chen quoted a verse from a famous Song dynasty poet, Su Shi (1037–​1101, Su Dongpo), who was also considered one of the forerunners of literati painting in Chinese art history. Su’s verse goes: “Judging a painting by shape and likeness, the criterion is no different from that of a child” (Chen 2011, 142). To elucidate his opinion about spirituality further, Chen Hengque juxtaposed literati painting and classical literature, both centred on inner breath and vitality. From this point of view, Chen offered a historical review of the development of literati painting and

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  39 concluded that spirituality originated from the artist’s personal sentiments and thoughts, making art appealing. In his opinion, the artist’s personality/​morality, education/​knowledge, talent/​sensibility, and idea/​thought –​in a word, the artist’s cultivation –​is the key to literati art. Chen mentioned a crucial concept of traditional Chinese aesthetics in his essay: yijing. Although he did not offer any further discussion, this concept supported his argument due to its spiritual connotation. It originally came from Sanskrit, visaya, and became a Chinese notion of the poetic world that an artist created in his or her artwork. Scholars stressed the significance of subjectivity in yijing. Maxwell Hearn, an art historian of Chinese painting and former curator of Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, made it clear in his study of Chinese landscape painting that “Chinese depictions of nature are seldom mere representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the mind and heart of the individual artists–​cultivated landscapes that embody the culture and cultivation of their makers” (Hearn 2002, 5–​9). Precisely because of the spirituality in yijing, some scholars in the West used the English word “inscape” as a translation for its religious connotation (Kao 1986, 385). Chen Hengque is insightful. Following a historical review of the development of literati painting, he related the Chinese issue of superficial likeness versus inner spirituality to the Western issue of realist resemblance versus modernist subjectivity. He then concluded, contrary to the realist tradition in Western art, Post-​Impressionists took an opposite view, not emphasizing the objectivity in art, but subjectivity. As for the Cubists, Futurists, and Expressionists, one after another, those artists demonstrated the changing concepts in their work, showing that likeness was not everything in art and that they must look for something else. (Chen 2011, 147) In Chen’s terminology, that “something else” is the spirituality in Chinese literati art. About a century later, art history has proven Chen ingeniously right. In 2009, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City organized a major exhibition, “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–​1989.” This exhibition told the story of how the spirituality in traditional Chinese art and Japanese art, such as the Zen spirit, influenced twentieth-​ century American modernist and postmodern art. To a certain degree, this influence changed twentieth-​century Western art and made it more spiritual (Munroe 2009). According to Chen Hengque, Western Realist art was far from being spiritual, while Modernist art was more spiritual. Chen himself was an artist. In his figure painting Viewing Paintings (1918), he applied ink and light colours on paper to depict groups of figures, both Chinese people in traditional scholar-​official clothes and gentry robes and foreigners in Western coats. The artist purposefully avoided depicting figures with three-​dimensional tones and spatial depth. Instead, this painting is flat, with no lighting or shading, just like old masters’ paintings in ancient China. It divulges an ironic and caricaturized “spirit,” which, in a way, makes this painting comparable to works by the early twentieth-​century German Expressionist George Grosz (1893–​1955), though Chen’s painting was more than a decade prior to Grosz’s. In this case, spirituality is related to the artist’s critical and satirical attitude towards what he depicted and to his ideas about art. In Chen’s opinion, spirituality was the common nature shared by traditional Chinese

40  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art literati art and Western Modernist art, which was different from scientific and objective realist art. Contrary to Chen’s modernist inclination, embracing Western Realism in the first half of the twentieth century was best demonstrated in Jiang Zhaohe’s (1904–​1986) figure painting. Jiang was born in Sichuan and studied Western art in Shanghai in the 1920s while working as a commercial artist in department stores. A self-​taught artist, Jiang did not study at an art school or have an academic degree. Due to his excellence in art, he was appreciated and helped by Xu Beihong upon Xu’s return from France. On Xu’s recommendation, Jiang was hired in the late 1920s to teach art at the Central University in Nanjing and at art schools in Shanghai. Eventually, he became a professor at Peking University in Beijing, where Xu headed the art faculty. Then, in the mid-​twentieth century, he became a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Art, where Xu was the first president. Jiang followed Western Realism in artmaking. Viewing his charcoal drawing Self-​ Portrait (1932), we can see that he understood how to use lighting and shading to depict a portrait with a sense of roundness. A small portrait, it shows that the artist had acquired sufficient knowledge of human anatomy and linear perspective. In short, Jiang had mastered the skills and techniques of capturing likeness that European masters had developed in the age of the Renaissance. An oil portrait of the same year further demonstrates Jiang’s excellent command of Western media and his understanding of using colours in a European academic manner. With knowledge of Western art, Jiang Zhaohe turned to traditional Chinese materials and media, using brushes to apply ink, water, and light colour to paper. This kind of portraiture was comparable to Western portraiture in several ways. First, like mid-​ nineteenth-​century French Realists, he painted what he saw. His figure paintings were based on close observation and life-​sketching. In contrast, in traditional Chinese painting, particularly in literati painting, the images of subject matter are ideal, partly based on imitating old masters and partly from memory and imagination. Second, in a sketchy portrait of a newspaper boy, Good News (1936), Jiang emphasised less the lines that draw the human contour and shape and more the mass that renders the roundness of the figure and face with shades. Third, the likeness is the key to his realist portraiture. In a portrait with traditional Chinese media, Portrait of John Leighton Stuart, President of Peking University (1938), Jiang went even further by employing the chiaroscuro method for the resemblance and facial details of the sitter. Finally, his well-​known anti-​war painting, the monumental work Refugees (1943), is made in the traditional format of the handscroll with traditional media. However, in terms of using lines for the contours of human shapes, it adopts the Western way. Jiang Zhaohe’s Refugees realistically depicted the suffering of ordinary Chinese people forced to flee the Japanese invasion of China during the Second World War. In 1944 this anti-​war painting was sent to a show in Japanese-​occupied Shanghai and exhibited in the French Concession. The Japanese military commander in Shanghai heard about Jiang’s Refugees and sent a representative to the exhibition to “borrow” the painting. Expected or not, the Japanese destroyed half of the borrowed long scroll and did not return the other half. In 1953, about a decade after it went missing, the surviving half was recovered, severely damaged, in a warehouse in Shanghai. Today, the destroyed half can be seen in a black-​and-​white photograph, and the damaged half is on display in the national gallery in Beijing.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  41 The true story of this painting can also be seen as ironic. The first wave of Western influence on the development of Chinese art ended due to the Second World War, and the process of modernizing China ended as well. Indeed, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the success of Westernization in Japan greatly inspired Chinese intellectuals, politicians, and ordinary people, and it pushed forward modernization in China. However, Japan also started the Second World War in Asia and thus stopped the Westernization process in China. Although the fusion of Chinese and Western methods in artmaking started before Jiang, he was probably, in this regard, one of the most successful artists in the first half of the twentieth century. His success laid the foundation for the Westernization of traditional Chinese painting and had a lasting impact on later generations of artists who carried on similar experiments in modernizing traditional Chinese art. Focalizing the Sub-​Split of Western-​Style Art Following the above sub-​split in the mainstream of traditional-​style art, I will now reframe the sub-​split in Western-​style art and focalize on an individual artist. This discussion goes back and forth between two focalizations, the external and the internal. When I gave the grand narrative in the above, I was an external focalizer, describing the flow of mainstreams from an outsider’s point of view. In the following, however, when I describe my personal experience of viewing a specific artwork from an insider’s point of view, the focalization changes from external to internal. As previously discussed, the central text in my narrative model and narratological framework consists of three layers: the pre-​narrated first-​hand fabula, the narrated secondary texts (or narration), and the tertiary narrativization. As a reader of the central text, I take the internal focalizer’s stance. From this point of view, I filter out the unnecessary materials from the first-​hand fabula, reread the secondary narration, and focus on the chosen individual artist. This process is for my own story and reinterpretation, namely, my tertiary narrativization. To a certain extent, this process is subjective. Mieke Bal remarked on the subjective narrative: Whenever events are presented, they are always presented from within a certain “vision.” A point of view is chosen, a certain way of seeing things, a certain angle, whether “real” historical facts are concerned or fictional events. This slanted, or why not say the word, subjective nature of story-​telling is inevitable. (Bal 2009, 145) This inevitably subjective choice demonstrates the nature of focalization and its filtering process, not the nature of narration alone, since the subjective nature in the shift of focus is determined by the narrator. As Bal defines afterwards, “focalization is, then, the relation between the vision and that which is ‘seen,’ perceived” [Bal 2009, 145). This is the relation between the one who sees and what is to be seen, and there is a distance between the two, the subjective space for shifting position from external focalizer to internal focalizer, and vice versa. In my case, I am indeed the narrator of my tertiary narrativization. I am an insider in this narrativization and an outsider who reads and rereads the secondary narration and selects the first-​hand fabula materials. Since I will tell the story of my personal experience

42  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art of seeing Western-​style modernist Chinese art, I must move back and forth between the standpoints of outsider and insider, shifting from the perspective of external focalization to that of internal focalization. In this regard, Bal observes: Two possibilities exist: if a narrative begins in external focalization and change to internal focalization, it is not necessarily the focalizer who changes; the change may equally well be in the focalized, with the character “seen from within” been not the subject but the object of the focalizing. (Bal 2006, 18) In the story that follows, I speak in the first-​person voice, “I.” It took place in New York City on a spring day in 1998 when I visited the Guggenheim Museum of Art, viewing artworks at the exhibition “A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-​Century China” at the museum’s SoHo location in lower Manhattan. In the second of the exhibition’s four sections, “The Modernist Generations: 1920–​1950,” I was struck by a modest-​sized portrait of a little girl by a female artist named Guan Zilan (1903–​1986). “This is Matisse.” I almost jumped up at the artist’s Portrait of Miss L (1929). I was struck not only because the portrait looks like a work by the French Fauvist master Henri Matisse, but also because a Chinese artist painted it in 1929. Using Roland Barthes’ term, I was struck by two puncta: who and when, a Chinese artist in 1929. I have never heard of Guan Zilan before because Western-​style modernist art was forbidden in China from the 1950s through to the 1980s, and I have had no chance to see the early works of Chinese modernist art since I left China in 1990. Therefore, I could not believe what I saw: a Chinese artist who painted like Matisse in a time as early as 1929. Matisse painted a Fauvist portrait of his wife, A Portrait of Madame Matisse, in 1905, and Woman in a Hat in the same year. He continued painting Fauvist portraiture in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, the same time as Guan. In viewing Guan’s painting, I was struck by the fact that the development of Chinese modernist art in the first half of the twentieth century seems not too far behind its Western forerunner. Guan Zilan was not a leading Western-​style artist in the early twentieth century in China. Some art history books do not even mention her, including the critically acclaimed A History of Modern Chinese Art (1986) by Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, the first book of its kind published in the second half of the twentieth century in China. This book is a secondary narration of modern Chinese art. In the chapter on the art of the 1920s through to the 1940s, the authors discussed some leading artists who mostly studied Western Modernist art in Europe and Japan, including Guan Liang (1900–​1986), Ni Yide (1901–​1970), Situ Qiao (1902–​1958), Lu Sibai (1905–​1973), Pang Xunqin (1906–​ 1985), and Wu Zuoren (1908–​1997), but no Guan Zilan. In the same chapter, the authors even discussed some female artists such as Pan Yuliang (1895–​1977), Fang Junbi (1898–​1986), and Sun Duoci (1913–​1975) (Zhang and Li 1986, 122–​138), but still no mention of Guan. In Lu Peng’s lengthy art history book, A History of Art in Twentieth-​Century China (2006), Guan’s name is mentioned, but without any discussion. In the West, the situation is a little better. In a recent art history book, The Art of Modern China (2012) by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, Guan is given one page of discussion, placed on the very last page of a chapter.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  43

Figure 1.2 Guan Zilan: Portrait of Miss L (1929, National Art Gallery of China, Beijing, courtesy of Lu Peng) 关紫兰《少女像》

The above art history books of secondary narration involve the narratological issues of material selection and focalization filtering. As an internal reader of the first-​hand materials, such as the portraiture by Guan, and an external reader of the secondary narrations, I value the importance of Guan, since this artist showcased how the first-​ generation artists responded to Western influence, especially the influence of Western Modernist art. For my tertiary narrativization, I read twentieth-​century Chinese art beyond the above books and reached the first-​hand fabula, i.e., the 1998 New York exhibition, as well as other first-​hand materials. In the Guggenheim Museum SoHo gallery, I played the role of an internal focalizer, focalized on Guan, and selected relevant first-​hand materials for my tertiary story. Born into a wealthy family in the textile industry in Shanghai at the beginning of the twentieth century, Guan received both a traditional Confucian education and a modern Western education at a young age and fell in love with Western art when she was a teenager. In her mid-​teens, she entered a girls’ art school and then enrolled in the Chinese Art Institute in Shanghai, where she studied painting in the Department of Western-​Style Art, graduating in 1927 with distinction. She hoped to continue her study of art in France, but her teacher Cheng Baoyi (1893–​1945), a famous Western-​style painter, encouraged her to study Western art in Japan for certain pragmatic reasons. Guan went to Japan that same year and studied Western art and art history at Tokyo Culture University, where she had direct access to some original works of art by European masters. During her three years in Japan, she followed modernist instructors. Among them, two were influential, Arishima Ikuma (1882–​1974) and Okaga Kiden (1892–​ 1972). The former was interested in the art of Paul Cézanne, and the latter studied

44  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Fauvist art under the direct guidance of Henri Matisse. Needless to say, Guan’s fascination with Matisse is directly related to her Japanese mentors. Upon returning to China in 1930, Guan Zilan became an art teacher in a Shanghai art institute, where she continued her Fauvist practice to the end of the 1940s. From the 1950s through the 1960s, she tried realist painting due to the realist rule but soon gave up on it. She stopped painting in the mid-​1960s for political reasons when the Cultural Revolution (1966–​1976) started. Inside the Guggenheim Museum, I played the role of an internal focalizer, reading Guan’s artwork. Outside the museum, I was an external focalizer, searching archives and selecting first-​hand materials in libraries and on the internet. In both internal and external positions, I focused on relevant issues concerning the Modernist influence from the West and the Chinese response to it. I am now focusing on two issues when selecting and utilizing the first-​hand data for my tertiary narrativization. First, Guan Zilan’s Japanese mentors were Western-​style modernists who studied Modernist art in France. Second, she was loyal to her faith in Modernist art and preferred to give up painting rather than convert to realist art. Although Guan Zilan did not have direct contact with Matisse, I regard her artistic connection to the French master as direct. This is not only because one of her closest Japanese mentors was a disciple of the French master, but also because they share the same striking features: an exuberant use of strong colours and bold brushstrokes to capture human sentiment. Comparing Guan and Matisse at the formal level of visuality, they are masculine in handling brushwork while subtle in colouring and shading. Even on the faces of women’s portraiture, they both applied patches of raw pigment, blending less for strong contrasts. For instance, they juxtaposed red and blue on female faces, with no softness between the contrasting colours. This was characteristic of Matisse’s portraiture when he was in his thirties, which he continued over the next two decades. Even in the 1930s, some of Matisse’s figure paintings still featured similar characteristics. The two artists made portraits in a similar way at the same time. At the aesthetic level, Guan Zilan and Matisse have much in common. Although Matisse was a mature man in his mid-​thirties when he painted the portraits of his wife and other sitters, his art was feminine in a certain way. He captured the subtlety and nuances of women’s facial expressions, such as inwardness and vague melancholia in the portraits Woman in a Hat (1905) and Girl with a Black Cat (1910). Although I do not have material proof, I suspect that Guan was inspired by these paintings when she painted the 1929 Portrait of Miss L, since it is strikingly similar to Matisse’s portrait in brushwork, colouring, posture, and mood. At a spiritual level, Matisse is rebellious in his artmaking, and so is Guan Zilan. Some readers may have difficulty imagining that a well-​educated, well-​cultivated, and well-​ behaved elegant young lady like Guan could produce such rough-​ looking and even coarse-​looking portraitures. Interestingly, when Guan held shows in Tokyo, Kobe, Shanghai, and other places in Japan and China, the local media always praised her art along with her beauty and elegance. Yes, looking at photographs of Guan, I must admit that she is a very beautiful young lady with charm and style. However, is her beauty relevant to her art? If it is, then why and how? I will leave my readers to answer these questions. A fine, well-​mannered, elegant young lady, Guan Zilan is also rebellious in her artmaking, not in the way of Matisse, who rebelled against his early education in realist

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  45 art, but in her own way. She chose to give up painting later in her artistic career to resist the imposed Socialist Realism. Her restrained rebellious spirit goes beyond the spiritual level and reaches the ideological. Aside from the age difference, is there a gender difference between female artist Guan Zilan and male artist Matisse concerning painting portraiture? According to Mieke Bal, if there is a difference, it could be relevant to the notion of focalization. In her study of the biblical motif of Susanna and two elders in paintings by male artist Rembrandt and female artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–​c.1656), Bal takes the different gazes in their paintings as a feminist ideological issue (1991, 141). According to Bal, playing the role of internal focalizer in Gentileschi’s painting, Susanna avoids eye contact with the two elders and also avoids eye contact with art viewers outside the painting. However, as Bal observes, Susanna in Rembrandt’s painting avoids eye contact with the elders but has a visual communication with the art viewers outside the painting. In a similar way, I compare Guan’s and Matisse’s portraits and found a similar gender difference. In Matisse’s portrait of his wife, the gaze of Madame Matisse is inward and outward, communicating with her husband and viewers, whereas the gaze of the little girl in Guan’s portrait is dubiously inward, with no communication with the viewers. Thinking at the ideological level, I would ask about the significance of the gender difference and similarity between the two portraits. I do not think this is a feminist issue in a postmodern sense, nor in the sense of cultural studies. From a reader’s point of view, I consider it an ideological issue connected with the thesis of this chapter and this book –​ the ideology in the subject of Western influence and Chinese response. Guan followed Matisse at the above three levels, but with certain differences. Now at the fourth level of ideology, I wish to say that Guan Zilan, as a female artist with oriental femininity and Confucian restraints, is shy about having direct contact with the influence, and pressure, from her precursor. The little girl’s inwardness represents her shyness. Indeed, sometimes, Western influence is intimidating to a certain extent, which somehow causes anxiety. In addition to portraiture and figure painting, the similarities at the above four levels between Guan and Matisse are also found in their landscape and still-​life paintings. Did Guan Zilan imitate Matisse? Yes, I believe so. Generally, imitation is an effective way for a student to learn from his or her mentors. As mentioned, Guan received a traditional Chinese education at a young age before she turned to Western education. As a personal response to Western influence, particularly to the influence of the Western Modernist art of Fauvism, Guan did not stay in line with traditional-​style painting but embraced Western-​style painting. Meanwhile, she also rebelled against Western Realist art, favouring Western Modernist art, just like her Japanese mentors. Certainly, I am aware that Guan Zilan is not a leading modernist painter in the first half of the twentieth century. So why have I discussed her art at length? The reason is precisely that Guan is not a leading artist but above average; thus, her case could represent more common artists in her line –​the line of Western-​style art and the line of modernist art. Viewing Guan Zilan’s Fauvist art, I play the role of internal focalizer. Discussing her case from the internal focalizer’s point of view, I focalize on the central issue of this chapter: the great divergence between traditional-​style art and Western-​style art, and the sub-​split between Western Modernist art and Realist art. Matisse received classical studio training in realist art in his twenties, and so did Guan Zilan at the same age; the two artists subsequently found Modernism and embraced it. Speaking from an art historian’s point of

46  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art view, the commonality of the two artists reveals the cross-​cultural significance of Guan’s art and the historical value of her case. Regarding focalization, this case is not only artistic but also political in revealing how Chinese artists responded to Western influence. Conclusion In the narrative model and narratological framework introduced in the introduction, the importance of context and the centrality of text/​ image differentiate my border-​ crossing narratological study of art history from the works of other scholars. To some premodern art historians, context is mainly a historical, social, and authorial background; to modernists, context has little to do with text; to postmodernists, context is political beyond the premodern and modern conceptions. As for myself, I take a contemporary approach: taking the best of the three from a reader’s point of view, breaking down the boundary between internal and external studies, and constructing my tertiary narrativization. Without context there can be no tertiary narrativization; context is fundamental to my narrative study of art history. As the main thesis of this book goes, the interaction between Western influence and Chinese response has defined and shaped the development of Chinese art at every historical turning point in the last century. Broadly, this interaction caused the split that diverged Chinese art into two mainstreams throughout the century and then brought a confluence to the two mainstreams in contemporary Chinese art at the turn of the twenty-​first century. This divergence and confluence showcase the uniqueness of Chinese art in the modern era. Behind the divergence and confluence, there are some critical implications: Why has China responded to Western influence in such a unique way? Due to Western influence, Chinese artists and art scholars sensed the crisis of losing cultural and national identity. As a primary response, the split signifies the scholarly debate and the political struggle between the pro-​Western and pro-​traditional factions in twentieth-​century China. As discussed, there are sub-​splits in these two factions. Why did the debate and splits last for a century? Is the confluence a final solution or a reconciliation of the two sides? The answer lies in the Chinese anxiety about identity, which drives the Chinese to respond to Western influence. Regarding its theoretical sources, the thesis of “anxiety of identity” is inspired by some great Western thinkers from the twentieth century. In addition to Arnold J. Toynbee and Harold Bloom, I must mention Pierre Bourdieu (1930–​2002). Bourdieu discussed the influence of the post-​structuralist “French theory” on American intelligentsia, especially on American cultural studies. In his opinion, the American “structural misunderstanding” of the French theory is an active response to this influence. According to Bourdieu, the American “reading” of French theory is connected to the construction of American cultural and theoretical identity. Why and how is that construction possible? Bourdieu answered that “a foreign reading is sometimes more free than a national reading of the same text” (Shusterman 1999, 223) because foreign reading is more distant spatially, culturally, and politically, making purposeful misreading more pragmatic and effective. How to be more effective? My answer concurs with Harold Bloom’s theory, which is discussed in the introduction. After publishing his concept of “anxiety of influence,” Bloom kept rethinking his influence and believed that Bourdieu’s theory of literary relationships had an affinity with his own theory despite their differences. Bloom, in

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  47 contrast to Bourdieu, later posited the notion of “imaginative death,” which threatens young poets and makes them anxious. However, the young poet “seeks not simply to vanquish the rival but to assert the integrity of his or her own writing self.” Thus, Bloom redefined his notion of influence “simply as literary love, tempered by defense” (2011, 8). Love and defence seem contradictory, but for Bloom, defence “is a dialectic one as well and thus a splendid fit for any theories of influence. We fall in love, and for a time we have no defenses, but after a while we develop an arsenal of apotropaic gesture” (2011, 14). Although Bloom updated his theory in the 2010s, his notion of influence and anxiety is still limited to early postmodern thought. Besides, his theory of influence is also confined to the cultural tradition of English literature and is not cross-​cultural. Breaking down this limit and thinking about the issue of cultural identity and the price to pay from the critical point of view of the present day, I nevertheless see a further relevance of Bloom to my thesis in this chapter. Under Western influence, Chinese art may have to pay the price of being the “other” in the art world, hence the crisis of losing cultural and national identity. The potential otherness has caused anxiety, though it may be hidden in the colonial time of the early twentieth century and in the post-​colonial time of the late twentieth and early twenty-​first centuries. Speaking from a Foucauldian point of view, the issue of identity is related to the power struggle between the colonizer, who plays the role of Bloom’s old master, and the colonized, who play the role of Bloom’s young and rebellious strong poets. With all the above in mind, I will now conclude my discussions in this chapter. Behind the great divergence and confluence in Chinese art in the twentieth century, the purposeful misreading of the West was meant to catch up with the development of Western art, a purposeful misreading primarily driven by the Chinese anxiety of losing cultural and national identity. In other words, the purpose of the Chinese misreading was to solidify and reconstruct its cultural and national identity in art. As the author of the tertiary narrativization in this chapter and this book, I am influenced by the thinkers of the twentieth and twenty-​first centuries. My tertiary narrativization about Western influence and Chinese response is a personal response to their influence, and so it formulates the construction of the narratological framework, which is meant to serve for my rewriting of art history. References Altman, Rick. 2008. A Theory of Narrative. New York: Columbia University Press. Andrews, Julia F., and Kuiyi Shen, eds. 1998. A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-​Century China. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Bal, Mieke. 1991. Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-​Image Opposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bal, Mieke. 2006. A Mieke Bal Reader. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bloom, Harold. 1994. The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. Bloom, Harold. 2011. The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cahill, James. 1982. The Compelling Image: Nature and Style in Seventeenth-​Century Chinese Painting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

48  Before 1949: Context and Modern Art Chen Hengque 陈衡恪 (Chen Shiceng 陈师曾). 2011. Zhongguo Huihuashi 中国绘画史 [A History of Chinese Painting]. Beijing: China Book Co. Clarke, David. 2011. Chinese Art and Its Encounter with the World. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Cobley, Paul. 2014. Narrative. London: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques. 1987. The Truth in Painting. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Duan, Lian. 2019. Semiotics for Art History: Reinterpreting the Development of Chinese Landscape Painting. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Freud, Sigmund. 1938. The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. Translated and edited by Dr A.A. Brill. New York: Random House. Fung Yu-​Lan. 1976. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: A Systematic Account of Chinese Thought from Its Origins to the Present Day. New York: The McMillan Company, 1943 and The Free Press. Hearn, Maxwell K. 2002. Cultivated Landscapes: Chinese Paintings from the Collection of Marie-​ Helene and Guy Weill. New Haven: Yale University Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1971. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. Herman, David, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kao, Mayching. 1998. “Reforms in Education and the Beginning of the Western-​Style Painting Movement in China.” In A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-​ Century China, edited by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, 146–​161. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Kao, Yu-​kung. 1986. “The Aesthetics of Regulated Verse.” In The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T’ang, edited by Shuen-​fu Lin and Stephen Owen, 332–​385. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Li Yu 李浴. 1980. Xifang Meishushigang 西方美术史纲 [A Concise History of Western Art]. Shenyang, China: Liaoning Fine Arts Publishing House. Lin, Shuen-​fu, and Stephen Owen, eds. 1986. The Vitality of the Lyric Voice: Shih Poetry from the Late Han to the T’ang. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2006. Ershi Shiji Zhongguo Yishushi 20世纪中国艺术史 [A History of Art in 20th-​ Century China]. Beijing, China: Beijing University Press. Mattick, Paul, Jr. 1996. “Context.” In Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, 70–​86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mu Qun 牟群, ed. 2013. Ershi Shiji Zhongguo Meishu Piping Mingpian Duben 二十世纪中国美术批评名篇读本 [Twentieth-​ Century Chinese Art Criticism: A Reader]. Shanghai, China: People’s Fine Art Publishing House. Munroe, Alexandra. 2009. The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860–​1989. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Nelson, Robert S., and Richard Shiff, eds. 1996. Critical Terms for Art History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Prince, Gerald. 1982. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin-​New York-​ Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers. Richards, Kevin Malcolm. 2008. Derrida Reframed: Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts. New York: I.B. Tauris. Rong Hongjun 荣宏君. 2013. Xu Beihong yu Liu Haishu 徐悲鸿与刘海粟 [Xu Beihong and Liu Haisu]. Shanghai, China: Sanlian Bookstore Press. Sarup, Madan. 1992. Jacques Lacan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Schapiro, Meyer. 1994. Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society. New York: George Braziller.

Before 1949: Context and Modern Art  49 Shen, Kuiyi. 1998. “The Lure of the West: Modern Chinese Oil Painting.” In A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-​Century China, edited by Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, 172–​180. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Shusterman, Richard, ed. 1999. Bourdieu: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Sullivan, Michael. 1979. Symbols of Eternity: The Art of Landscape Painting in China. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sullivan, Michael. 1997. The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art. Rev. and exp. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wei Dengyun 魏登云. 2013. Lun Zhang Zhidong Jiaoyu Sixiang de Tese 论张之洞的教育思想的特色 [On Zhang Zhidong’s Educational Opinions]. Theoretical Exploration 1: 15–​18. Zhang Shaoxia, and Li Xiaoshan 张少侠、李小山. 1986. Zhongguo Xiandai Huihuashi 中国现代绘画史 [A History of Modern Chinese Painting]. Nanjing: Jiangsu Fine Arts Publishing House. Zhao Yiheng 赵毅衡. 2013a. Guangyi Xushuxue 广义叙述学 [A General Narratology]. Chengdu: Sichuan University Press. Zhao Yiheng 赵毅衡. 2013b. Dang Shuozhe Beishuo de Shihou 当说者被说的时候 [When the Teller is Told About]. Chengdu, China: Sichuan Literature and Arts Publishing House. Zheng Dahua 郑德华. 2006. Hu Shi Bushi Quanpan Xihuaa de Changdaozhe 胡适不是全盘西化的倡导者 [Hu Shi Was Not a Promoter of Wholesale Westernization]. Zhejiang Academic Journal 4: 116–​124.

2 Since 1949 Possible Author and Realist Art

The topic of this chapter is the development of Chinese realist art in the second half of the twentieth century. Considering the historical pre-​text and the continuity of individual practice, I will also mention the art before 1949 and the art after the turn of the century. In this chapter, the lowercase “realism,” as well as “realist,” is a general term that refers to representational figurative art, whereas the capitalized “Realism,” as well as “Realist,” is a technical term that refers to a specific art movement in the West, along with “Socialist Realism” in the Soviet Union and “Modernism” in the West. Echoing and complementary to the previous chapter’s thesis, the thesis of this chapter is that the development of Chinese realist art in the second half of the twentieth century is specified by a four-​step process. Although not absolute, this process goes from imitating to appropriating Western art, which aims at modernizing Chinese art due to the Chinese fear of backwardness and the anxiety of losing cultural identity. Then, as a remedy to this fear and anxiety, the process continues by taking inspiration from Western art and participating in the international arena of conceptual art, with a potential, though limited, renovation that helps regain its cultural identity. At this point, I must note that renovation is different from innovation. The former defines the place of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century, while the latter is for a possible place in the future. Succeeding the contextual narrative from the previous chapter, the approach in this chapter is still extrinsic and border-​crossing. With this approach, I explore the transformation from reader to author, bringing the notion of the “possible author” into discussion. In this chapter, the term “author” refers not only to the writer of a literary work but also to the author of art history (art historian) and the artist who makes artworks. Likewise, the term “reader” refers not only to those who read literary works but also to those who read art history and view artworks (viewer or spectator). Correspondingly, the term “text” refers not only to a piece of literary work but also to artworks and art historical writings. In this chapter, the main narratological issue is the narrative identity of the art history narrator. This issue can be reframed into a crucial question: Who is the narrator of art history? Is it the artist/​image-​maker who provides the first-​hand fabula, the author/​ art historian who writes the secondary story of art, or the reader of art and art history who creates a tertiary narrativization and thus transforms him or herself into a possible author?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-3

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  51 Theorizing the “Author-​Text-​Reader” Relationship Pertaining to the narratological framework, I will now discuss the relationship between author and reader in the textual space. Specifically, I will explore the possible author’s narrative identity in the space between the secondary author and the tertiary reader. For this discussion, I must ask three preconditional questions. First, what is an author? It seems one would have no problem answering this simple question because the author is the creator of artworks, the writer of art history, and the critic who writes about art. However, is this question really that simple? Before the rise of modern narratology in the mid-​twentieth century, scholars in literary study proposed that an author is not necessarily the individual who created his or her work. Instead, it is the reader of the work, who, in collaboration with the one who wrote the piece, defines or creates the author. Hence, Wayne Booth (1921–​2005) offered a notion of the “implied author” (1961, 71). What is the relevance of the “implied author” to the topic of this chapter? Since my narrative approach involves the perspectives of author and reader, the relevance lies precisely in Booth’s emphasis on the interaction between author and reader, especially the implied author’s distance to his or her reader and characters (Booth 1961, 157). To modernists like Booth, distance does not deny the connection between the author and reader, since the reader responds to the author. Nonetheless, in the postmodern era, scholars and critics stressed the importance of the reader and even declared the death of the author. This declaration signifies the historical and theoretical change from the modernist view of the author to the postmodern view. In this respect, Roland Barthes placed the author opposite to the reader and pronounced at the end of his essay The Death of the Author that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (1977, 148). Barthes’s essay reads like an American New Critic’s formalist doctrine at the superficial or literal level, playing down the importance of authorial intention in writing and interpretation. Meanwhile, Barthes also emphasized the reader’s reading of the text and mentioned Stephane Mallarme’s (1842–​1898) denial of the author “to restore the place of the reader” (1977, 143). Thus, Barthes’s denial of the author’s function provides me with a point of departure to explore the reader’s function via text. Reading Barthes, I find that the death of the author does not make a text definite to the reader. On the contrary, speaking from a reader’s point of view, the text is liquid and open to many possible interpretations. Thus, before discussing the reader, I must answer the second question: What is a text? In the critical discourse of the mid-​and late twentieth century, the notion of “text” emphasizes its textuality in comparison to the notion of “work.” A text inclines more to a signifier, whereas a work inclines more to the signified. However, for my purpose here, the term “text” refers to the integration of signifier and signified. In my discussion, this integration makes the notion of text literally textual and also extends to the visual, referring to the images in works of art and to writings about art. Furthermore, a reader’s tertiary narrativization is also a text, whether in writing or in other forms. Related to the notion of text, narratives of art history and interpretations of the development of art are realized by the reader through his or her re-​interpretive reading. Then, Michel Foucault (1926–​1984) emphasized the importance of the text and the reader in his 1969 talk on the issue of “author-​function,” What is an Author? Foucault considered text a vehicle for discourse and for reading and that the modes of a text’s

52  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art existence involve the modes of its circulation, valorization, attribution, and appropriation (Foucault 1993, 926–​927). This existential process of a text leads to the “reader-​ function.” To my understanding, a text is not a closed autonomous entity; rather, it is an entity for discourse and open to a reader’s interpretation. Similarly, the modes of circulation, valorization, attribution, and appropriation are reader-​oriented. In his later years, Roland Barthes was no longer a formalist structuralist but an open-​ minded post-​structuralist. In a way, his well-​received 1971 essay, From Work to Text, is a response to Foucault. In it, Barthes stressed the significance of discourse, which is not limited to a specific work. In this sense, Barthes is similar to Jacques Derrida (1930–​ 2004) because they both deconstructed the textual centrality and the fixed bond between the signifier and signified. The relevance of Barthes’s notion of the text to the topic of this chapter is found in the direct connection between a text and its reader through the pleasure of reading. In my reading of Barthes, the most crucial point of pleasure is the idea that reading is a way to “rewrite” a text. Although Barthes appears negative about this idea (1977, 163), his somewhat sarcastic negativity gives me a starting point for a deconstructive rewriting. Interestingly, two years after his essay From Work to Text, Barthes published a small collection of essays on the same topic, simply entitled The Pleasure of the Text (1973). After reading the essays in this collection, I cannot help but rewrite its title to “The Pleasure of Reading” due to my reinterpretation of what Barthes says about text and reading. So, what is the pleasure of reading? This question is directly related to the third question I must answer: What is a reader? In this chapter, the reader I am referring to is the reader of artworks and writings on art and art history, including art theory and art criticism. This answer seems right, but it should not be that simplistic. For instance, Barthes did not answer this question in such a plain fashion. Instead, he identified two types of readers in relation to “reported pleasure” and the “second-​degree reader” (Barthes 1973, 17). The two types of readers identified by Barthes are the first-​degree reader and the second-​degree reader. In my opinion, the first is a regular reader, whereas the second is the reader of the first reader. In Barthes’s words, this is the perverse voyeur. Yet, Barthes’s “perversity” in describing the second-​degree reader might be a figure of speech, which designates a voyeur who enjoys the pleasure of making a “report” about his or her reading of the first-​degree reader. In this sense, the voyeur’s reading is the tertiary narrativization, and the reading, to Barthes, gains the true pleasure; thus, “the commentary then becomes in my eyes a text” (Barthes 1973, 17). In the meantime, some postmodern critics proposed a relevant notion of the “implied reader” from a phenomenological and hermeneutic point of view, which echoes the notion of the “implied author.” Wolfgang Iser’s (1926–​2007) implied reader is a phenomenological construction with authorial intention, created by an author, and exists as such in the author’s written text. According to Iser, there is an interaction between author and reader, and in accordance with the author’s designation, the implied reader does not have to be an actual reader but a conceptual one who the author conceives in the writing process. Since the implied reader interacts with the author in this process, the text in between is shaped by the author and reader, not the author alone. Moreover, since the implied reader is perceived from the author’s point of view and pertains to the text, the author can manipulate the reader’s reading via the text (Iser 1974, 101–​102). Iser’s implied reader looks somehow passive due to the author’s manipulation, but this is not the actual case. Iser discussed the reader’s “quest,” which demonstrates the effort

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  53 a reader makes in reading for meaning making. The reader acquires “more than enough scope to piece together his own picture” (Iser 1974, 231) in the textual space. The “own picture” is not necessarily manipulated by the author but perceived by the reader in his or her reinterpretation in the reading process. So, what is the reading process? Iser did not answer this question directly but implied that it is an action involved in responding to the text, and thus to the author as well (1974, 274). Once again, echoing the topic of this chapter, the reader’s response is to reinterpret the text in his or her tertiary narrativization. The author expects this response, since he or she has intentionally created such a responsive reader in the writing. This relationship of author-​text-​reader is also found in art as “the imagined spectator” proposed by Charles Harrison: This is an imagined spectator, one who plays a kind of part in the content of the picture, someone who is not represented in it but whose point of view is represented by it. The presence of such an imagined spectator may often suggested, as in Carl Blechen’s painting, when a pictured figure gazes out through the picture plane … . In such cases we may find ourselves slipping involuntarily into the suggested role and, as it were, entering into the content of the picture. (Harrison 2009, 92) Inspired by the above modern and postmodern theories about the author-​text-​reader relationship, contemporary narratologists developed new concepts. Among them, I am in favour of Umberto Eco’s (1932–​2016) double binary notions of “empirical author and empirical reader” versus “model author and model reader” (Eco 1994). The two paired notions constitute a chiasmus, with more than one way to connect author and reader; thus, the status of the two can be transformed. Eco developed these notions between the 1990s and the 2010s, which are not an invention but a new development of his semiotic studies of the narrative role of the reader in the 1970s and 1980s. The reason I give my preference to Eco is due to the relevance of his theory to my subject of “narrative identity,” which is relevant to my notions of the “tertiary reader” and the “possible author.” In other words, I propose the two narrative notions in relation to and beyond Eco’s theory. How is the “possible author” possible? The possibility is found in the death of the reader. According to Charles Harrison, the main reason for the death of the reader is that the reader cannot do his or her share of the “required interpretive work” (2001, 177). However, in my opinion, the interpretive work is precisely the reader’s task, which turns the reader into the possible author. This is to say that the demise of the old conventional reader gives birth to the new tertiary reader. Borrowing and revising Barthes’s words, I would say that the birth of the new reader and the possible author is at the cost of the death of the old reader. Because of the new reader’s tertiary narrativization, the possible author’s identity is defined as interpretive and more critically re-​interpretive. Art Historians: From Empirical Authors to Model Authors In his narrative study about reading literature, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (1994), Umberto Eco discussed his chiastic notions, the “empirical author” and the “model author,” in contrast to the “empirical reader” and the “model reader.”

54  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art Reading this book, I am convinced that Eco is experimental in writing it. He did not follow the usual way of academic writing but practiced a new narrative –​making the book an example of the empirical and model text by assuming his proposed identities of the empirical author and the model author. Although Eco examined the two notions in the 1970s from a reader’s point of view (1984, 7), he discussed them again 20 years later in the manner of an empirical and model authors’ experiment. The empirical author is an actual individual who writes literary or non-​fictional works. Eco referred to the empirical author as one “who writes the story and decides which model reader he or she should construct, for reasons that perhaps cannot be confessed” (1994, 11). A good example is the nineteenth-​century English writer Mary Ann Evans (1819–​1880), who wrote novels and became well-​known in the literary world by her pen name George Eliot. In this case, Lady Evans is the empirical author, while George Eliot is the model author who assumed a male name as a disguise “for reasons that perhaps cannot be confessed.” In his experimental writing, Eco did not offer definitions for the two types of authors. By not doing so, he gives me the possibility and flexibility to explore my own narrative identity in writing this chapter. Am I an empirical author in my narrative writing of art history? With flexibility, I can explore possible answers. Meanwhile, this exploration also tells why I discussed the theories of the implied author and the implied reader previously: I am rewriting the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art. To get there, I need to discuss some other art historians, i.e., the secondary narrators and their narrative writings on the same subject. The first is Joan Lebold Cohen (1932–​), an independent art historian with expertise in modern and contemporary Chinese art and author of The New Chinese Painting: 1949–​1986, published in 1987. My choice of Cohen comes from two considerations. First, Cohen is probably the first Western scholar of Chinese art who directly reached out to Chinese artists in the 1970s. Second, her book is arguably the first of its kind to be published in the West in the second half of the twentieth century. Due to these two reasons, Cohen’s writing is ground-​breaking and foundational in the West for the study and historical narrative of modern and contemporary Chinese art. These two reasons also describe an empirical author. In accordance with Eco’s description of his own reading experience, Cohen’s narrative identity as an empirical author is defined by her fieldwork, which she described in the prologue of her book. One of the early art historians working on contemporary Chinese art in the 1970s and 1980s, Cohen travelled to China four times, viewed almost all available art exhibitions in Beijing and elsewhere, visited Chinese artists and art educators across the country, interviewed many artists that interested her, and took many photographs of artwork, artists, and art-​related scenes (Cohen 1987, 6–​7). In a word, Cohen worked like an anthropologist collecting first-​hand research materials in the field. I believe this is definitive to the empirical author. In the terminology of narratology, the collected materials function as the first-​hand fabula for Cohen to write her book, and the book is the secondary narration that she authored. However, regarding the issue of narrative identity, all is relative. When I read Cohen’s book, I realized that it was more a collection of primary data and information about Chinese art in the historical period from 1949 to 1986 than an analytical or interpretive narration of the development of Chinese art. As another American scholar of Chinese art, Julia Andrews, said, Cohen’s book “documents particularly well the art of the years immediately following China’s opening to the West,” i.e., from 1978 to 1986 (Andrews 1994, xii). To a certain extent, Andrews’s word “documents” describes the nature of

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  55 Cohen’s work. Of course, Cohen’s archive could be considered genuine first-​hand data. (It is also available online: “Joan Lebold Cohen Archive.”) In relation to the archive, there is a selection process in Cohen’s preparation for writing her book, and the book is a secondary narration. Nonetheless, to a reader like me, this book, with all the selected materials, functions like a first-​hand fabula. Thus, the relativity of narrative identity brings up a relevant issue of the reader’s identity, which I will soon discuss. As the second art historian I am to discuss, Andrews, like Cohen, is also one of the early scholars who travelled to China and interviewed Chinese artists directly for primary materials. However, Andrews’s research is not a documentary like Cohen’s. On this topic, Andrews acknowledged that her writing “is, in part, a response to the writings and research of other scholars” (1994, xii). These “other scholars” certainly include Cohen. In this regard, Andrews’s writing is comparatively more secondary and less first-​hand in a narratological sense. In the circle of Chinese scholars working in the same field, the situation of narrative identity is similar yet different. The similarity is found in the authors’ more direct and personal involvement with the artists, whereas the difference is that their writings are more secondary. The writings of Gao Minglu and Lu Peng are good examples, since the two authors collected primary materials as first-​hand fabula and, based on these materials, wrote interpretive books as secondary narrations. At this point, I shall relate an anecdote relevant to the issue of narrative identity. On a spring day in 1994, I travelled from Montreal to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to meet Gao Minglu. At that time, Gao was working on his PhD in art history at Harvard University. When we met in a small restaurant, I mentioned a 1992 art history book by Lu Peng and Yi Dan entitled A History of China Modern Art: 1979–​1989. Gao responded that the two authors “should have talked to me for the first-​hand information, and, without interviewing me, how could their narrative be reliable?” This was said with some justification, as Gao is one of the two mastermind advocators of contemporary Chinese art from 1979 to 1989 (the other is Li Xianting). Gao was directly involved in the avant-​ garde movement and organized the controversial exhibition “China/​Avant-​Garde” in the National Art Gallery of China in Beijing in the spring of 1989, which was immensely important in legitimizing contemporary Chinese art. Based on his involvement and leadership experience, Gao wrote a similar book with other authors around the same time, A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1985–​1986, published in 1991. With this anecdote, I can say that, as a secondary narrator of art history, Gao Minglu is more empirical than Lu Peng, because Gao was the godfather-​like leader of the art movement. In contrast, Lu Peng was a participant or observer of the movement, although he collected first-​hand materials directly from artists and exhibitions for his secondary narration. In this regard, compared to Cohen and Gao Minglu, Andrews and Lu Peng are relatively farther from being empirical authors and closer to being model authors. So, what is a model author, and why is it important to the topic of this chapter? Although Eco did not define his model author, he offered the case of Mary Ann Evans versus George Eliot, the empirical author who wrote novels such as Middlemarch in the early 1870s and the model author known as the author of those very novels in English literature. Eco also discussed a certain type of author that pairs with the model reader and is the opposite of the empirical author. In his The Role of the Reader, he designated three characteristics for this type of author: (1) a recognizable style or textual idiolect; (2) a mere actantial role; and (3) an illocutionary signal. Among these characteristics, the first is applicable

56  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art to the case of George Eliot, the model author of Middlemarch. According to Eco, the narrative style is distinguishable as “a genre, a social group, a historical period” (1984, 10), and the like. To my knowledge of English literature (I must confess at this point that I have a master’s degree in Western literature), first, the novels of Eliot could represent the realist genre of late nineteenth-​century English fiction. Second, the author George Eliot belonged to the social group of the male literary elite, at least in the early years of Eliot (not Mary Ann Evans). Third, George Eliot tells stories of the Victorian age, when a distinguished woman had difficulty being accepted as she was –​no one can deny the discrimination against women at that time. In his Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Eco elaborated his description of the model author: “It is the voice, or the strategy, which confounds the various presumed empirical authors, so that the model reader can’t help becoming enmeshed in such a catoptric trick” (1994, 20). In literature, such a model author is the one morphing from Mary Ann Evans to George Eliot, and the trick is to create narrative illusions in his or her fictional writings, aiming to attract the readers. In this sense, Eco’s model author is a figural one, a disguised person who plays narrative tricks to lure and influence the readers. By the same token, an art historian who writes on art is a model author, not merely an empirical author. Yet, art history is not fictional, and an art historian does not need to dissemble for readers. Instead, an art historian should tell the story of art as factually and truthfully as possible and offer a historical interpretation of the development of art from a relevant theoretical and methodological perspective. Thus, referring to Eco, I have two considerations. First, an art historian, as a model author, should theorize a historical philosophy about the development of art, which underlines the author’s narrative writing coherently. Second, with that philosophical theorization, the model author should be able to outline a methodological framework for a historical narrative about art. These considerations sound ideal, but they are beyond Eco’s discussion of the model author and are not practically applicable to every art historian. The Possible Author Transformed from a Reader After reading art historical narratives written by Western and Chinese scholars, I will now write my own narrative based on my reading of the artworks of the second half of the twentieth century, which is also relevant to the above scholars’ writings. In this setting, the Chinese artworks play the part of the first-​hand fabula, while the other scholars’ writings fill the role of the secondary narration. From a reader’s point of view, my writing is a tertiary narrativization. So, I must ask some questions again about my own narrative identity: Who am I? What will I select to write about, and how will I write about them? In the introduction to this book, I mentioned Linda Hutcheon’s study of metafiction. Hutcheon defined metafiction as a “fiction about fiction –​that is, fiction that includes within itself a commentary on its own narrative and/​or linguistic identity” (1985, 1). With this definition, Hutcheon emphasized the narcissistic self-​awareness of the text but not of the author of metafiction. Although Hutcheon’s definition is still valid and inspiring to me today, I should point out that Hutcheon’s stance is postmodern, and her point of view is text-​centred, which is different from my reader/​author-​centred stance. With this difference, I emphasize that the text of an art historical narrative is not only a product of its author but mainly the tertiary product of its reader. To explore this type

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  57 of narrative identity for a tertiary narrativization, I must reiterate that I am primarily a reader of first-​hand works of Chinese art and of secondary art historical writings about Chinese art. Eco discusses the status of the author and the reader. He says, “The empirical reader is you, me, anyone, when we read a text. Empirical readers can read in many ways, and there is no law that tells them how to read, because they often use the text as a container for their own passions” (1994, 8). Broadly speaking, an empirical reader is often not a professionally trained analytical, interpretive, or critical reader but a spontaneous naïve reader. On the contrary, a model reader is similar to Iser’s implied reader, though not limited to his definition. Eco takes the model reader as “a sort of ideal type whom the text not only foresees as a collaborator but also tries to create” (1994, 9). As a reader, I consider myself a mixture of both the empirical reader and the model reader created by the text. With a mixed identity, I can transform myself from a reader into an author and then further transcend the two types of empirical and model author, becoming a possible author in my own right. Transforming from reader to author and situating my writing in a historical pre-​text, I shall momentarily go back to the previous chapter and recall my reading of an early twentieth-​century Chinese artwork, the little girl’s portrait by Guan Zilan. In my reading, the work was a first-​hand fabula, and my reading was a personal experience of direct contact with it. Reading the portrait as an art historical pre-​text, I can examine the commonality and difference between the Chinese responses to Western influence before and after 1949. Then, based on my reading, I am able to conceptualize a reinterpretation of the development of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century. As the principal response to Western influence, this development process moves from imitating Western art to appropriating Western art. Such reinterpretation serves as the central part of the thesis in this chapter. Early responses to Western influence, such as that of Guan Zilan, constitute the historical pre-​text for Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century. Then, as a part of the central text, the response is continued by the second-​generation artists in the mid-​twentieth century. An illustrative example is Li Hu (1919–​1975), who belongs to the mainstream of traditional-​style art from 1949 to 1966. However, Li was not an old-​fashioned traditionalist; instead, he was open-​minded, embracing Western influence and enjoying new media, new forms, and new ideas in studio practice. Like his mentor Xu Beihong, Li studied chiaroscuro by learning from old masters, such as Raphael and Jean-​Auguste-​ Dominique Ingres (1780–​1867), earning the nicknames “Raphael in China” and “Ingres in China” from his artist colleagues and friends. Later, Li was hired by Xu and became a studio professor of Western-​style academic drawing at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing in the 1950s and 1960s, where Xu was the president. Li Hu was very popular among his students, partly due to his excellence in mastering the skills and techniques of Western classical drawing and partly due to his realistic drawings of human figures from life. When I was a teenager learning chiaroscuro drawing, I became familiar with Li Hu’s drawings of figures and portraits and took his works as samples for copying. Due to this experience, I was shocked one day in the early 1990s when I saw a postcard with a printed image of a female profile portrait by Henri de Toulouse-​Lautrec (1864–​1901). It was “A Montrouge”–​Rosa La Rouge (1886–​1887) in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, where the Barnes Collection exhibition was

58  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art held. The shock came from the similarity between the Lautrec image and the image of a Li Hu portrait in my memory, A Female Worker (date unknown). The two female profile portraits hold a striking resemblance to each other with only two differences: The Lautrec female face looks European, while Li Hu’s looks less European and a bit more Chinese; and the media of Lautrec is oil on canvas, while that of Li Hu is ink on paper. More than 20 years later, on an early spring day in 2018, I found myself standing in front of the same Lautrec painting in the art gallery of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. At that time, I was conceptualizing this book of narratology for art history. Looking at the Lautrec portrait, I asked myself a question: Why did Li Hu copy Lautrec? This question is crucial to the topic in this chapter. I am now trying to speculate an answer, as there is no documentation available about Li Hu’s authorial intention associated with the two portraits. If I were to speculate, then, first, as Guan Zilan did with Matisse, Li Hu studied the art of Lautrec’s figure painting. He attempted to work out how a late Impressionist artist painted portraiture and how he could paint in a similar way that is different from the methods of the Renaissance and neoclassical masters. Second, his purpose was not merely to learn to paint like Lautrec but to express himself in a similar way. Li did not use Lautrec’s materials but traditional Chinese ones. As mentioned, he received premodern Western art training, learned classical techniques, and acquired academic painting skills. As a cliché goes, modern Western art has something in common with traditional Chinese literati art: They share a similar spirit, such as directness, spontaneity, intimacy, and immediacy in expressing personal sentiment with intense colours and emotional brushwork. If this is why Li Hu copied Lautrec, then why did he change the half-​hidden profile face of the woman from European-​looking to Chinese-​looking? Is he trying to hide something? Looking at the Li Hu portrait again closely, he might not have changed the face at all. Although the date of this Li Hu painting is unknown, by examining its technique, style, and subject matter in relation to his other portraits and figure paintings in ink on paper, I believe that this portrait could be dated between the 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, Li was already a successful artist, a professor of studio art, and director of the figure painting program in the Department of Traditional-​Style Painting at CAFA. Therefore, he did not need to learn how to paint. However, he needed to study how Western Modernist artists painted, possibly for his teaching. If this is the case, I would say that this portrait painting is a study note with Chinese traditional materials, media, and techniques. Although imitating Lautrec, it functions as a visual text for teaching preparation. In the above experience of reading the paintings of Guan Zilan and Li Hu, I take their works as the first-​hand fabula. Handling these pre-​narrated raw materials, I am able to make a secondary narration and further make a tertiary narrativization based on my reading of other art historians’ secondary stories about them. Whichever is the case, I am concerned with the difference between Guan Zilan and Li Hu, between their different responses to Western influence. Is there a historical significance in the difference since they respectively belong to the first and second generations? I think so, and I believe that this significance is found in how Chinese art developed under Western influence before and after 1949. However, at the early stage of dealing with the first-​hand materials, although I can sense their difference, I cannot discern it clearly at this moment. I need to better understand their difference by reading other art historians’ secondary stories about their art.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  59 Nevertheless, if the cases of Guan Zilan and Li Hu are individual and cannot represent their respective generations, then they are not representative in art historical narrative. If so, more individual cases may help tell the story of Chinese art under Western influence and support my proposed chapter thesis. For this purpose, I continue to recollect my personal experience with a highly acclaimed third-​generation artist, Shang Yang (1942–​), who is a typical artist of his generation in the late twentieth century. Broadly speaking, the third-​generation artists studied realist art under the guidance of the second-​generation realist artists and continued to practice realist art. Some developed their own realist language, while others turned to modernist and postmodern art. In the early 1980s, when Shang Yang first made himself known to the art world in China, he was audaciously direct in imitating European realist masters. This directness marked the graduation work for his MFA degree, which was completed in 1981, entitled Boatmen of Yellow River (1981). In this painting, the artist realistically captured the image of a group of boatmen leaning against a heavy wooden boat, hauling it to shore from the river. (Purposefully or not, there could be a visual ambiguity in what these boatmen are doing; they may also be pushing the boat to the river from the shore.) This painting is a grandiose glorification of the national spirit of China, which is embodied in the hard labour of the grassroots boatmen who are the social base of the Communist Party. The thematic and political inspiration for Shang’s MFA graduation work might come from a similar painting, Volga Boatmen (1873), by late nineteenth-​century Russian realist artist Ilya Repin (1844–​1930). However, Repin’s painting is a lament for the poor barge haulers, while Shang’s is the opposite. In the socio-​historical context of the early 1980s, it is a salutation to the power of the working class in the Marxist sense. When I first saw this painting, I was overwhelmed by its sublime grandeur –​the same overwhelming feeling of awe I experienced many years later when I stood in front of the German Romantic landscape paintings by Caspar David Friedrich (1774–​1840). However, Shang’s subject matter is not landscape but human figures. His realist figure painting is full of visual and spiritual power, and this begets a question: In addition to Ilya Repin, did the artist gain inspiration from other sources? In the early winter of 2012, I was stunned in the state museum of art in Munich when I saw the painting Medea (1870) by German artist Anselm Feuerbach (1829–​1880), which

Figure 2.1 Shang Yang: Boatmen of Yellow River (1981, courtesy of the artist) 尚扬《黄河船夫》

60  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art is a depiction of the Greek tragedy of Medea’s murderous revenge. In the background of the picture, a group of sailors is depicted pushing a heavy wooden boat to water from the seashore. One of them is leaning against the boat, pushing the boat with his back. I immediately recognized the resemblance of this figure and the others to the boatmen in Shang’s painting. I was astounded by the similarity between these figures and convinced myself that this Feuerbach painting was the direct source of Shang’s inspiration. In the case of the three boatmen paintings, the inspiration of Shang is essentially a visual conceptualization. Namely, he was inspired to conceptualize the gestures of the figures and the compositional layout, just like the inspiration Edouard Manet (1832–​ 1883) received from Sanzio Raphael (1483–​1520) for his Dejeuner sur l’herbe (1862) (King 2006, 40). Inspiration is different from imitation; the former is mainly conceptual, whereas the latter is visual. While the Feuerbach painting depicts an ancient Greek story, the Shang painting depicts Chinese revolutionary history. The first is mythological, the second is realistic. The similarity between the two is visual, and the difference is conceptual. Perhaps that is why Shang did not experience any difficulty in waving farewell to the imitation of Western art and turning to explore his own abstract and conceptual art soon after his success in realist figure painting. Regarding imitation, there is an issue of originality, intertextuality, and plagiarism involved. Is Shang’s imitation original or simply plagiaristic? To support my stance on the side of the artist, I would like to quote an American literary critic on visual patterns in art and literary works: If you read enough and give what you read enough thought, you begin to see patterns, archetypes, recurrences. … [I]‌t’s a matter of learning to look. Not just to look but where to look, and how to look. Literature, as the great Canadian critic Northrop Frye observed, grows out of other literature; we should not be surprised to find, then, that it also looks like other literature. As you read, it may pay to remember this: there is no such thing as a wholly original work of literature. (Foster 2013, 24; bold in the original) The above recollection of my personal experiences in finding visual patterns, archetypes, and recurrences in reading Chinese artworks by artists of the three generations is a narrative, an art historical, comparative, and intertextual narrative. Writing this narrative, I am an author, no longer a reader, despite the fact that this narrative is about my reading of the first-​hand fabula. When and how have I transformed from a reader into an author? I do not believe there is an absolute borderline between the reader and the author, and I think of myself as a mixture of the two, someone writing art history in the narrative space between the author and reader. Moreover, I am not necessarily empirical or model in the above narrative. Instead, I am transformative between them. So, what kind of author am I? Once again, this is a question about narrative identity, and I would rather identify myself as a “possible author” of art historical narrative and also narrative theory. The Possible Author Rewriting on the “Red Art” of 1949–​1966 As an author of art history and narrative theory, I am now writing from the reader’s perspective, discussing narrative identity in my tertiary narrativization of the development of realist art from 1949 to 1966. During this period, Chinese “red art” is under Soviet

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  61 influence. In this writing, the historical issue of the Soviet influence involves authorial interpretation and reader reinterpretation, while the theoretical issue of narrative identity involves the transition and transformation from a reader to an author. Concerning the author’s interpretive status and the reader’s re-​interpretive status, I propose a notion of “possible author” from the reader’s point of view. Before the discussion, I must answer a tricky question: Why is the Soviet influence considered a part or an aspect of Western influence? Although I have briefly touched on this topic in the previous chapter, I now give a further elaboration. In the West, Russia and the Soviet Union have hardly been considered a part of the West, mainly due to their religious and political stances. However, in Chinese eyes, it indeed belongs to the West because of the following considerations. Geographically and historically, the nation of Russia started from the far northeast of Europe, and the early Slavic people of Russia are partly from Scandinavia with Viking origins. Religiously, the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church originated from the Christian tradition and shared the same scriptures with the Catholic and Protestant churches. Culturally, the writing system of the Russian Cyrillic script is associated to a certain extent with the Greek uncial script. Ideologically and politically, Soviet Marxism originated from the West. It was imported into Russia from Germany, France, and the United Kingdom in the early twentieth century, becoming the dominant political doctrine following the October Revolution in 1917. As for art, although Russian art has native origins, realist and modern Russian art, including Soviet art, is heavily influenced by Italian, French, and German art. As such, it is relatively safe to say that Russian art is an offspring of European art. In this sense, the Russian and Soviet influences on modern Chinese art is an indirect Western influence, similar to the westernized Japanese influence on modern Chinese art. Coming back to the topic of “red art,” I will first ask and then answer a narrative question: Why did Li Hu create a painting depicting a working woman, and why did Shang Yang make a painting depicting a group of boatmen? The people in the two paintings belong to the working class. The female model in the Lautrec painting looks like Suzanne Valadon (1865–​1938), a laundry girl also working as a model for the late Impressionist and early Modernist painters in the Montmartre area in Paris. To Soviet Marxist ideology, the working class constitutes the Communist revolutionary force. Since 1949, the Communist Party and Marxist ideology have officially ruled China, and this rule extends to art. Accordingly, since then, Chinese art has been required to glorify the greatness of the working class and to reflect the hardships endured by them in the old times, thereby justifying the cause of the revolution. Undoubtedly, glorification and reflection became two crucial aspects of the Communist art theory, labelled “Socialist Realism,” which was borrowed from the Soviet Union and established as the principle for Chinese art in this period and after. In general, realism is defined in two respects: What to depict and how to depict it. In the terminology of present-​day critical theory, these are ideological and stylistic concerns. A realist artist is supposed to depict reality, and depict it realistically, namely, being representational. However, compared to the art historical term “Realism,” the more general term “realism” is not easy to define. Contemporary scholars provide a minimal elaboration rather than a precise definition, such as the following: In relation to art, realism has the great advantage of ubiquitous subject matter. Anything that actually happens or exists is seen as worthy material. However, it is at

62  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art the level of interpretation of those events and things that the interesting difficulties in defining realism appear. (Malpas 1997, 7) With certain basic principles in common, Soviet Socialist Realism is still different from nineteenth-​century French Realism, since Soviet Marxist ideology requires revolutionary “events and things” to be represented as the subject matter in art. Adopting Soviet Socialist Realism with a revision for Chinese practice, the Chinese cultural authority implemented the Maoist principle of “Unity of the Two” as the fundamental rule for art (Xia 2011, 671). The origin of the “Unity of the Two” for Chinese “red art” stretches back to the early 1940s. In 1942, Mao Zedong (1893–​1976), leader of the Chinese Communist Party, delivered his bible-​like speech in Yan’an about Communist ideology for literature and art and laid the foundation for the dominant theory of realism in China (Mao 1972, 108). The main idea of this theory came from Soviet Socialist Realism. First, as Lenin put it, art should serve the Communist goal as an essential part of the revolutionary machine, glorifying the revolution. Second, art should function as a mirror, reflecting Socialist reality and telling the stories of revolutionary history (Lenin 1972, 55). With the above historical context, and as a reader of the first-​hand works of “red art,” I do not have difficulty understanding how strong Soviet influence was on Chinese art. Furthermore, from a reader’s perspective, I can see the commonality in art historians’ secondary narration of “red art,” which is primarily a plain description with few interpretive and critical insights. An example is a young Chinese scholar’s narrative writing, a comparative study of the Chinese and Japanese reception of Western influence. I chose to discuss this piece briefly because a comparative study should go beyond simple description and because the subject of the young scholar is similar to mine, namely, influence and response. In addition, in discussing his writing, my purpose is not to criticize the author but to tell the difference between secondary narration and tertiary narrativization, demonstrating the crucial difference between secondary interpretation and tertiary reinterpretation in relation to the first-​hand reading. Regarding the authorial interpretation, the descriptive nature of the young scholar’s secondary narration is comparable with most other art historians in China who offer plain written presentations of historical information in their narratives with limited interpretation. In his narrative, the young scholar recounts that, from 1949 to 1966, Chinese realist painting was at its initial stage of learning from Soviet art in two ways: Soviet artists taught art in China and Chinese artists studied art in the Soviet Union. The primary information offered by the scholar consists of two lists. The first is a list of Chinese artists in art classes taught by a guest professor from the Soviet Union, the invited artist K. M. Maximov (1913–​1993), at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. The second is a list of Chinese artists who studied in the Soviet Union in the 1950s (Song 2017, 182). In his plain description, the author made some observations, such as his observation of Luo Gongliu (1916–​2004), an artist on the second list who studied art at the Repin Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg from 1955 to 1958. According to the author, upon his return to China, Luo explored how to localize Soviet-​style realist painting in three ways: reducing the pictorial effect of lighting and shading, adopting traditional-​ style brushwork for oil painting, and weakening the visual sense of spatial depth and

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  63 three dimensions (Song 2017, 189). Nonetheless, these observations are not based on an analytical reading of Luo’s artworks or a stylistic examination. In his book, the young author offered first-​hand information on the 1957 special exhibition of graduation works by Chinese artists under the guidance of Maximov, which demonstrated the fruit of Soviet Realist influence on the Chinese art of the 1950s. The author listed a few well-​received works by artists on the first list, such as He Kongde (1925–​2003) and his renowned painting depicting Chinese soldiers in the Korean War, Before Attack (1957–​1963). Hence, along comes the issue of reader reinterpretation, and, again, the theoretical issue of narrative identity involves the transformation of status from reader to author. In this regard, He Kongde’s painting offers a good case for my secondary and tertiary discussion of Soviet influence on Chinese art from an integral point of view of the reader and author, since I have personal experience of direct contact with this specific painting. As a reader of this painting (first-​hand fabula) and certain historical writings about this painting (secondary narrations), I first heard of it in the early 1970s when I was a teenager and starting to learn how to draw and paint. In an evening gathering with my art teacher and his other pupils, the teacher told us how expressive He Kongde’s brushwork was. The artist dripped oil and colours on canvas for a unique visual effect, creating a fluid texture on the machinegun shield comparable to the liquidity of sweat on the human body. My teacher’s praise of the specific dripping technique excited my curiosity to see the original painting. A few years later, in 1977, I went to Beijing for a national art exhibition at the National Art Gallery of China. Nearly 1,000 artworks made between 1949 and 1977 were displayed in the grand show, including He Kongde’s Before Attack. I was thrilled to see this painting with my own eyes for the first time. Also, I saw a young man making a copy of this painting in front of the original. The young man was the only person making a copy on the spot in the entire national gallery; therefore, he drew a considerably big crowd. In the middle of this crowd, I stared at the centre of He’s picture, where the machinegun shield was painted. I tried to verify what my teacher had said about this painting –​the artist’s unique dripping technique. Yes, my teacher was right. I saw the unmistakable traces of dripping and washing on the canvas. Then, to my surprise, I saw the copying artist apply his oily brush to the shield, dripping oil with colours on the canvas to create the sense of textural roughness and fluidity on the shield’s surface. Again, to my surprise, I saw that the dripping and washing technique was not unruly freehand. Instead, it was very carefully handled, with an oily brush, by the copying artist. The second time I saw this painting, along with Guan Zilan’s Matisse-​like portrait, was 20 years later, in 1998, in the Guggenheim Museum‘s Lower Manhattan gallery in New York City, where the modern section of the grand exhibition “China: 5000 Years” was held. It was the second day of the grand opening. The crowd in the Guggenheim gallery was not as big as the opening day, and I got the chance to look at this painting more closely. He Kongde’s Soviet-​style brushwork was apparent. The unique geo-​cultural location of the Guggenheim exhibition provided me with the possibility of reading the Sovietness of this painting in the non-​Soviet cultural environment of New York City, which made the Sovietness more noticeable. In the exhibition, the other paintings under Soviet influence echoed He’s Sovietness. The Sovietness of Chinese painting showcases the Soviet influence in two main aspects: the thematic narrativity of Socialist Realism and the stylistic realism of figurative depiction. To a certain degree, these two aspects have something to do with European

64  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art academic art and Impressionist art. Regarding He Kongde’s painting, the Communist theme is obvious: glorification of the Chinese soldiers fighting the American invading force in Korea. This theme is framed in a picture that presents the beginning stage of a narrative procession. In the picture, a small group of soldiers pushes a Soviet-​made machinegun out of a trench tunnel in preparation for a counterattack. This narrative theme is typical of propaganda art, serving the party line as an essential part of the revolutionary machine, with no difference from academic art in Europe, with its religious and royal themes serving the church and the monarch. Stylistically, the Sovietness of this painting is seen in the solid depiction of the images of the soldiers with relatively loose brushwork. This impression of solidness derives from the excellence and sophistication of the accurately depicted human figures and facial features, an excellence that is acquired from the Soviet realist tradition, which is, ironically or not, a European Neoclassical and academic legacy. Russian artists of the late nineteenth century carried on this heritage, such as The Wanderers, who learned realist art techniques and skills from the Italian and French masters. This excellence is also shown in He Kongde’s loose brushwork using pigments and a palette, demonstrating the artist’s skilful control of his media, especially his control of the fluid brush. Clearly, the artist learned such loose and controlled brushwork, which was adapted from French Impressionists and Post-​Impressionists, from his Soviet teachers. The above two traits of Sovietness were showcased not only by the He Kongde painting but also by the other paintings in the same exhibition. Unfortunately, they made almost all the paintings in the show look the same, without the artists’ personal differences, exposing a vital problem with authoritarian “red art.” At the time of the exhibition in New York City, He Kongde had already retired from an important post in the Chinese art world –​he had been vice-​chairman of the Oil Painting Society under the umbrella of the Chinese Artist Association. Due to his artistic excellence, political importance (he was a senior army officer of the Chinese Revolutionary Military Museum in Beijing), and professional position, He’s Sovietness exerted immense influence on his contemporaneous and later artists. As a result of knowing about He’s art in my early years, and since the artist was from my home province, I became interested in learning more about him. In 2000, He Kongde’s The Korean War in the Eyes of an Artist, illustrated with his own life sketches, was published. His diary helped me understand his works about his military experience in Korea. The compiler and editor of his diary is Xu Xiangqun. On a summer’s day during the early 2010s, I was surprised to find Xu at my talk on contemporary Western art theory in Beijing. I told him about my reading of the diary, and he told me about his interviews with He Kongde on publishing the diary. Fortunately, since then, I have had more chances to see this painting in exhibitions and displays in the National Art Gallery of China and elsewhere. Whenever I stood in front of it, I gained a further understanding of its Sovietness and its influence on Chinese realist art. In terms of Western influence and the influence of Russian-​Soviet art, He Kongde is somehow different from the first-​generation artists, such as Guan Zilan. He is also different from other artists of his own generation, such as Li Hu or Luo Gongliu. Historically, this difference partially demonstrates how Chinese art has developed under Western influence. While the portrait paintings of Guan Zilan and Li Hu remind me of Matisse and Lautrec, respectively, He Kongde’s painting does not remind me of any specific Soviet

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  65 artist. Instead, it reminds me of the Sovietness in the works of many Russian and Soviet artists. In other words, He Kongde is more diegetic and assimilative, synthesizing the Sovietness and turning it into his own artistic language. In this sense, he goes beyond the early artists’ simple imitation of Western art. My above readings of the first-​hand fabula provide me with the possibility of making a tertiary narrativization, exemplified in my above elaboration of the two aspects of Sovietness. In the process of making this tertiary narrativization, my narrative identity transformed, possibly, from a reader into an author who offers reinterpretations from a reader’s point of view. In other words, my narrative identity is defined by the reader’s rereading of the first-​hand fabula and response to the secondary narrations. The rereading and response enable my tertiary narrativization. In this case, the two justify my narrative identity as a possible author who transformed from a reader. Reinterpreting the Political Propaganda Art of 1966–​1976 Ideally, an art historian’s secondary narration should be interpretive and critical, demonstrating scholarly professionalism in working with the first-​hand fabula. In view of this, I propose two narratological notions. The first is the “author as an interpretive reader” who reads the first-​hand fabula and then writes secondary narration with interpretation. Unfortunately, not every art historian as an author is interpretive; rather, some tend to be more descriptive. The second is the “reader as a re-​interpretive author” who reads the secondary narration, as well as the first-​hand fabula, and then writes a reinterpretation, i.e., the tertiary narrativization. I use the two notions to differentiate the reader from the author while also relating them to each other. In doing so, I hope to grasp the transformative relationship between them. Now, when I discuss Chinese art of the Cultural Revolution in the next period of 1966–​ 1976, I will elaborate on the author’s interpretive status and the reader’s re-​interpretive status. This period resulted in even more hardship for Chinese artists than the previous period. The ten years between 1966 and 1976 were a politically, socially, morally, and economically catastrophic period, the so-​ called Cultural Revolution, in which Mao launched a power struggle that affected the lives of almost everyone in China. Regarding the art of that time, on the one hand, artists were generally categorized as a part of the educated bourgeoisie class, which opposes the proletariat, namely, the non-​educated revolutionary working class. Due to this categorization, artists were sent to the countryside as manual labourers for ideological re-​education, or political rectification, and thus lost their right and opportunity to make artworks. On the other hand, some artists were summoned by the Communist Party to make propaganda art for political campaigns. I refer to this kind of art as “political propaganda art” or “Cultural Revolution art.” In this period, the called-​upon artists were mostly second-​generation artists trained in the principles of Soviet Socialist Realist art and some third-​generation artists who had learned art from their Soviet-​trained predecessors. However, due to the conflict of ideology and national interest, China broke with the Soviet Union just before the Cultural Revolution. Nonetheless, the Soviet influence continued in China, and Sovietness can be discerned in the works of the called-​upon artists. Studying Chinese realist art with a sufficiently large collection of first-​hand materials, Julia Andrews wrote a well-​regarded monograph, Painters and Politics in the People’s

66  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art Republic of China, 1949–​1979 (1994). In this book, she observed of Cultural Revolution art: Most Cultural Revolution art was in fact directly descended from academic painting of the 1950s and early 1960s, and, as we shall see, the best of it was painted by academically trained artists. These pictures, for better or worse, must be seen as part of the continuous development of painting in the PRC. (Andrews 1994, 316–​317) Andrews’s book is descriptive and interpretive. The above observation is partially exemplified by her interpretation of a peculiar Cultural Revolution painting, Liu Chunhua’s Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (c.1967). With 900 million copies printed and distributed nationwide, this painting was the most important propaganda picture of its time. It also served as a model piece, even a masterpiece, for making propaganda art. It depicts Mao in his early revolutionary career in the 1920s, standing tall on top of a hill on his way to the Anyuan coal mine to lead the workers’ strike. Nonetheless, as a matter of historical fact, it was not Mao but another Communist leader, Liu Shaoqi (1898–​1969), who did the job. In other words, propaganda art distorts history for its political purpose. Following her historical account of why and how this painting was made, Andrews offered a description of this picture with a political and generic interpretation, serving as her secondary narration: The practical business of revising the standard historical account by replacing Liu Shaoqi with Mao Zedong as the mastermind of the famous strike might present difficulties even if the young artist believed, as he did, in the ideological accuracy of the newly simplified history. This work avoids concrete problems concerning who did what when by severing the genre of history painting from its mundane ties to an identifiable physical setting. It doesn’t matter where Mao is or what he is doing, for the transcendent nobility of his cause and character are clear. (Andrews 1994, 339) In Western art, painters made minor changes to some insignificant details, except for the change Jacques-​Louis David (1748–​1825) made to his painting The Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte (1806). Generically, such distortion of history for a political purpose is not in line with the narrative tradition of history painting. To glorify Mao in Cultural Revolution art, according to Andrews, the artist of Mao Zedong Goes to Anyuan had to deny the actual leadership of Liu Shaoqi in the Anyuan miners’ strike and depict Mao as the leader. From a narratological point of view, Andrews’s integrated interpretation comes from her interpretive description of this painting –​or thick description, to use the terminology of cultural studies (Geertz 1973, 3), which is not as simplistic as a plain description. In addition, Andrews also offers a stylistic interpretation by pointing out the Soviet influence on this seemingly realistic painting (1994, 339). Reading Andrews’s description and interpretation from the perspective of a tertiary reader, especially her stylistic interpretation of Soviet influence on this painting, I recall an art book I read in the late 1960s or early 1970s. In this book, the Anyuan painting is

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  67 used as a sample to teach colour theory and its application in painting. Even if the close tie between China and the Soviet Union broke down in the mid-​1960s, the influence of the “Soviet manner” (Andrews’s term) remained for a long time, which is not only shown in this painting but also in the use of this painting for teaching purposes. Indeed, the Soviet manner still influenced the development of Chinese art throughout the 1960s, the 1970s, and even the early 1980s. Andrews discussed a few noteworthy artists of that period. Among them, I have personal contact with Tang Muli (1947–​) and Shen Jiawei (1948–​). Their works demonstrate the political impact on art during the Cultural Revolution. Collecting first-​hand data for the writing of her book, Andrews interviewed Tang Muli in the 1980s. Based on the first-​hand materials, she devoted six pages of her book to a discussion of Tang’s artwork, narrating the artist’s early experience of making art. With a thick description, Andrews focuses on Tang’s renowned painting Acupuncture Anesthesia (1972), which depicts a scene of surgery in a hospital and glorifies the revolutionary achievement of acupuncture anaesthesia in medical technology. Andrews first tells the interesting story of why the Shanghai municipal health authority commissioned this painting for a political purpose and how this painting was made as a collective creation. Since Andrews acquired first-​hand materials from the artist directly, her authorial interpretation in secondary narration is minutely immediate about a serious anecdote: Surgical regulations contradicted the standards expected in Cultural Revolution art and made other decisions more difficult. One problem was how to depict the carefully selected model nurse. Artistic conventions required that she smile to show her enjoyment of her work, but hospital regulations decreed that she must wear a surgical mask. It was decided to omit the mask –​thus weighting political concerns more heavily than professional ones. (Andrews 1994, 358) According to this anecdote, revolutionary politics is above medical professionalism and the realist principle for art. Such political weight came from Soviet ideology for Socialist Realist art. Then, Andrews tells another anecdote concerning the same painting: For political correctness in artmaking, some revolutionary slogans were expected to be hung in the surgery room, and Mao buttons were to be attached to the doctors’ and nurses’ surgical scrub suits. However, eventually, the municipal health authority decided not to add the slogans and buttons. Andrews calls this a “victory for professionalism over politics” (1994, 358). The artist of this painting, Tang Muli, and I both live in Montreal, Canada, and we have known each other since the early 1990s when Tang moved to Montreal from Ithaca, New York, where he taught studio art at Cornel University. In 1998, I wrote a review article about a Guggenheim exhibition of Chinese art curated by Julia Andrews and Kuiyi Shen. Since Tang’s painting Acupuncture Anesthesia was included in the exhibition, I spoke to the artist directly for the review. He told me the same anecdotal stories of the mask, the slogans, and the buttons. In the review article, I developed an interpretation of irony regarding the smiles on the faces of the nurse and the patient. Writing that review, I was a secondary reader of Tang’s painting and a secondary listener to his story. In that case, my interpretation of the irony was secondary, too, based on the first-​hand fabula gained from the artist.

68  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art

Figure 2.2 Tang Muli: Acupuncture Anesthesia (1972, National Art Gallery of China, courtesy of the artist) 汤沐黎《针刺麻醉》

More than two decades later, on the afternoon of October 9, 2019, I had a telephone conversation with the artist about the same topic again for the purpose of writing this book. Tang confirmed that what Andrews wrote in her book about his painting had been acquired directly from him. When I collect the first-​hand research materials from Tang, and when I write this passage in this chapter about his painting, my narrative position is no different from that of Andrews. However, although my work is based on first-​hand materials, it is also a response to Andrews’s secondary narration. Assuming this narrative identity, I offer a reinterpretation of Tang’s painting in my tertiary narrativization. As a reader of both the first-​hand fabula and secondary narration, I will now try to re-​decode the irony in Tang’s artwork for my rewriting of the development of Chinese art during the Cultural Revolution. Due to the influence of Soviet Socialist Realism, politics played a primary role in the artmaking process, and the artist had to remove the mask from the nurse’s face. Rethinking this anecdotal detail from today’s perspective, I see a historical irony because the Chinese political propaganda art of the Cultural Revolution was comparably “postmodern.” However, at that time, there was not yet Modernism in China, not to mention Postmodernism. Nevertheless, there is a certain similarity between Chinese Cultural Revolution art and Western Postmodern art, as they both take the opposite position to Modernism. Meanwhile, there is also a difference: Chinese art at that time was

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  69 premodern and Western art was postmodern. If I chose to use a postmodern term to talk about this irony, the notion of “political correctness” would be most proper in describing the political preference in Chinese art during the Cultural Revolution. Even more interestingly in the West, and ironically, the so-​called postmodernity is a kind of cultural revolution based on the Marxist critique of capitalism, just like Chinese Cultural Revolution art. A similar historical and political irony is also true of Shen Jiawei’s painting Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland (1974), which was discussed in Andrews’s book and exhibited in the 1998 Guggenheim exhibition. In my review article about that exhibition, I discussed the thematic issue in Shen’s painting: the anti-​Soviet sentiment. I sent Shen a copy of my review right after it was published, and the artist sent me a letter from Australia, along with many first-​hand materials relating to his painting. In the letter, Shen explained that, although his painting was made for an anti-​Soviet political purpose, he loved Soviet art and learned a great deal from reading Soviet Socialist Realist paintings. Soviet artworks were forbidden in China during the Cultural Revolution for political reasons. However, Shen said he did his best to look for Soviet paintings previously published in art journals before the Cultural Revolution. His purpose was not only to enjoy great art, but mainly to learn how to make artworks, such as conceptualizing a narrative theme, composing a picture, using colours, and executing the painting with brushwork. Shen Jiawei’s story sounds like a love-​hate contradiction, only it is not. To a reader like me, it is a political and artistic irony. Reading the ironies in the stories of Tang Muli and Shen Jiawei, I wish to make a point about the issue of narrative identity. Tertiary narrativization is not only a reader’s re-​interpretive response to the secondary narration but also a reinterpretation of the first-​hand fabula. Tertiary narrativization is descriptive, analytical, and critical in the two reinterpretations. Thus, the narrative identity of the possible author relies heavily on the tertiary nature of the critical reader with reinterpretation. In essence, this author plays the role of “the reader as a re-​interpretive author.” Narrative Identity, and the Continuation of Propaganda Art Regarding the role change from reader to author, I would like to stress the importance of tertiary narrativization. In other words, the difference between the reader and the author is crucial, making the reader’s tertiary narrativization significant. Regarding the study of Chinese art of the same period, most secondary narration about the first-​hand fabula is more descriptive and less interpretive than that of Andrews. In contrast, tertiary narrativization is the opposite: more interpretive and reinterpretative. Why is this so? Tertiary narrativization is not only a response to the secondary narration but goes one step further, as it is eventually a response to the first-​hand fabula. This is the significance of “the reader as a re-​interpretive author.” Considering this significance, what does the notion of “narrative identity” imply exactly? It denotes a difference between the reader’s tertiary narrativization and the author’s secondary narration. Speaking from a reader’s point of view, I observe that a tertiary narrativization is more conscious of two re-​interpretive questions: Does the secondary narrator have a point in his or her narration? Does the narrator have a clear sense of his or her methodological approach? The emphasis on these two questions discloses

70  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art the meaning of “meta” in “meta-​art history” and “metanarrative,” which differentiates the tertiary narrativization from the secondary narration. In this way, my elaboration of “narrative identity” is different from that of the French philosopher and narratologist Paul Ricoeur (1913–​2005), though relevant to it. In the 1980s, Ricoeur discussed the notion of “narrative identity” extensively. Although this philosopher-​narratologist stressed the issue of reader versus text as central to this notion (Ricoeur 1990, 157), his focus is on subjectivity concerning the issue of sameness and selfhood (Ricoeur 1994, 113, 140). To Ricoeur, there is no such issue as secondary narration versus tertiary narrativization, because his real concern is to construct the identity of the subjective narrator with the interaction of collective dependence and individual independence. Nevertheless, Ricoeur pointed out the importance of reinterpretation to the construction of subjectivity, though this is not the same thing I addressed. On this topic, Ricoeur writes: “We never cease to reinterpret the narrative identity that constitutes us, in the light of the narratives proposed to us by our culture … . It is in this way that we learn to become the narrator and the hero of our story” (1991, 32). In other words, Ricoeur stresses the reinterpretation that works to construct the narrator’s subjectivity between sameness and selfhood. After discussing narrative identity in Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another, Ricoeur concluded this issue in his summative essay “Narrative Identity.” Reading this essay, I see that, although my notion of “narrative identity” and that of Ricoeur are not the same, there is a connection, which is primarily the narrative function of reinterpretation in storytelling: We have an intuitive precomprehension of this state of affairs: do not human lives become more readily intelligible when they are interpreted in the light of the stories that people tell about them? And do not these “life stories” themselves become more intelligible when what one applies to them are narrative models–​plot–​borrowed from history or fiction (a play or a novel)? (Ricoeur 1991, 188) In my case, I would use “art history” to replace “history or fiction” at the end of the questions and then offer answers to the two questions. First, yes, art history is a story about human lives, both collective and individual, which make the development of human civilization more readily intelligible. Second, yes, the story of art is about how the human world is built and developed, and this story is told in a specific narrative model called art history. In the terminology of narratology, this model is specified as tertiary narrativization. Ricoeur finalized his essay with an ultimate phenomenological question: “Who am I?” (1991, 199). This question comes from his exploration of narrative identity via the narrator’s subjectivity. In a less phenomenological way, I would answer this question by saying that, although my concern is not precisely the same as that of Ricoeur, the nature of reinterpretation is constructive of my subjectivity: In essence, I am the “hero” and “narrator” of my tertiary narrativization. Contrary to secondary narration, the tertiary narrativization demonstrates a clear sense of having an opinion and employing a particular method of telling and retelling the story. In other words, tertiary reinterpretation means to make a point from a certain perspective with a certain critical method, whereas secondary narration is short of point-​making to a certain extent.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  71 With the above discussion in mind, I now circle back to Chinese art and discuss the realist art in the transitional period from 1976 to 1978. Referring to the periodization of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century, the development of realist art from 1976 to the end of the century is somewhat complex and can be further divided into three sub-​periods. The first is the continuous realist art from 1976 to 1978, then the lingering realist art from 1979 to 1989, and finally the realist art as a disguise of postmodern avant-​garde art from 1989 to the end of the twentieth century. The artworks of the three sub-​periods form the chain of the historical narrative, telling the story of a transition, not only artistic but also social, cultural, economic, and political. This is a transition from Socialist Realism and the “Unity of the Two” to realism and postmodernism, characterized by the figurative and representational depiction of reality. In the meantime, this transitional realism paved the way for the parallel development of modernist art in China, the figurative and non-​figurative art of the next period. At the beginning of this transitional process, the art of 1976–​1978 is a continuation and further development of the political propaganda art of the Cultural Revolution due to the nature of its function as glorification and its purpose of serving the party line. However, there is a difference. While the Cultural Revolution art glorified Mao and the Chinese Communist Party in all respects, the continuous realist art of 1976–​1978 glorified Mao’s successor Hua Guofeng (1921–​2008), who assumed power by overthrowing Mao’s widow Jiang Qing (1914–​1991) and her followers in a court coup. Mao died on September 9, 1976, which put an end to the Cultural Revolution. The ten-​year-​long revolution was an economic, cultural, moral, and political catastrophe for the nation and caused personal turmoil for almost every individual in China. The Chinese people overwhelmingly hailed the overthrow of Jiang Qing, the leading practitioner of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. To legitimize his new regime, Hua had the official media show the public a scrap of paper with Mao’s crumbling handwriting. It was said that Mao wrote it to Hua in his final days, saying, “With you in charge, I put my heart at ease.” According to the media, this proved that it was Mao’s ultimate will to hand over power to Hua. Less than a month after Mao’s death, Hua arrested Jiang Qing and seized power in early October 1976. Subsequently, in the following year, 1977, promoted by the Chinese official propaganda machine, there was a frenzy of making paintings with the same subject and title, “With You in Charge, I am at Ease” (Andrews 1994, 379). Almost all these paintings depict the same scene: Mao meets Hua in a book-​filled meeting room, patting his hand and saying something, while Hua holds a piece of notepaper. Of course, in all these paintings, the paper in Hua’s hand has changed from a scrap of paper to official letterheaded paper. In the terminology of art history and the realist principle of the “Unity of the Two,” this seemingly unrealistic change is acceptable, since it is for a revolutionary purpose. The seemingly trivial change of the scrap of paper reminds me of another painting by Jacques-​ Louis David, The Death of Marat (1793, Musées royaux des Beaux-​Arts de Belgique, Brussels). In this painting, the artist changed the colour of the handle of the murder weapon from black to white due to a visual consideration –​the blood-​tainted knife had to be seen in the dark shadow. David’s change was not directly for a political purpose, though the painting is indeed a piece of political art. What is the relevance of these changes to the notion of narrative identity? The complexity of this notion is multi-​layered. Compared to the tertiary narrativization of the

72  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art reader, the secondary narration of the author lacks sufficient interpretation, point of view, and method. Moreover, when I used the word “chain” to bring up the topic of the three sub-​periods, I stressed the narrative nature, or narrativity, of the first-​hand fabula. While the tertiary reader and the secondary author are storytellers, the inanimate fabula also tells a story in an impersonal way. In the above, the paintings about Mao and Hua, as well as David’s painting of Marat, play the role of the first-​hand fabula in telling the story of the “change” of seemingly unimportant details. However, the “change” in the Chinese story is politically charged, while in the French case it is visually driven. Serving as the first-​hand fabula, the two different changes in the Chinese and French paintings tell a fact: History painting does not have to be historically faithful to actual events. This fact sounds unrealistic, but it is true to realism, especially political realism. At this point, speaking of the narrative identity of the first-​hand fabula, I would say that the fabula is “narrative,” and it is an “open narrative” in respect of changes. Not only is the first-​hand fabula open to the secondary author’s descriptive change, but it is also open to the tertiary reader’s re-​interpretive change. On the other hand, these changes showcase the continuity of the nature of propaganda art in the transitional period, during which the second-​generation artists dominated the Chinese art world. On this topic, I offer the case of Hou Yimin (1930−2023), a prominent second-​generation artist. Hou studied Western art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in the early 1950s. A student of Xu Beihong, he later became a studio professor of oil painting at CAFA. Then, still in the 1950s, as a professor, Hou further studied Russian-​Soviet Socialist Realist art in the Maximov program. After the Cultural Revolution, he was appointed vice-​president of CAFA. In the early 1960s, Hou Yimin painted one of his most well-​known works, Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Coal Miners (1961). The painting depicts the revolutionary leader, Liu Shaoqi, leading a group of ragged miners out of a dark mine tunnel and going on strike. On the faces of the miners, we can see their unhappiness, anger, and fighting spirit. Meanwhile, on the face of the leader, we can see his determination and fighting spirit. Thinking about the 1967 painting Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan by Liu Chunhua, we have little difficulty imagining what trouble Hou must have experienced during the Cultural Revolution with his painting glorifying Liu Shaoqi. In the summers of 2009 and 2010, I visited Hou twice at his lavish villa in the Westmount area (Xishan) outside of Beijing. Hou told me that, because Liu Shaoqi was the primary enemy of Mao during the Cultural Revolution and his painting hailed Liu as a hero, Mao’s Red Guards considered him Liu’s follower and labelled him an anti-​Maoist. This accusation put him in political and professional limbo, depriving him of the right to teach or make art. Expected or not, before the end of the Cultural Revolution in October 1976, Hou was allowed to make another painting on a similar subject, Chairman Mao and the Anyuan Coal Miners (1976). This painting depicts Mao inside a dark coal mine tunnel, talking to and inspiring a group of miners with, to my mind and common sense, Communist ideals and fighting strategy. In the dark, three oil lamps light up the main characters. We can see the smiles on their faces, showing that they understand and agree with Mao. In the National Museum of China in Beijing, Hou’s two paintings of 1961 and 1976 hang side by side on the left wall of the central hall on the ground floor, a prominent place to display artworks, which matches the artist’s prominence in the Chinese art world. Interestingly, looking at the two paintings in the museum, I noticed something unusual: The small label beside the 1961 painting is full of information, such as the

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  73 motivation behind making the painting, the historical background of the subject, the political significance of the work, etc., while the label beside the 1976 painting is almost empty of information, only indicating the name of the artist, the title of the painting, and the date of its creation. Why is there not more information? Is there anything that should not be told or that must be concealed from the public? The prominent display of the two paintings with different labels reminds me of Francisco Goya’s (1746–​1828) two portraits of a society lady, Nude Maja (1797–​1800) and Clothed Maja (1800–​1805), which hang side by side on a prominent wall in the Prado Museum in Madrid. I suppose that the difference between the two Goya paintings is somehow humorous, satirical, cynical, and even sarcastic. In contrast, the difference between the two Hou paintings is the opposite –​it is political. I would speculate that the two paintings of Hou, as the first-​hand fabula, tell the story of how political accusation and prosecution have forced an artist to change his political and artistic position towards a historical fact. Writing about Hou Yimin since my first visit in 2009, I have talked a great deal about him with my artist friend Songnan Zhang in Montreal, where we both live. Zhang is a former student and friend of Hou’s. When Hou was the vice-​president of CAFA in the 1980s, Zhang was his assistant and a painting professor at CAFA. Without a doubt, Zhang knows Hou very well. Writing about Hou for this chapter, I asked Zhang over the phone whether Hou’s 1976 painting was made before October of that year, i.e., before the end of the Cultural Revolution, or after October, because the precise date is crucial to the issue of historical truthfulness and narrative identity. Zhang answered me immediately, saying that he believed it was painted before the end of the Cultural Revolution. Then, soon after our phone conversation, he emailed me three photographs of an old newspaper showing an article by Hou, written in 1976, titled “About the Painting Chairman Mao and the Anyuan Coal Miners” (Hou 2006, 5–​7). According to this article, the artist conceptualized the two paintings simultaneously in the late 1950s but completed only the first one in 1961. Nonetheless, he did research for the second painting in the first half of the 1960s, such as reading historical archives about the Anyuan strike, going to the coal mine to draw figures and portraits of the miners, and sketching the sceneries and landscapes of the location. However, he stopped working on the second painting during the Cultural Revolution until 1974, when he was finally allowed to take up his brush again. Then, he completed the second painting in 1976, right before the end of the Cultural Revolution and before Hua arrested Mao’s widow. Hou’s article supports my topic on the continuation of propaganda art from the Cultural Revolution to the transitional period from 1976 to 1978. Although Hou’s painting was made right before the end of the Cultural Revolution, it was officially shown to the public afterwards. Therefore, this work is generally regarded as a piece of post-​Cultural Revolution art. In this case, history plays the hand of God, who wrote the mysterious words on the wall in the biblical story of Belshazzar’s feast. On the one hand, since the 1961 painting caused the artist to suffer political accusations during the Cultural Revolution, Hou intended to make the 1976 painting a remedy and rescue, and a psychological and political counterbalance. Concerning the narrative issue of historical fact, on the other hand, according to the article Hou wrote before the end of the Cultural Revolution, both paintings are truthful to actual events. More importantly, speaking

74  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art from the perspective of art history, the story of the two paired paintings demonstrates well the continuation of propaganda art from the pre-​Cultural Revolution period to the post-​Cultural Revolution period. Artistically, then, in terms of depicting facial features, expressions, characters, and personality, the use of lighting and shading with contrasting colours in the 1976 painting created a warm atmosphere. According to the artist, this warmth shortened the distance between Mao and the miners, enclosing them in the same environment. In my view, this purpose goes beyond artistic consideration and is more a political one. The effective use of lighting and shading in this painting is after the fashion of Georges de La Tour (1593–​1652). It is interesting to compare the warm atmosphere created in the pictures of La Tour and Hou, both embodying a particular significance. The former is about the philosophical meaning of life and death, while the latter is about the pragmatic meaning of the struggle for survival of the miners and the artist himself. Hou Yimin is one of the second-​generation artists and teachers of the third-​generation artists who carried on his forerunners’ realist legacy. To a certain extent, this is why propaganda art continued. However, in the transitional period from 1976 to 1978, the continuation was not only to glorify certain individual leaders of the Chinese Communist Party but also to glorify the ordinary people in the revolutionary forces. Realism since 1978 and the Transformation of Narrative Identity The year 1978 is crucial for the development of Chinese art in the rest of the twentieth century. Although Hua Guofeng ended Mao’s Cultural Revolution, as Mao’s chosen successor, he was a loyal, faithful, and die-​hard Maoist. He was remembered for his declaration of two famous yet infamous “whatevers”: “Whatever policy chairman Mao decided on, we shall resolutely defend; whatever directives chairman Mao issued, we shall steadfastly obey” (Evans 1997, 220). Regarding art, the two “whatevers” can be taken as a footnote for the continuation of realism from 1976 to 1978. However, towards the end of 1978, Deng Xiaoping (1904–​1997), the second enemy of Mao during the Cultural Revolution, returned to the political arena and replaced Hua as the actual leader of China. In December 1978, Deng presided over one of the most decisive meetings in the history of the Chinese Communist Party and pronounced, representing the politburo of the party, the “Open Door Policy” (Marti 2002, 9, 15). This policy opened the door of China to the rest of the world, officially starting the process of Westernization, which is different from Hua’s Socialist modernization. Benefiting from the new policy, the Chinese art world also opened up to the West, and Western art exhibitions went to China as part of the new wave of Western influence. Of course, this openness did not happen overnight. Instead, it was a gradual process, starting even before the open door policy. One of the early Western art exhibitions was “Nineteenth-​Century French Country Landscape Painting,” which exhibited 88 Barbizon School paintings at the National Art Gallery of China in Beijing in March and April 1978 and then in Shanghai. This was a sensational exhibition in China. It was the first time Chinese artists and laypeople had the opportunity to see original Western art in person in the second half of the twentieth century. The political disguise of this exhibition is evident –​“country landscape” in its name sounds apolitical vis-​à-​vis the previous political propaganda art. However, the exhibition’s name is also political, affiliated as it is with the working class in the context of Marxist proletarian ideology.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  75 Moreover, the word “apolitical” does not mean meaningless or insignificant. In addition to the much-​loved paintings depicting nineteenth-​century French country life by Jean-​ François Millet (1814–​ 1875) and the paintings capturing dream-​ like landscape images by Jean-​Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–​1875), the most compelling works in the exhibition were the figure paintings by Léon-​Augustin Lhermitte (1844–​1925) and Jules Bastien-​Lepage (1848–​1884). Their realist art posed less difficulty for Chinese artists to comprehend. Although the artists were labelled as naturalist painters in the West, the Chinese, both artists and authority, regarded them as artists of Critical Realism, which the Chinese government was promoting at the time, and this is why I also consider the exhibition “political” for its affiliation with the working class. In the show, two large paintings always drew big crowds. One is Bastien-​Lepage’s Les Foins, or Hay Making (1877), depicting a tired couple taking a break beside a haystack. The other is Lhermitte’s Paying the Harvesters (1882), depicting a couple of peasants receiving payments for their farm work. The most touching aspect of the two paintings is the same: the empty look in the eyes of the peasant woman in the first painting and a similar empty look in the eyes of the man in the second painting. The term Critical Realism is borrowed from Soviet critical theory, indicating the critical nature of nineteenth-​century Western and Russian Realist art and literature. The paintings of Millet and Ilya Repin and the literary works of Honore de Balzac (1799–​ 1850), Charles Dickens (1812–​1870), and Leo Tolstoy (1828–​1910) represent this critical nature in two ways: the author’s sympathy towards the poor and their criticism of the rich. In the terminology of Marxism, they are sympathetic towards the people of the ruled class and critical of the ruling class. This sentiment extends to a provocative and even subversive criticism of the social system of capitalism, which is reflected and represented in the two French paintings. While Lepage and Lhermitte encoded their sentiments in the empty looks and tired body postures of the poor peasants, Millet encoded his religious mood and his hopelessness in the figures of the peasants with sentimentality. Millet himself was also a poor peasant living in the village of Barbizon, outside of Paris. This spiritual feeling was inspiring to Chinese artists of the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially to the third-​ generation artists of that time. To the third-​generation artists, Western influence comes mostly from Realism. Although I discussed some artists of this generation earlier, I will now offer further discussions on the thematic issue of Western influence and Chinese response. Collectively, the term “third-​generation artists” refers to those born in the 1940s and 1950s who learned art in the next decade from the second-​generation artists, or they were simply self-​taught then received realist art education at art academies in China from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. In the introductory passage at the very beginning of this chapter, I outlined the process of the Chinese response to Western influence. It is a process that goes from imitating and appropriating Western art to taking inspiration from it and participating in the international art world with renovation and possible innovations. The artists of the third generation best exemplify this process. One of the most prominent third-​ generation artists is Chen Danqing (1953–​ ), who learned art by copying political posters during the Cultural Revolution, mainly portraits of Mao, and made his name in the artist circle in Shanghai before the end of the Cultural Revolution. Chen became known nationwide in 1976 due to two Cultural

76  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art Revolution-​style paintings. The first is Writing a Letter to Chairman Mao (1976). In terms of composition, colouring, and brushwork, this painting is an imitation, to a certain degree, of a well-​known Russian Realist painting by Ilya Repin, Reply of the Zaporizhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire, or Cossacks of Saporog Are Drafting a Manifesto (1880–​1881). Nevertheless, Chen’s second 1976 painting, Tears Shed in the Harvest Land (1976), is no longer an imitation. This painting depicts a group of Tibetan farmers listening to the radio news of Mao’s death in a wheat field, which predicts his most important work, a series of paintings depicting Tibetan life made a few years later. Due to his artistic excellence, Chen was accepted by CAFA in 1978 as one of the first MFA graduate students after the Cultural Revolution, majoring in Western-​style oil painting. Towards the end of his graduate studies, Chen spent six months in Tibet, painting Tibetans in their daily life for his final project. Then, he selected seven of these works for his MFA degree, which earned him a great reputation as a top artist of his generation. These Tibetan paintings are unusually non-​Socialist Realist. They are not thematic or dramatic. They do not tell heroic stories and are not narrative sagas with glorification. In terms of brushwork, the pigments are heavy and the colouring is dark, echoing the brutal coldness and roughness of the wild Tibetan plateau. Meanwhile, each of the seven paintings depicts one aspect of the daily life of ordinary people. When the paintings were first shown to the public in 1980, the viewers were puzzled by seemingly strange questions: What is the theme of these paintings? What does the artist want to say? Why does the artist not depict the people as great heroes but as rustic laypeople? According to the artistic principles of Soviet Socialist Realism, a work of art should have a theme, subject, and purpose, such as political propaganda or glorification. Unfortunately, these paintings are simply representations of common people living a common life in common places at a common moment. Since the depictions are common, these paintings convey some common truth of life and the artist’s true feelings towards ordinary people. The following year, Chen published a short essay, “The Seven Paintings of Mine,” about this painting series (1981, 49–​53). In his essay, first, the artist acknowledged the influences of Rembrandt, Corot, Millet, and other realist artists from the West and emphasized the true feelings of these artists conveyed in their works. Second, referring to a specific one of the seven paintings, Chen stressed the “tired looks” on the faces of the ordinary Tibetans rather than the hypocritical smiles. Art historians and critics are interested in this short essay for its interpretive insight. As an artist, Chen is the image-​maker who provides first-​hand fabula to art historians and critics. However, regarding his essay, he is also a secondary narrator who provides interpretations of his works. Thus, in the secondary narrations of some art historians and critics about his Tibetan paintings, they simply paraphrase what the artist said in his essay with elaborative extensions. In this regard, an art historian made a clever remark on the artist’s essay: The artist is very smart in talking about his art; he said almost everything about the seven paintings, leaving no space for other interpretations. In the meantime, the artist said nothing about his paintings, leaving interpretation to others (Zhang and Li 1986, 334). In my opinion, this paradoxical remark tells the truth. The secondary narrations of art historians and critics can do almost nothing to interpret Chen’s paintings and thus allow readers’ tertiary narrativization.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  77 Chen found his inspiration from Millet in the subject of common life, which characterizes Chen’s sentiment in his Tibetan paintings. If I must use a colossal word to describe the connection between Chen and Millet and the affinity of Chen with Millet, I would consider using “humanism” or “humanity.” These words indicate what Chen learned from Western art, in addition to techniques, skills, and other visual conceptions. As stated, imitation is the starting point of modernization in Chinese art, and the topic of imitation is also the beginning of the grand narrative in my tertiary narrativization. The case of Chen is typical in telling the story of the Chinese response to Western influence in the period from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, which, as I have outlined, moves from imitation to appropriation, and from taking inspiration to participation with latent renovations. Appropriation is a rhetorical device that takes a certain motif from elsewhere for a specific purpose. Therefore, it is similar yet different from imitation. The similarity could be compositional, figural, or technical, including colouring, brushwork, and other formal aspects. The difference could be found in the aspect of conceptual purposes, such as the purpose of irony. In terms of intertextuality, contextuality, and archetype, appropriation is largely a parodic response to the original with an ironic twist. Chen left China for the United States in 1981 and lived in New York City for more than 18 years. In the early 1990s, he made copies of some of the masterpieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elsewhere, then he conceptualized them in a series of parodic works. One of these series is an appropriative parodic triptych entitled To Be Named #1 (1994). In the middle of this triptych, the artist places a copy of Millet’s The Gleaners (1857), flanked by two paintings based on photographs of a lady who, wearing a leisure dress, collects shells on a beach. To a realist and Socialist Realist, at a superficial level, the juxtaposition of the three images is politically critical, contrasting the lower-​class peasant life in Millet’s painting with the higher-​class or middle-​class bourgeois life in the photographs. However, to a critic and art historian, at the rhetorical level of art language, the juxtaposition is historically and theoretically about the original Millet painting, about Realist art, and about the interactions of premodern, modern, and postmodern cultural theories, political or not. In this case, appropriation is far from imitation. Instead, it is a result of inspiration from an old master, and it is one step closer to the stage of participation with renovation. Alongside the above reinterpretation is the issue of the reader’s narrative identity, which highlights my tertiary narrativization, telling the story of my reading of Chen’s realist art after the 1980s. This narrativization is mainly about his paintings from life, i.e., still-​life paintings, which Chen started in the mid-​1990s and has continued making ever since. I first saw Chen’s still-​life works in his 42nd Street studio in Manhattan, New York City, in the spring of 1996. The subject matters of the paintings were books, mostly open and placed on a table, with drapery fabric underneath. The open books show printed reproductions of artwork, including portrait paintings by old masters of the West, landscape paintings by old masters in Chinese art history, and masterpieces of Chinese calligraphy. Literally, these are works of paintings within paintings. At the time, I was attracted by his large figure paintings appropriating Millet and other Western artists, so I did not pay sufficient attention to the small still-​life paintings. Without close reading, I thought the works were just a demonstration of the artist’s good taste, an old-​fashioned literati play on art.

78  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art Then, a few years later, Chen had an exhibition in Beijing after nearly two decades of his self-​imposed exile. Expected or not, viewers, both artists and art lovers, were confused and even stupefied upon seeing his still-​life works of paintings within paintings. According to the media and press, some viewers simply did not know how to appreciate these works. They either murmured about why this famous artist had done such incomprehensible still lifes or suggested that the artist must have lost his talent, doubting his creativity, originality, and authorial intention. What is the point of making these works of paintings within paintings? Chen is a close friend of Mark Tansey (1946–​), a New York-​based conceptual artist who makes monochrome figurative paintings investigating historical and theoretical issues of art, such as the issue of representation in his Action Painting II (1984). On this issue, Arthur Danto (1924–​2013), a New York-​based philosopher and art critic, said in his catalogue book Mark Tansey: Visions and Revisions: “The painting in the painting makes a comment, even a deep comment, about the painting which contains it. It raises, one might say, to a philosophical reflection on styles of representation” (1992, 9). In my opinion, Tansey’s practice and Danto’s theory jointly played a role in Chen’s conceptualization of the still-​life paintings of picture books. In fact, it was Mark Tansey who introduced me to Chen in the early 1990s, so I know that this conceptual artist directly influenced Chen. Nonetheless, Chen not only reflects the Platonic “thrice removed” relationships (Plato 2000, 255) between the abstract idea, the reality, and the representation but also questions the ontological or metaphysical issues surrounding what is represented, who is representing it, and how it is represented. These works of paintings within paintings demonstrate Chen’s conceptual renovation inspired by Mark Tansey and Arthur Danto. My tertiary narrativization is a reinterpretation of these works, which comes from a two-​stage reading process: Digging into what the artist is painting about, and asking about what I am looking at. The first stage is interpretive, in which I play the role of art historian or critic, reading the first-​hand fabula and offering secondary narration. This reading process can be illustrated through a Platonic dialogue of questions and answers between the I and the artist: “What are you doing?” “I am painting.” “What are you painting?” “I am painting a painting.” In the second answer, the second “painting” can be a painting made by an old master, but it is more likely one of Chen’s own paintings. In one of his still-​life paintings, the artist paints an open picture book showing a page with a Chinese landscape image painted by a seventeenth-​century old master, Bada Shanren (c.1626–​1705). However, the landscape image in the still life is a printed reproduction of a photograph of the old master’s painting. Thus, this still-​life painting could be read as a realistic representation of the life sketch of the scenery in the old master’s eye and could also be a “thrice removed” rendered mental image in the old master’s mind. In a Platonic sense, the landscape painting is an imitation of nature, and nature is an imitation of the creator’s abstract idea about the natural landscape. In this painting of Chen’s, the landscape image could also be the idea of landscape in Bada’s mind. So, what about the photograph of the painting, the printed reproduction of the photograph, and Chen’s painting of it in the picture book? In short, the Platonic question could be revised as the following: Is the artist painting a book, a printed image, a photograph of a painting, a painting of the old master, the landscape image in the old master’s eye and mind, or the landscape in Chen’s very own mind? In the end, what is the exact issue that the artist is investigating in this still-​life painting regarding the philosophical problem

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  79 of representation? Moreover, is such a representation realist, and how far is the realist representation from the Platonic truth? No doubt, in the terminology of Arthur Danto, Chen’s still life is a metapainting, i.e., a painting about painting, particularly about the representational aspect of painting and artmaking. Thus, exploring the answers to the above questions leads me to the second stage of my reading of Chen’s still-​life painting, which is a reinterpretation from a reader’s perspective. In late 2019, Chen had a retrospective exhibition in Beijing, which showed his still-​ life paintings again. This time, viewers were no longer perplexed but looked at the picture books in his paintings with open eyes and open minds. Some art critics interpreted these paintings from a philosophical point of view. As for myself, I turned away from the first stage, from investigating the artist’s intellectual intention, and turned to look back at myself as a tertiary reader, focusing on how I look at his art. At this second stage, the critical matter to me is no longer what the artist is doing but what I am doing in reading these still-​life paintings and in reading art in general. At this point, I am thinking about the issue of the artist’s identity as a visual storyteller in secondary narration, not only as a first-​hand image-​maker, and thinking about my own identity as a re-​interpreter in tertiary narrativization. Looking at Chen’s still-​life paintings, I ask myself: What do I intend to look at? First, I look at myself looking at the picture surface of these paintings. The picture surface is marked with the artist’s brushwork that testifies to the very existential status of the artist’s work and the existence of the artist himself as being-​in-​the-​world with art. Second, I look at myself looking at the images printed on the pages of the open books in Chen’s paintings. In this case, I ask a further question: What exactly do I intend to do in looking/​reading? In other words, whose image do I intend to look at, the photographer’s, the old master’s, Chen’s, or the landscape image in my own mind? To me, these questions pertain to the issue of identity. They are about the artist’s identity as the first-​hand image-​maker and the identity of the secondary and tertiary image readers and storytellers. The exploration of possible answers to these questions leads me back to the first stage. However, this is not a simple return. The reading process of going back and forth between the two stages enables a fusion of the artist’s subjectivity with the reader’s. This process is not merely a fusion of a subjective object, which is intended by the artist, or an objective subject, which I may intend, or a fusion of subjectivity and objectivity. The fusion of the artist’s subjectivity and mine reminds me of the relationship between the issue of narrative identity and the notion of intersubjectivity. What is the connection? Inference. From my own subjective experience of image reading, I infer the artist’s subjective experience of image-​making. Regarding the issue of intersubjectivity, the still-​life paintings play the role of the first-​ hand fabula, and the process of Chen’s artmaking and his talking about these paintings plays the part of the secondary narration. In this process, my inferential reinterpretation corresponded with the phenomenological notion of empathy and played the role of tertiary narrativization. At this point of a seemingly hermeneutic circle, I assumed and empathized with the identity of the artist, who acted in the place of both the first-​ hand image-​maker and the secondary art critic. As for myself, I reinterpreted Chen’s art in place of the tertiary re-​interpreter and transformed from a reader into the author. Thus, a possible author emerged from the possible space between the reader and the author.

80  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art This emergence testified to the double identity of the possible author, which I have assumed. Then, with this identity, I can offer a narrative of Chen’s art and present a grand narrative about the development of Chinese realist art since 1978. In this line, my tertiary narrativization is in accordance with the proposed thesis in the introductory passage at the beginning of this chapter: The Western influence on Chinese realist art in this period and the Chinese response to it are specifically aligned with a process that moves from imitation to appropriation, and from taking inspiration to participation in international art with renovations. In Chen’s still-​life painting, the renovation speaks mainly to an intellectual or philosophical aspect and less to a stylistic one. His artwork remains figurative, representational, and realistic. At the same time, other third-​generation artists did their best to be innovative stylistically. In the early 1980s, He Duoling (1948–​) and Luo Zhongli (1948–​) were among the most important third-​generation artists. The two are from the same institute, the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing, and from the same MFA program. He Duoling became known nationwide for his MFA graduation project Spring Breeze (1982), an oil painting depicting a little country girl taking a break on the grass beside a water buffalo and a shepherd dog. Stylistically, this painting is fascinating for the artist’s painstakingly delicate depiction of the details of the blades of grass, the dog’s fur, and the rough skin of the buffalo, not to mention the subtleness in depicting the little girl and her clothes. In a way, this painting is pastoral and poetic, while it is also sentimental due to its subtle feeling of the anticipation of spring. In the early 1980s, this feeling is common for the people expecting a political thaw after the long winter of the Cultural Revolution. He’s fine descriptive brushwork is influenced by American Realist painter Andrew Wyeth (1917–​2009), which is rare in the realist works of the older-​generation artists. Since the Socialist Realist doctrine still dominated the Chinese art world in the early 1980s, it was easier for Western art in the guise of realism, such as the art of Wyeth, to be comprehended and embraced in China, though with considerable misunderstandings. He Duoling visited the United States in 1984, saw the original of Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World (1948), and then admitted to his previous misreading of Wyeth. According to the artist, he studied small, low-​quality printed reproductions of Wyeth’s paintings but could not see the multiplicity of the thin, almost transparent tempera layers. Thus, as a result of guesswork, he applied regular pigments of oil paints with thick brushwork (He 2006). Fortunately, such a misreading made his imitation of Wyeth less imitative. In He’s figure painting Youth (1984), a young female student in an army uniform takes a break from her work in a barren farm field. Flying behind her in the background is a large bird, shining white. The drastically strong sunshine and dark shadow on the face and body of the female figure make the painting seem somewhat spooky and surreal. The girl’s resting posture, especially the relaxed gesture of her right hand, is similar to the left hand of the peasant woman in the above-​mentioned Barbizon artist Jules Bastien-​ Lepage’s Hay Making. Nonetheless, the artist’s rhetorical approach is different. Youth is an appropriation of Edvard Munch’s (1863–​1944) Puberty (1894–​1895, National Gallery, Oslo) with a rhetorical twist. Interestingly, the title of the printed reproduction of this Munch painting in China is not “Puberty” but “Youth.” He Duoling’s twisted appropriation is dyadic: from

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  81

Figure 2.3 He Duoling: Spring Breeze (1982, National Art Gallery of China, courtesy of Lu Peng and the artist) 何多苓《春风已经苏醒》

interior to outdoor, from night-​time to daytime, from artificial front lighting to natural backlighting, from undressed to dressed, from hands between legs to hands beside legs, from expressionist colouring and brushwork to realist colouring and brushwork, etc. What is the connection between “puberty” and “youth” and the purpose of twisting the appropriation? According to the artist, the answer lies in the sublimation and eternality of the youth subject (Lu and Yi 1992, 43). In my reading of his appropriation, the subject is approached from the same yet different angle. The difference is found at the superficial level of the twisted rhetorical method, whereas the sameness is found at a deeper level of the human psyche, namely, the two paintings touch on the dark side of youth, such as the brutality in life that a young girl may experience. Although He Duoling soon abandoned imitation, the strong influence of Western art remained, though it no longer arises in the formal and stylistic aspects of his work. Instead, the influence can be seen in the aesthetic and psychological aspects. Wyeth’s nostalgic sadness and Munch’s poetic melancholia have been evident in almost all his later paintings. Similarly, yet differently, Western influence on the art of Luo Zhongli is firstly stylistic. The artist started his art by imitation. The work that earned him a great reputation is a painting for his MFA graduation project, Father (1979–​1980), a monumental portrait

82  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art depicting a close-​up image of a poor peasant. This portrait shocked the Chinese art world and the public in two ways: its enormous size and the photographic realist depiction of the facial details. In terms of its size, before 1980 in China, monumentality in portrait painting was exclusively reserved for images of the Communist leader Chairman Mao, not for a poor peasant or a commoner. One of these gigantic portraits hangs high above Tiananmen, the gate of the Imperial Forbidden City in the centre of Beijing. In terms of the photographic realist depiction, although realism was the artistic doctrine in China at that time, Chinese artists and ordinary people had never seen this type of detailed close-​up depiction of the human face in any artwork before. It was the first time that museumgoers had seen such precision of depiction in art. They were deeply impressed by the delicate details of wrinkles and sweat drops on the peasant’s face, the hidden web of blood capillaries underneath the rough skin of the peasant’s rustic hand, the dirt underneath his fingernails, the worn-​out bandage on a finger, and the cloth texture of his turban. According to the artist, while conceptualizing his graduation project, he became fascinated with printed reproductions of the photorealist paintings of the American artist Chuck Close (1940–​2021), which feature both large-​scale portraiture and the superfine depiction of facial details. However, to Luo, the influence of Chuck Close is not in his detailed depictions alone. Instead, it inspired him to make a statement in the art of his thoughts and feelings about his personal life experience in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (Lu 2006, 706). The photorealism of Chuck Close is part of late modern art developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Temporally speaking, Luo Zhongli is more than ten years behind the development of American photorealism. However, his art is not photorealist but realist, different from Western Modernism, both conceptually and stylistically (this is why I use the phrase “photographic realist” for his art hereafter). Due to Father’s great success, Luo continued his photographic realist painting in the early 1980s, making portraits of old peasant women with wrinkles on their faces and hands or white hair on their heads. Then, in the mid-​and late 1980s, he tried Millet-​like and Wyeth-​like rural life paintings. Once again, despite their photographic characteristics, these paintings are realist. Luo Zhongli turned to Modernist experimentation in the 1990s using Expressionist colouring and a Primitivistic atmosphere. Later, in the first two decades of the twenty-​ first century, he became even closer to Modernism, making paintings with Picasso-​esque wild sceneries and strong brush strokes. While Luo Zhongli turned to Modernism, He Duoling and Chen Danqing continued with Realism. In terms of Western influence, they have two things in common. First, they started making art with imitation and then developed their own art language. Second, willingly or not, their art is always influenced by Western art, no matter how native and local their subject matter. Conclusion Concluding this chapter, first, I wish to support my tertiary reinterpretation of the development of Chinese realist art in the second half of the twentieth century, which is summarized as the process of “imitation, appropriation, inspiration, participation.” This reinterpretation is mainly based on my discussions of realist artists and their responses to the influence of Soviet Socialist Realism and Western Realism.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  83 Second, I wish to support the thesis of this chapter regarding the narrative identity of the possible author who is transformed from being the tertiary reader at the cost of the death of the old conventional reader. The new tertiary reader retells art stories in the possible space between author and reader and becomes a possible author. Why is this transformation possible? Identity is conditioned and shaped by group belongings and the nature of the groups. The identity of the possible author is conditioned by three groups relating to the nature of narrative, respectively and integrally. A tertiary reader primarily belongs to the group of readers that consists of general readers and professional critical readers. The tertiary reader also belongs to a bigger group of readers that further includes authors who read the first-​hand fabula. Ultimately, the tertiary reader belongs to the group of all kinds of storytellers, which includes the secondary author and the first-​hand image-​maker who tells stories of art with artworks. In this sense, the narrative identity of the possible author is defined by three layers of narrative: first-​hand fabula, secondary narration, and tertiary narrativization. Then again, some key questions arise: Who and/​or what is the author of art history? What should be written about in art historical narrative, and how should it be written? The process of exploring the answers to these questions has helped me construct the narrative identity of the possible author. Regarding the transformation from reader to author, I call attention to the death of the old conventional reader. This death gives birth to the new tertiary reader. The new reader’s tertiary narrativization illustrates the crucial difference between the tertiary reader and the secondary author; namely, the tertiary reader reinterprets and rewrites art history. This difference makes the new reader’s tertiary narrativization meaningful. Referring to my discussion of the significance of the notion of “tertiary narrativization” in Chapter 1, I must reiterate that this significance is imbued in the power relationship and power struggle between the secondary author and tertiary reader. In a Foucauldian sense, the former is seemingly authoritative but also authoritarian and manipulative, exercising the ruling power and repressing the ruled readers. Rising to resist this rule and repression, a tertiary reader reinterprets the first-​hand fabula and revises the secondary narration and, hence, the tertiary narrativization. Earlier in this chapter, I discussed Umberto Eco’s chiastic notions about the empirical and model author versus the empirical and model reader. Although chiastic, there is no transformation between the reader and author in his theory. Nonetheless, in my discussion throughout this chapter, the demise of the old conventional reader gives birth to the new reader. Due to the right to, and power of, interpretation and reinterpretation, the new reader becomes a possible author. In this way, the interpretive and re-​interpretive nature of the tertiary narrativization defines the narrative identity of the possible author. References Andrews, Julia F. 1994. Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China: 1949–​1979. Berkeley: University of California Press. Barthes, Roland. 1973. The Pleasure of the Text. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang. Booth, Wayne C. 1961. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Cohen, Joan Lebold. 1987. The New Chinese Painting: 1949–​1986. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

84  Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art Danqing Chen 陈丹青. 1981. Wode Qizhanghua 我的七张画 [“Seven Paintings of Mine”]. Journal of Fine Art Research 1: 49–​53. Danto, Arthur. 1992. Mark Tansey: Visions and Revisions. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Publishers. Eco, Umberto. 1984. The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Eco, Umberto. 1994. Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Evans, Richard. 1997. Deng Xiaoping and the Making of Modern China. New York: Penguin Books. Foster, Thomas C. 2013. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: Harper Perennial. Foucault, Michel. 1993. “What is an Author?” In Art in Theory 1900-​1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 923–​928. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. 1993. Art in Theory 1900–​1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Harrison, Charles. 2001. Conceptual Art and Painting: Further Essays on Art & Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Harrison, Charles. 2009. An Introduction to Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hutcheon, Linda. 1985. Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. New York and London: Methuen. Iser, Wolfgang. 1974. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Becket. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. King, Ross. 2006. The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism. Toronto: Anchor Canada. Kongde He 何孔德. 2000. Yige Huajia Yanli de Chaoxian Zhanzheng 一个画家眼里的朝鲜战争 [The Korean War in the Eyes of an Artist]. Beijing: The PLA Literature and Art Publishing House. Lang, Berel, and Forrest Williams, eds. 1972. Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism. New York: David McKay Company Inc. Lenin, V.I. 1972. “Party Organization and Party Literature.” In Marxism and Art, edited by Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, 55–​59. New York: David McKay Company Inc. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2006. Ershi Shiji Zhongguo Yishushi 20世纪中国艺术史 [A History of Art in 20th-​ Century China]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Lu Peng, and Yi Dan 吕澎、易丹. 1992. Zhongguo Xiandai Yishushi 中国现代艺术史 [A History of Chinese Modern Art 1979–​1989]. Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House. Malpas, James. 1997. Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mao Zedong. 1972. “On Literature and Art.” In Marxism and Art, edited by Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, 108–​119. New York: David McKay Company Inc. Marti, Michail E. 2002. China and the Legacy of Deng Xiaoping: from Communist Revolution to Capitalist Evolution. Washington D.C.: Brassey’s Inc. Plato. 2000. The Republic. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Ricoeur, Paul. 1990. Time and Narrative. Vol. 3. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, Paul. 1991. “Life in Quest of Narrative.” In On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation, edited by David Wood, 21–​33. London and New York: Routledge. Ricoeur, Paul. 1994. Oneself as Another. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Song Yucheng 宋玉成. 2017. Zhong Ri Xishou Xifang Youhua Bijiao Yanjiu 中日吸受西方油画比较研究 [A Comparative Study of Chinese and Japanese Receptions of Western Influence on Oil Painting]. Beijing: People’s Fine Art Publishing House. Wood, David, ed. 1991. On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation. London and New York: Routledge.

Since 1949: Possible Author and Realist Art  85 Xia Yanjing 夏燕靖. 2011. Zhongguo Xiandangdai Yishuxue Shi 中国现当代艺术学史 [A History of Studies in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art Theory: From the Early Twentieth Century to 1978]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. Yimin Hou 侯一民. 2006. Paomo Ji 泡沫集 [Collection of Bubbles]. Shenyang: Liaoning Fine Arts Publishing House.

3 1979–​1985 Textual Space and Historical Transformation

The topic of this chapter is the development of Chinese art in the period from 1979 to 1985 as it transformed from premodern to modern. The historical importance of this development is found in its transformative nature, which is considerably spatial. To analyse the spatiality in this transformation and development, I propose a narrative notion of the textual space and take into consideration that the historical transformation of Chinese art in this period is spatio-​temporal and socio-​cultural. In this chapter, the main thesis is spatially specified, and the spatialization sheds new light on the reinterpretation of Western influence on the transformation and the Chinese response to the influence. In short, the historical transformation is embodied in three spatial changes in the major art events of this period. First, the ship-​jumping from Socialist Realist art to non-​realist art in the case of the Beijing airport murals; second, the Chinese misperception and displacement of Western formalism in the case of Wu Guanzhong (1919–​2010); and third, the identity change of the Stars artists alongside their spatial move from the periphery to the centre of the Chinese art world and their power struggle with authority. This spatial study is a reinterpretation of Chinese art from a spatial point of view. In his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977), Michel Foucault (1926–​1984) extended his analysis of spatial relations to a rhetorical use of it in question form: “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?” (1995, 228). In this light, I extend the Foucauldian extended spatialization to my study of the development of Chinese art in its historical transformation. Textual space, on the one hand, is a place where the stylistic and conceptual transformation of Chinese art takes place. On the other, this space also produces such a transformation. Thus, after Edward Soja’s (1940–​2015) Thirdspace, I will label this textual space the fourth space, defined by its spatio-​temporal and socio-​cultural aspects with political implications. As for the source of the notion of “textual space,” in the previous chapter I considered the idea of “possible space,” which, in reference to the narrative model and narratological framework, is found between the author and the reader. In terms of the transformation of Chinese art, since the historical misperception caused the spatio-​temporal displacement, specified as the spatial dislocation of Western influence and temporal misplacement of the Chinese response, I propose that the “possible space” is “textual space.” In this discourse, I do not limit the notion of space to a narratological sense but reach beyond to the socio-​cultural significance of Soja’s Thirdspace, which is based on Henri Lefebvre’s (1901–​1991) theory of three spaces: the physical, mental, and social spaces, or the perceived, conceived, and lived spaces. Although Lefebvre’s theory is primarily about DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-4

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  87 the third space of social production, Soja developed his “otherness” concept into the Thirdspace (Soja 1996, 61–​62). In terms of its function, the textual space first frames a text at the centre of the narratological framework; this “text” includes images of artworks and writings on art. Second, this space also provides a place for a text to play out, realizing its signifying potential and raising the stage curtain for the grand performance of the transformational art events. Third, the textual space functions as a site of textual production, producing the event-​ text or making an art event as a text. According to Mieke Bal’s narratological definition, an event is a process of change, involving actions (Bal 2009, 189). Due to these three considerations, I do not regard the textual space as a mere background, or simply as a container of the text, but rather as a space for socio-​cultural production of the event-​ text. In this space, the Chinese misreading of Western art happened as an art historical event-​text. As stated, this space not only produces such socio-​cultural event-​text but also specifies it with a power struggle between the ruled and repressed force in art and the ruling force, which is, in short, a fight for a change in their artistic identity. This is to say that I will further apply the spatiality theory to interpret the issues of identity and power relations in Chinese art. The power struggle for identity change is spatially signified by the repressed artists’ move from a marginalized place through a mediator to the centre of the hierarchical structure of the Chinese art world. Conversely, this spatial move also reveals the political implications of the spatio-​temporal and socio-​cultural domains of the textual space. Similar to the Foucauldian rhetorical extension, my notion of textual space is less geographical in a literal sense and more socio-​cultural in Soja’s sense of “visionary and creative arts among all those who see an immanent telos or ‘design’ waiting to be discovered” (Bal 2009, 63). In this chapter, such discoveries may occur within a work of art and also beyond a particular artwork. In addition, I must clarify a technical difference beforehand in my use of spatial terms. Namely, I capitalize Soja’s notion of “Thirdspace” as Soja did and use lower case for my own notions of the “third space” and “fourth space.” Textuality and Spatiality: Theorizing the Textual Space Discussing the historical transformation of Chinese art in relation to the textual space, I place the notions of textuality and spatiality side by side and in a serial connection, since the three events of the airport murals, Wu Guanzhong’s displacement, and the Stars exhibitions happened concurrently in 1979 and thereafter. In this way, I spatialize the seemingly temporal transformation. Since each of the three major art events in this transitional period reveals a certain aspect of the spatiality, I label them the first space, the second space, and the third space, respectively. Then, I integrate them to form a fourth one –​the textual space. After a short period of transition within the realist domain, in the next period from 1979 to 1985, Chinese art experienced a transformation that dismantled the previously realist confinement. As the main thesis of this book indicates, Western influence and Chinese responses have together defined the development of Chinese art in the twentieth century. In the transformational period, Western influence is mainly manifested in two aspects: in the rise of formalist art and in the awakening of self-​expression. During these years and thereafter, the mainstream of Western-​style art in China transformed from realist to non-​realist, and further to formalist and conceptual art, opening a new space of

88  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation possibilities for the successive Chinese modernist avant-​garde movement and the rise of postmodern art in the years to come. Although this transformation seems temporal, standing back and looking at it from a distance with a broader historical perspective, I observe that this transformation is also spatial. This is because the transformation is primarily accomplished by the above-​ mentioned art events, occurring concurrently from 1979, which formed an almost unified synchronic action of reform, echoing the Chinese economic reform that started in the same year. Regarding the spatiality theory applied to this study, in contemporary narratology, time and space are equally important and integral. According to a well-​received narrative theory, “[Although] narrative is the representation of events in time, it is no less true that these representations are in space as well” (Abbott 2008, 160). In general, a story told in a narrative account is both temporal and spatial, and the telling of the story is both temporal and spatial as well. This is also true for the interpretation of art and the writings about art history, since they are primarily narrative. On the one hand, to an art historian, as to a literary historian, narratives unfold in time, and the past, present, and future of a given event or action affect our interpretation of the action, while the characters who populate narrative texts move around, inhabit and experience different spaces and locations, allowing readers to construct complex worlds in their minds. (Herman 2007, 52) On the other hand, to an art historian, an event poses no difference in literary-​historical writing and art historical writing. The “characters” could be both the artists and the figures in their artworks, just as they could be the real people involved in art events, whether they are artists, art critics, art historians or not. In other words, to the art historical narrative, the notion of spatio-​temporal integration is not confined within the frame of an artwork but beyond it, involving all kinds of external elements and factors that each play a part in the events and in interpreting the events. Furthermore, I construct the complex worlds of space beyond a narrative sense and conceptualize that the power struggle of the ruled artists against the ruling authorities for artistic identity is a fight for living space in a socio-​cultural sense. Namely, the repressed artists fight to enter the centre of the art world from their marginalized periphery. For this reason, the textual space in my study is textual and visual in a literal sense. It is also a socio-​cultural space that witnesses and produces a crucial transformation in the larger background of a changing culture in a changing society. Initiating my discussion of the textual space, I must ask two preliminary and essential questions. First, what is a text and what is its textuality in this textual and socio-​cultural space? Second, what is space and what is the spatiality of this textual and socio-​cultural space? In the previous chapter, I discussed the notion of “text” in a different context, i.e., in the author-​reader framework. So, in the spatio-​temporal framework of this chapter, my exploration of the answers is, first and foremost, historical. In twentieth-​century critical theory, especially in the formalist and post-​structuralist theories, the notion of text is intrinsic and autonomous, and the text is commonly understood as “a structure of elements of signification by which the greater or lesser unity of those elements makes itself manifest” (Makaryk 1993, 639, 641). By this definition, a text is both a specific sign and

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  89 a more general signification system. However, in late twentieth-​century cultural theories, the nature of a text inheres beyond its materiality and intrinsicality. Additionally, a text does not necessarily have to be a written one, and its contextual borderlines need to be redrawn. Thus, redefining text beyond the formalist conception, Alan McKee offers an updated opinion in his Textual Analysis: “A book, television programme, film, magazine, T-​shirt or kilt, piece of furniture or ornament, –​we treat it as a text. A text is something we make meaning from” (2003, 4). Along these lines, I am certain that a piece of artwork, an image in a painting, or an art event can be read as a text, as long as the reader can make sense of it. In Chapter 1, I brought up the notions of external and internal contexts. For a further discussion of text, I now need to further specify these two notions. The external context is beyond the four borders of a piece of paper with text on it, or the frame of a painting, and the internal context is within the page borders or picture frame. Between the two, there is a contextual link. In this chapter, the link is cultural, connecting the external historical, social, political, and economic context to the internal artistic context. In the practice of reading art, the external context helps the extrinsic interpretation of an artwork, such as inferring certain understandings from the background setting. Meanwhile, the internal context helps the intrinsic interpretation, such as analysing a specific image in a painting. The cultural link allows the interplay of the two, enabling the external overall context and the internal specific context to work together in the practice of reading art and writing art history. Following the above, an issue related to the narratological framework arises: What is the difference between the context that frames the textual space in this chapter and the context that I discussed in Chapter 1? Let’s suppose a textual space is deemed to have an outer limit or textual-​territorial border. As I discussed in the previous chapters, the reader’s standpoint in the reading process and his or her field of vision together draw the outer limit and outline the context of the text. In other words, the viewer determines the difference between the context in this chapter and the context in Chapter 1. Exploring a similar question about the outer limit of narrative, Porter Abbot offers a succinct answer in one word: narrativity (2008, 31, 25). In this vein, when I discuss the textual space, my answer to the question of the difference between the two kinds of context is also short, direct, and clear: textuality. Textuality is a post-​structuralist notion in late twentieth-​century critical theory. It refers less to the formalist materiality of the text and more to a general consideration of the openness of the text to multiple interpretations. In an encyclopaedic sense, the notion of textuality “describes the tendency of language to produce not a simple reference to the world ‘outside’ language but a multiplicity of potentially contradictory signifying effects that are activated in the reading process” (Makaryk 1993, 641). With these definitions in mind, I believe textual space is a socio-​cultural space for meaning making, and such openness, as well as its inclusiveness, is the key to the notion of textuality. In the interpretation process, a text is found in the central place between the author and the reader. Without text, neither the perspective of the author nor that of the reader can work in an interpretation practice. In art historical study, a text is the narrative product of an artist or an art historian who encodes socio-​cultural significance in his or her work. The textual space opens for artistic and scholarly work and socio-​cultural production. More specifically, a text is initially produced by the author and finally completed or realized by the reader within a specific context. In this process, the context and text

90  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation constitute the textual space. Due to the openness and inclusiveness of this space, the reader has the final say about the encoded significance of the text, and the reader makes sense of what, why, and how the artist or art historian wants to say, and actually says, with the text. In this respect, the textual space is socio-​culturally functional. It is not only the space for a text to act, nor the space for an author and reader to communicate in the process of meaning making, but also the space to cooperate with all kinds of contextual possibilities and interpretive potentials. Considering Chinese art and its external context from the late 1970s through the early 1980s, the openness of the textual space echoes the government’s official “open policy.” Meanwhile, it also provides artists with the freedom for possible stylistic experimentation and conceptual exploration. With this in mind, I will connect the notions of textuality and spatiality for a further elaboration of the textual space. Although inspired by the theories of Edward Soja, David Harvey (1935–​), and Henri Lefebvre, my notion of spatiality is somewhat different from theirs. As stated, my notion of spatiality is integral and inclusive, consisting of a real and lived historical-​social-​political world as the external context, a perceived and imagined artistic world as the internal context, and a conceived practical world of artistic events as the text. Examining this notion from a current scholarly viewpoint, I can see its historical relevance to the so-​called spatial turn in the late twentieth century. Because of its relevance, this notion helps differentiate modernity, postmodernity, and contemporaneity in critical theory, cultural studies, and art history. Since the late nineteenth century, Modernists had stressed the importance of temporality in social progress, whereas since the late twentieth century, postmodernists have emphasized the significance of a spatiality that denies the Modernist idea of progress. Considering the importance of temporality, Modernists valued the linearity, continuity, and consistency in civilization and cultural progress that developed towards a better future, reminding us of the Hegelian teleology about history. However, postmodernists hold the opposite view (West-​Pavlov 2013, 138), negating the Modernist idea of temporal entirety in cultural development and valuing the idea of fragmentality, which encapsulates the main difference between old historicism and new historicism. This is to say that the old historicists value the diachronicity of the historical narrative in an unchanging context, whereas the new historicists value the narrative synchronicity in a changing context. According to postmodernists, the idea of new historicism better reflects the fragmented factuality of the postmodern world, hence the “spatial turn” (Tally 2013, 11). However, after the turn of the twenty-​first century, contemporary scholars have reconsidered the necessity and possibility of spatio-​temporal integration, which, in a way, is an extension of Soja’s concept of Thirdspace. In addition to Lefebvre, this extension can also be traced back to Harvey’s thinking and rethinking of time-​space compression (Harvey 1990, 260, 284). Textual space is a socio-​cultural space where not only the author and reader interact but also Western influence and the Chinese response. These two interactions frame a power relation between two forces in the three events of Chinese art during the transformational period. In Lefebvre-​like and Soja-​like Marxist terminology, these two forces are the ruling and the ruled. The former is the conservative art establishment, aiming to maintain the stability of the hierarchical power structure by repressing and even destroying the opposing force and resisting Western influence. Regarding Chinese art of the late 1970s through the early 1980s, this ruling force is represented by the institutionalized Socialist

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  91 Realism, or the realist doctrine, backed by the government’s cultural policy, which, contrary to the new economic policy, is not open. The opposite is the ruled and repressed, yet rebellious, force, aiming to subvert the existing power structure and embrace Western influence. From 1979 to 1985, this opposition force mainly consisted of three types of artists: non-​realist, formalist, and formalist-​conceptual. The historical transformation of Chinese art in this period reveals the power struggle and power shift between the two forces. It took more than a decade to reach a balance of power. In terms of artistic identity, though, it took much longer to legitimize the rise of the ruled and repressed artists. In the terminology of David Harvey, the textual space is characteristically time-​space compressed, and because of this compression, it is poised to encompass the above two opposing forces. According to Harvey, the ruling force always intends to destroy the ruled force (1990, 260), and vice versa. In their struggle, the rising power of the ruled gets ever stronger. Towards the end of the 1980s, the eventual rise of the ruled in Chinese art was slowly but steadily legitimized through the power equilibrium that coalesced between the two forces. In this temporally and spatially compressed textual space, the first event to arise is non-​ realist art, represented by the Beijing Capital International Airport murals. This event fights the conservative art of the past, intentionally or unintentionally, and subverts the old doctrine of Soviet Socialist Realism. The second event is formalist art, represented by the works of Wu Guanzhong, both his paintings and his writings that promote formalism in art, which are concerned with the present and aim to overthrow the dominant realism. The third to arise is formalist-​conceptual art, represented by the event of the rebellious Stars artists, which is focused on the future, opening the possibility of replacing realist art with Modernist art. The three power struggles are transformational and foment the subsequent Modernist avant-​garde movement. Thus, the importance of the three struggles is found in their practical and theoretical advocacy of formalism, which paved the way for Chinese art to attain modern and postmodern transformation. Pertaining to the theoretical approach, Soja proposed the theory of the ontological and epistemological trialectics of spatiality, based on his interpretation of Lefebvre’s spatial theory of social production. Soja’s epistemological theory is concerned with “how we can obtain accurate and practicable knowledge of our existential spatiality” (1996, 73). This, in particular, inspires my analysis of the textual space of Chinese art in the transformational period. Soja’s epistemological theory of trialectic spatiality consists of three spaces. The Firstspace is a perceived one, the Secondspace is a conceived one, and the Thirdspace is a lived one –​corresponding to the Real, the Imagined, and the Real-​and-​ Imagined places, respectively. According to Soja, the three places, or spaces, are independent of one another, interdependent with one another, and overlap with one another. In his theory, each space is individual in its own right and embraces and encompasses the other two at the same time. This is also true to my understanding of the spatiality of the textual space in Chinese art. In this respect, I regard context as twofold, the overall external context and the specific internal context, and further consider that the fault line between the two is not a thin line but more akin to the frame of a painting. This frame not only divides the two contexts but also links them. I call it a socio-​cultural link or, simply, a contextual link. Soja has pointed out the logical gap in Lefebvre’s discourse on social space (Soja 1996, 65–​66), which, to a certain extent, allows him to develop his own theory of Thirdspace to fill the gap. Similarly, I do not use Soja’s theorization of spatiality mechanically, but

92  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation make changes in adapting his trialectics to my own purposes. Referring to Soja’s theory of epistemological trialectics, I consider that, in accordance with the de facto development of Chinese art in the transformational period, the first space is not a perceived one but a lived and real one, and, within it, Chinese art is under Western influence. Relatedly, the second space is not a lived one but a perceived and imagined one within which the Chinese response to Western influence took place. The third space is a conceived one within which Chinese art is produced. In other words, it is a space of socio-​cultural and political production. The integration of these three spaces results in my fourth space, which specifies the textual space. The Lived Real World as the First Space: The Rise of Non-​Realist Art As a temporal precondition, the immediate internal context of the artistic transformation in this period is the rise of non-​realist art, represented by the 1979 mural project for the Beijing Capital International Airport. Meanwhile, this internal context also functions as a mutually interactive intertext of the other art events of the time. In terms of art historical transformation, the temporality of the airport mural project is about the past, about the transformation from the old Socialist Realist art to non-​realist art. Accordingly, the spatiality is revealed in the event of ship-​jumping from Socialist Realism to non-​realism. This contextual and intertextual framework is material, physical, and factual; I regard it as the first space. Soja adopted Lefebvre’s notion of spatial practice in defining his Firstspace as a perceived space, which I redefine as the lived space. Although I made this revision for reasons I will explain soon, I value Soja’s elaboration of his Firstspace, since his elaboration of materiality is helpful for my discussion (Soja 1996, 74). In my historical narrative of Chinese art, materiality indicates the factuality of the real context, both external and internal. In terms of its significance, I further value Soja’s emphasis on the difference at two levels of his Firstspace in the process of meaning making: the descriptive and interpretive levels. According to Soja, the former “concentrates on the accurate description of surface appearances (an indigenous mode of spatial analysis),” and the latter “searches for spatial explanation in primarily exogenous social, psychological, and biophysical processes” (1996, 75). In my study, these two levels echo the internal and external contexts. Regrettably, in Soja’s Firstspace, there is no link between the two levels. Discussing the contextual issue of Chinese art from 1979 to 1985, I regard the actual and factual context as external, involving the overall historical, social, political, and economic background, and I regard the specific artistic context as internal. The two are partially overlapped and connected by the cultural link that is crucial for describing and interpreting the transformational nature of non-​realist art. In the previous chapter, I discussed the overall external context of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century. I now turn to the cultural link and the internal context of the late 1970s through the early 1980s. Figuratively speaking, the cultural link is a picture frame. Concerning the topic of this chapter, I would say that this link is Chinese Revolutionary Realism, which had dominated Chinese art since 1942, when Mao Zedong (1893–​ 1976) delivered his important speech on Communist cultural policy to the “cultural workers,” i.e. the revolutionary writers and artists, in Yan’an (Xia 2011, 434). On the one hand, this policy was

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  93 historically framed in the political background of the Second World War, the external context. On the other hand, it is the culturally framed wartime Communist art and literature that play the role of the internal context. Linking the overall external context and the specific internal context, Chinese Revolutionary Realism has been implemented as a cultural policy ever since; it calls artists to serve the Communist cause with their art by representing the revolutionary reality and glorifying the revolutionary achievements in their works. Considering its anti-​Fascist nature in the Second World War, this cultural policy can be justified, since China took a crucial position in the Allied forces in the Asia-​Pacific region. However, this wartime cultural policy became a doctrine that was to rule Chinese culture, including art, for the next four decades. Since 1949 Soviet Socialist Realism and its Chinese version, “Unity of the Two,” have played a pivotal role as a cultural link between the external and internal contexts. Even worse, since the Cultural Revolution, this doctrine had been forcefully enforced as a cultural law. As for the internal context, at the end of the 1970s, some open-​minded artists became increasingly embittered with the politics in art. These artists made efforts to explore non-​realist possibilities in all respects. For instance, the 1978 economic reformative “open policy” of the new government led by Deng Xiaoping (1904–​1997) enhanced the Chinese international connection. This enhancement required the construction of the new Beijing Capital International Airport and needed murals to decorate the waiting rooms. Some artists proposed old-​fashioned realist murals, while others submitted non-​ realist proposals, such as formalist decorations. Due to the open policy, formalist decorative art was considered apolitical, just as certain untitled Western classical music pieces seemed apolitical to the Chinese ear and mind. Eventually, the non-​realist proposals won the project, which were realized in 1979. Expected or not, these murals met with great controversy upon completion due to their depiction of female nudes, particularly those by Yuan Yunsheng (1937–​), who depicted female nudes as central figures in his work, making the whole mural project controversial. The significance of the nudes is found in the fact that the mural tested how open the newly implemented open policy could be, and how open the Chinese mentality could be in accepting nudes in art at the time. Most significantly, it posed a threat to the established realist doctrine and traditional morality and opened a new window for Chinese artists to envision the arrival of formalist and modernist art. In Western art history and theory, formalism is a crucial aspect of Modernism and modern art. In a strict sense, the Beijing airport murals are not formalist art per se, but decorative. Formalism emphasizes the autonomous visuality of artistic forms, such as lines, shapes, colours, composition, etc. It also emphasizes the formal elements in artmaking, such as brushwork and the sense of movement. Some extreme formalist theorists such as the American New Critics in the mid-​twentieth century argued that form was not to serve content in artworks, reminding us of the old idea of art for art’s sake. In the case of Yuan Yunsheng, since his airport mural is thematic and narrative, the decorativeness serves his purpose of both decoration and celebration. In his mural Water-​Splashing Festival, the Celebration of Life (1979), the artist captures a dynamic moment of a festival scene with beautiful formal elements. It depicts the common people celebrating their happy life and glorifying the government’s economic and cultural achievement. In this sense, the mural is neither a piece of pure formalist art nor a piece of pure realist art. Although Yuan had done realist art previously, he waved goodbye to the old doctrine for his airport mural and adopted a decorative approach.

94  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation

Figure 3.1 Yuan Yunsheng: Water-​Splashing Festival, the Celebration of Life (1979, detail, courtesy of Lu Peng) 袁运生《泼水节-​生命的赞歌》

One of Yuan’s approaches is to simplify the shapes of human figures and flora, using more primary and secondary colours and fewer tertiary colours, and reducing the complexity of the tonal shades. Nonetheless, the simplification does not result in a pictorial simplicity. Looking at the massive mural in the waiting area of the airport, one can feel the pulse of life and hear the beating of the heart –​the mural is full of life with flesh and blood in the movements of the young singers and dancers, men and women, in a lush and dense forest. This simplification is Yuan’s way of aligning with the aesthetic of glorification whilst eschewing away from the realist doctrine. Another decorative approach is semi-​ abstraction. To a large extent, abstraction denotes something devoid of concrete image or figural depiction. Yuan’s mural is certainly figurative, representing human activities by depicting figural physicality: the postures and gestures of human figures, their mutual interactions in movement, and their interactions with the natural setting –​the streams, woods, birds, and other animals in the mountain forest. Nonetheless, all the figures are simplified to semi-​abstract forms. This approach stays with the aesthetic of glorification while keeping a distance from the realist representation. Furthermore, the decorative approach also showcases the exotic beauty of ethnic customs –​the tight and transparent dresses outline the slim body contours of the dancing girls soaked with water in the water-​splashing festival. But there is a twist. In the foreground, some girls are undressed, and these female nudes are in strong contrast to the half-​naked male figures in the middle ground. At this point, it is interesting to make an intertextual reference to Edouard Manet’s (1832–​1883) Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1862–​ 3, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). In the Manet painting, the juxtaposition and contrast of the naked women and the fully dressed gentlemen challenged the accepted moral norm of refined Parisian society. They enraged the Salon artists, the public, and even the French emperor. Today, when art historians talk about the nudes in Yuan’s mural, the main topic

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  95 is not the decorative approach but the controversy it caused in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the world of realist art in China at that time, the authorities and the public were shocked and outraged by the artist’s audacious depiction of female nudes in the mural, just as the Parisian bourgeois society had been shocked by Manet. To Yuan and other non-​realist artists, the female nudes were beautiful, especially in a decorative guise. However, to the press, who spoke on behalf of the realist art establishment, and the authorities, the depiction of the female nudes was politically incorrect –​if I can speak in postmodern language here –​because such depiction could be seen as disrespecting a racially marginalized minority, the Dai people. Eventually, the airport authority had to hang curtains to cover up the controversial sections of the mural at the grand opening of the new airport and thereafter. In Western art history, sexual description, explicit or implicit, is always key to some controversial Modernists. However, the issue of sexuality was played down by Chinese artists at that time, and erotic inclination was usually implicit in Chinese art tradition, mainly due to Confucian morality, which sees sexual subjects as immoral. The above factual context of non-​realist art, both external and internal, and the cultural link in between constitute the lived real first space of Chinese art in the transformational period. To Soja and Lefebvre, this space is a perceived one, which is physically and materially factual. However, perception is personal, individual, and subjective; it could be misleading, intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore, the first space is a lived one to me. It is a spatio-​temporally compressed real world, providing an actual setting and environment for the development of Chinese art in the transformational period. As a context, the first space consists of external and internal layers, with the former describing the historical, social, political, and economic background and the latter interpreting the artistic setting. Between these two layers, the cultural link of the realist doctrine is essential, connecting the two layers and making the first space possible. The Misperceived World as the Second Space: The Case of Wu Guanzhong In the above discussion of the spatiality of the textual space, the second space is dyadic; it is about the past and the present. It is not only temporally presented by the binary opposition of the past and the present but also spatially presented by the geographical and cultural differences between the West and China. Due to a crucial misperception of these dual differences, a misreading of Western Modernism took place among artists in China during the transformation period. Such a misreading is exemplified by Wu Guanzhong’s persistent promotion of formalism as a remedy against the realist politics in art. Wu is a great formalist artist in the transformational period from 1979 to 1985. This period was a time of rebirth for modern art after the long-​term dominance of the realist doctrine. In Western art history, though, this period is no longer formalist or Modernist, but postmodern. In this matrix, Wu’s formalism is historically or temporally misplaced and spatially dislocated. Regarding its wrong place in the matrix, the irony of the Wu case is that two wrongs may make a right. Due to the spatial dislocation, Wu’s problem of temporal misfit and historical misplacement is solved, rationalizing and legitimizing his advocacy of formalist art at the end of the 1970s and thereafter. Contextually, Wu’s advocacy of formalist art is framed in a Soja-​like Secondspace, which Soja labels as lived space after Lefebvre. As noted, I would like to revise and recategorize it as a perceived and misperceived space and consider that Wu misread

96  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation Western formalism temporally and spatially. Soja’s elaboration of his Secondspace justifies my revision and recategorization of his spatial notion. This is to say that, in return, the case of Wu’s advocacy supports my revision and recategorization, and vice versa. Perception and misperception are preconditions to interpretation. Although labelled by Soja as a lived world, his Secondspace is explanatory with an implicit assumption that comes from perception. On this topic, Soja elaborates, “Secondspace is entirely ideational, made up of projections into the empirical world … . In so empowering the mind, explanation becomes more reflexive, subjective, introspective, philosophical, and individualized” (1996, 79). To my understanding, the “ideational” explanation works on the empirical level, and the perceiver subjectively revises the lived world and misperceives it due to his or her own individualized intention. Wu Guanzhong was born in 1919 in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, on the northwestern shore of Lake Tai, where the local gentry had valued art and education highly for about a thousand years since the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–​1279) had settled its imperial court in the region. Although Wu’s family is not very rich compared to some other locals, his family inherited the same cultural tradition of providing a decent education for their children as a priority. In the 1980s, when Wu gained a nationwide reputation, he wrote quite a few autobiographical essays that told stories of his early life, including his experience of learning art. According to his essays, he enjoyed both traditional literati art and Western art from a very young age, often going to neighbours’ houses to see the pictures on their walls. These were mostly mythological figures from old stories, landscape images of lake sceneries, still-​life pictures of flowers, and fashionable posters showing the beautiful ladies in big cities such as nearby Shanghai (Wu 2011, 7). In these anecdotal stories, two observations can be made that are relevant to his later artistic development and his advocacy of formalism. One is that traditional literati painting is not realistic; instead, it is more expressive, with personalized brushwork in its visionary landscape pictures. The other is that Western-​style poster art is more decorative than realistically representational, showing off the feminine beauty of charming ladies. Before the Second World War, Wu entered the National Art Academy of Hangzhou, the only art academy in China that had adopted a Western curriculum at that time. According to his memoir essay of 1985 (Wu 2011, 22, 25), almost all the teachers were trained in Europe with Modernist art. The exception was Pan Tianshou, a traditional-​ style literati painter with a modern mind and a non-​traditional aesthetics and style. After the war, Wu won a government scholarship to study art in France. He went to Paris in 1947 and entered École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-​arts de Paris, or Faculté des Lettres, Université de Paris, where he became a disciple of the French Modernists. In the École, three of his four painting professors were Modernists. The only non-​Modernist professor praised Wu for his colouring and considered his use of colours better than his depiction of the human figure. As Wu recalled, he was not interested in the realist depiction of human figures. Eventually, he turned to follow the Modernist professors, especially Jean Souverbie (1891–​1981), who was influenced by the Nabis and the Cubists. Concerning his artistic preference, Wu often said that he was in favour of the three Post-​Impressionist masters. Speaking of art history, the Nabis had a strong affinity with Paul Gauguin (1848–​1903), and the Cubists were always associated with Paul Cézanne (1839–​1906). Wu’s favourite is Vincent Van Gogh (1853–​1890). Contemplating his preference, I believe that Gauguin’s colouring, Cézanne’s brushstroke, and Van Gogh’s use of colours and brushwork fascinated him. Understandably, Wu was probably not interested

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  97 in Gauguin’s primitivist passion, Cézanne’s spatial rendering, or Van Gogh’s expressionist anxiety. Rather, he was interested in their handling of formal elements, such as the contrast of colours, pictorial flatness, and their way of handling brushwork. While in Paris, Wu enjoyed being with other Modernist artists. Among his schoolmates and fellow Chinese artists, two close friends had become internationally renowned, Chu Teh-​Chun (1920–​2014) and Zao Wou-​ki (1921–​2013), both abstract artists known for their use of strong colours and freehand brushwork. However, regarding his subject or motif in the early years and his style in later times, Wu had nothing in common with these old friends. Wu completed his studies in France and returned to China in 1950. As discussed, Chinese art was dominated by Soviet Socialist Realist doctrine from 1949 through 1979. Wu is a Modernist and did not fit in the Socialist Realist milieu. I have no difficulty imagining how miserable his alienated life must have been during the three decades that followed his happy life in Paris. He saw this difference clearly when he arrived in China. While waiting for a job in Beijing, an artist friend from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) introduced him to teaching there. In a memoir essay, Wu recalled that he responded to the job offer with worry: Mr Xu Beihong was the president of CAFA, and he was an ardent Realist artist and art educator; in the 1930s, when Xu had studied art in Paris, he had been known as a die-​hard opponent to the Impressionists, Post-​ Impressionists, and the Paris School Modernists; he hated Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841–​ 1919), Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse (1869–​1954) so much that he even published articles to denounce them, calling them corrupt artists while refusing to introduce their art to China. With this in mind, Wu asked his friend: How could Xu tolerate my Modernist inclinations? (Wu 1998, 331). Somehow convinced though still worried, Wu accepted the offer and taught studio art at CAFA, the Realist stronghold in China. According to the same essay, Wu was surprised to learn that, in the early 1950s, the students at CAFA did not know about Western modern art and artists, although they knew Russian-​Soviet art and artists very well. Wu then incorporated his knowledge of Western art into his teaching, aiming to introduce Western Modernist art to students. However, since CAFA did not authorize the inclusion, and what he taught was not part of the official curriculum, Wu was kicked out of the academy in 1964. Wu left the realist CAFA and went to an institute of applied arts, the Central Academy of Craft Art in Beijing (CACA), where the difference between Realism and Modernism was not so crucial, since the applied arts curriculum of CACA was less ideological. Wu has taught introductory courses in drawing and painting there ever since. To avoid realism, he turned from figure painting to landscape painting because of its apolitical nature. To an artist of that time, making figure paintings meant he or she had to be a realist, as required by the artistic dogma and the party line, while the artist is free from this requirement when making landscape painting. Furthermore, Wu is passionate about capturing the beautiful sceneries of his home region around Lake Tai in his artworks. He perceives the natural sceneries of the lake district as non-​realistic simply because the sceneries are too beautiful to be true. In Wu’s eyes, the beauty of his home region is found in the visual forms of simplicity, flatness, and tonal and colour contrast. For instance, the colours of the houses and buildings in the lakeshore villages are naturally reduced to black and white –​the black tiles on the roofs and the white walls of the houses. The shapes of the houses and buildings are reduced to flat triangles and squares without spatial depth. The

98  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation surfaces of the lake and rivers are reduced to an empty flat void, with a few black dots symbolizing fishing boats. Faced with such a beautiful landscape, to Wu, painting from nature did not make him a realist artist but a formalist one who enjoys the formal beauty of simple colours and abstract shapes. Wu has always been a landscape artist ever since he started learning art, prioritizing formal elements in landscape images. As he said in a memoir essay, due to his life experience from the 1950s to the 1970s, particularly his miserable life during the Cultural Revolution from the mid-​1960s to the late 1970s, he detested Socialist Realism and realist politics and ideology in art (Wu 1998, 335). On the contrary, he was absorbed in the landscape because of its apolitical beautifulness. Accordingly, the artistic development of Wu’s landscape painting follows a route from naturalist to formalist, from simplification to semi-​abstraction and then to pure abstraction. Nevertheless, this is not an absolute progressive route, since Wu sometimes goes back and forth. In the 1950s, he was required by CAFA to work on figure paintings. During that time, he only occasionally painted landscapes from nature. In the 1960s, Wu gave up figure painting almost entirely and turned solely to landscape painting. In a 1964 oil painting of mountain scenery with small trees in the foreground, the artist avoided realistically depicting the patterns of rock formation and ignored the complexity and subtlety of the tonal shades of the mountain slopes. Instead, he reduced these natural elements to flat forms. He emphasized the tonal contrast between the two-​dimensional horizontal mountain shapes and the flat vertical lines of trees in the front. Importantly, tonal contrast is just one of the key elements of Wu’s landscape art. In a 1973 watercolour painting of a bird’s eye view of mountain scenery with terraced rice fields, the artist reduces the natural tones to three: the dark ridges close to the front, the grey fields in the distance, and the bright surface of water in the middle. After the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Wu’s simplification went further in painting water town sceneries with Chinese media, mainly ink and water. In a 1981 painting of this kind, the artist depicts houses, a bridge, and water in three tones with a strong contrast: black roofs with dark ink, a grey bridge and its shades in the water with diluted ink, and white walls with no ink. In his life, by and large, Wu perceived three different worlds of art in a spatio-​temporal sequence. The first is the world of Modernist art in Paris before 1950, the second is the world of Realist art in Beijing after 1950, and the third is the world of non-​realist art from 1979 to 1985 and thereafter in China. The mixture of the three is the world Wu lived in, the first being spatially and culturally different from the other two, and the third being temporally different from the previous two while connected to the second. Although I believe that Wu is clear about the differences, his perception of the three lived worlds is somehow confused. The three different lived worlds are dislocated and misplaced, spatially and temporally. This misperceived world is Wu’s second space, providing him with the mindset and backdrop for his advocacy of formalist art. As a reader of Wu, I must point out that Wu’s perception of Western Modernist and formalist art was frozen at the moment he departed Paris. Then, he suffered ideological, emotional, and physical mistreatment in China under the realist rule and finally decided to practice and promote old formalist art. Thus, he relocated the old Paris formalist aesthetics to China at the end of the 1970s. In this misperceived second space, Wu published his well-​received and controversial essays to advocate formal beauty and abstract beauty, which I will discuss soon. His

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  99 paintings and writings at the turn of the 1980s marked the gradual turn of his art from simplification to semi-​abstraction. Of course, simplification is just one of the ways of making abstract art, and Wu’s semi-​abstraction is different from usual abstract art. His semi-​abstract art is based on recognizable images of sceneries, such as trees and flowers. In this respect, Wu’s painting at this early stage is similar to those of the Cubist artist Georges Braque (1882–​1963) and the Abstract Expressionist Willem De Kooning (1904–​ 1997) and different from those of the pure abstract artists such as Mark Tobey (1890–​ 1976), Mark Rothko (1903–​1970), and Jackson Pollock (1912–​1956). In the 1980s, Wu continued his painting of image-​based semi-​abstraction and occasionally went back to painting simplified sceneries. Sometimes Wu’s semi-​abstraction goes farther, nearing pure abstraction. To an eye unfamiliar with Wu’s simplification and semi-​abstraction, these paintings could be taken as pure abstract pictures. However, once a viewer is aware of Wu’s images of scenery, it is not too difficult to see the hidden tree branches, grass leaves, and flowers in the seemingly pure abstract pictures. Then, towards the end of the 1980s, Wu reached the point of pure abstraction, and he enjoyed its formal beauty throughout the 1990s and the early twenty-​ first century. In the paintings entitled Prayers (1996) and Tangles (2000), the artist gave his brush lines the musicality of movement, featuring the contrast of black and white and heaviness and lightness. Coming back to Soja’s notion of Secondspace, I must call attention again to Wu’s spatio-​temporally dislocated and misplaced perceptions of his past lived worlds before and after 1950. So I will quote Soja again: “Also located here are the grand debates about the ‘essence’ of space, whether it is ‘absolute’ or ‘relative’ and ‘relational,’ abstract or concrete, a way of thinking or a material reality” (1996, 79). It is my speculation that Wu’s misperception results from his inability to update his knowledge about the development of Western art during the period of the early 1950s through to the late 1970s. This historical period witnessed a drastic change in Western art and culture, from the Paris-​centred

Figure 3.2 Wu Guanzhong: Setting Sun, Fishing Harbor (1980, courtesy of Lu Peng) 吴冠中《夕阳渔港》

100  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation early Modernism to the New York-​centred late Modernism and then to postmodernism. Wu missed all direct contact and personal experience of these developments in Western art. Without the material reality of a lived world of contemporary art in Paris and the West, Wu’s way of thinking about art was still fixed to the Modernist time of the first half of the twentieth century. This is why he advocated old formalist art in China at the turn of the 1980s. Wu himself might not have been aware of this misperception and thus took the out-​of-​date art world of old Paris as a real world. It seems to me that this is what Soja meant when he wrote, “In Secondspace the imagined geography tends to become the ‘real’ geography, with the image or representation coming to define and order the reality” (1996, 79). Wu Guanzhong’s second space misperception leads to his erroneous interpretation of modern art and his mis-​ordering of reality. Hence, the old French formalist art became his remedy to cure the Chinese realist illness. In my opinion, this is the “essence” of Wu’s second space. The Imagined World as the Second Space: Formalism Misperceived In the case of Wu Guanzhong, the second space is the perceived and misperceived one in two senses. First, Wu perceived formalism in Paris in the late 1940s without a temporal and spatial distance. Then, three decades after his return to China, due to a temporal and spatial distance, he misperceived the old formalism as a current remedy for realism-​dominated Chinese art in the late 1970s. Second, due to his perception and misperception, Wu spatially dislocated Western formalism for Chinese art and misplaced it in China, resulting in a spatio-​temporal mismatch and historical and cultural misfitting. Discussing the importance of Wu in the development of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century, an essential question must be answered: Did Chinese art need formalism from the West? Regarding the historical transformation from the old realist art to non-​realist art, my answer is affirmative: Yes, Chinese art needed formalism, but not forever; it was not the sole remedy. Although formalist art was already out of date in the West in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was necessary to fill the gap in the development of Chinese art. This answer highlights the displacement problem in Wu’s advocacy of formalism and his defence of that advocacy. Wu’s formalism in artistic practice and art theory was essential, and his misplaced advocacy was crucial for stylistic and conceptual change in the transformational period. However, it is no longer needed thereafter and must be phased out. Nevertheless, Wu’s opponents did not look at his advocacy from a historical point of view but from the perspective of the authorities’ realist cultural policy. Since Wu suffered the realist rule miserably in his personal life from the early 1950s to the late 1970s, he retreated into painting landscape during these three decades and enjoyed the apolitical beauty of visual form in landscape painting. To him, formal beauty, including abstraction, is a remedy against realist politics in art, notably a cure to the aftermath of the politically driven realist art of the Cultural Revolution. As far as I know, in the studies of modern and contemporary Chinese art, no scholar has mentioned whether Wu knew that formalism was out of date in the West. In any case, Wu enjoyed his memories of the good old times with formalist art in Paris and saw it as a countermeasure to cure the sickness of Chinese realist art. Due to this way of thinking, starting from

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  101 1979, Wu wrote a series of short essays promoting formal and abstract beauty and had them published in authoritative (even authoritarian) and influential art journals in China. Among these essays, three caused great debate immediately and had an immense influence on Chinese art and art theory of the time. Then, more than ten years later, in 1992, Wu published another essay on a related topic and caused a similar controversy again. Wu Guanzhong’s first essay is entitled “Formal Beauty in Painting” (2011, 49), and it was published in the fifth issue of Fine Art in May 1979. Based on his visual experience of viewing artworks, in this essay, Wu first distinguished beauty, mei in Chinese, from good-​ looking, piaoliang. To Wu, the former is an artistic quality and sensuous effect coming from the visual structure of images and the organization of formal elements, such as the arrangement of colours and lines, hence, formal beauty. The latter serves just to please the eye, such as the gaudy silkiness of an expensive dress. Wu’s formal beauty reminds me of Clive Bell’s (1881–​1964) century-​old formalist notion of “Significant Form” (1958, 17–​18). According to Wu, the aesthetic value of a piece of artwork lies in its formal beauty, not in the gaudy look of its appearance. Wu explains that, although the image of the figures in Van Gogh’s painting Prisoners Exercising (1890, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art, Moscow) is not good-​looking, it demonstrates the formal beauty of art. To support this idea, Wu referred to Lu Xun, an early modern Chinese writer, saying that the beauty of tragedy derives from the failure of the valuable, in contrast to the failure of the valueless, which is the source of comedy. Then, to promote formal beauty, Wu approached his idea from three perspectives based on his personal experience in artmaking. The first is his disapproval of the separation of the plein-​air life sketch from the thematic creation of studio work. Wu said that, upon his return to China, he was disgusted by this separation. In his opinion, although an Impressionist’s study of colour is a plein-​air work, not a finished thematic studio work, it is indeed beautiful in terms of visual form that ties outdoor and indoor art together. To Wu, this relates the “what” and “how” in artmaking. In creating a thematic work, what to depict may be important, while how to depict it is equally important, such as creating the senses of musicality and movement, which belongs to the category of the visual form. At this point, Wu pushed his advocacy of formal beauty one step further and turned it into a subtle attack on the “Unity of the Two” dogma that requires a revolutionary theme for art, as this theme is irrelevant to the plein-​air sketch. Coherently, the second is the personal perception of visual form that helps develop an artistic style. Wu used children’s art as samplers and stressed the beauty in optical illusion perceived by children, which is the opposite of the realist observation and depiction of the objective world. In line with Wu, a child’s perception is individual and subjective; it is the key to the child’s style of formal beauty. The third perspective is the common value of the old masters and some Modernists in the twentieth century and the common value shared by Western art and Chinese art. In his argument, this commonality is formal beauty, which can be found in Pablo Picasso’s (1881–​1973) appropriation of Eugene Delacroix’s (1798–​1863) Women of Algiers (1834, Louvre, Paris), and in the works of the Italian artist Botticelli (1445–​1510) and the Chinese artist Zhou Fang (late 8th–​early 9th century). For this argument, Wu made a crucial point that formal beauty is a scientific issue; it can be analysed in scientific terms. To support his argument, Wu pointed out that the classical Chinese aesthetic concept of inscape, yijing in Chinese, is applicable to the analysis of both Western art and Chinese art, even if the works have no thematic or narrative theme.

102  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation Wu Guanzhong concluded this essay by extending his argument to art education. As an art educator, Wu emphasized the significance of teaching art forms to students rather than teaching realist doctrine. To Wu, there is no bridge or conciliation between the realist imitation of the objective world and the personal expression of formal beauty. Hence, he prioritized the topics of visual order and formal elements in teaching and suggested making formal beauty the main subject in the art curriculum. The journal Fine Art that published Wu’s essay is the official journal of the Chinese Artists Association, a government organization implementing the government’s cultural policy. Since it is the most authoritative and authoritarian art journal in China, the articles and opinions published in the journal are generally considered authoritative, representing the government’s official opinion and ideology of art. Published in this journal just six months after the government issued its open policy, Wu’s promotion of formal beauty was shocking to some readers, possibly signalling, as it did, the change of artistic direction away from the realist doctrine and towards Western capitalist art. However, some authoritative scholars speaking on behalf of the government knew that there was no such policy change. They soon published articles in the same journal criticizing Wu and reinforcing the realist doctrine. In the above essay, Wu Guanzhong attributed formal beauty to abstraction in art, and vice versa. To support his argument and defend against his critics, Wu wrote a second essay, “On Abstract Beauty” (2011, 54), published a year later in the same journal, Fine Art, in October 1980. In it, Wu specified formal beauty as the beauty of abstraction and called it both “pure abstraction” and “absolute abstraction.” According to Wu’s definition, abstraction refers to the structural interaction among the formal elements, as in the shapes, lighting, colours, and lines. It does not represent any concrete image of the real world; rather, it emphasizes the structural interplay among the formal elements. In other words, abstraction is a way of purifying the forms of the real world. This definition is one step closer to Clive Bell’s “significant form.” As previously mentioned, it stresses the importance of the interaction among similar formal elements, such as colour, line, and their relations (Bell 1958, 17–​18). To Wu, formal beauty comes from the abstraction of the structural arrangement of these formal elements. It is about the visual form itself, such as the contrast between the blackness and whiteness shown by the visual forms of his hometown houses. Discussing such abstract beauty, Wu further referred to the works of Cubist artists for their handling of spatial structure, and he even reached as far as the formalist abstraction in the works of Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–​1944), and Joan Miró (1893–​1983). Referring to their art, Wu remarked once again that abstract beauty in art functions like mathematics and music; their rhythmic beauty can be analysed scientifically. This essay is an audacious advocacy of formalism in art and a straightforward objection to realism, which certainly caused greater controversy and debate. Wu’s supporters and opponents published more articles to defend or attack him. The core of the controversy and the debate is the non-​conformity of Wu’s formalism and the official realist doctrine that requires the form to serve art’s content or revolutionary theme. To his attackers, Wu’s appeal for formal abstraction and abstract beauty is not only a separation of form from content, but, worse, it negates the content in art (Lu 2006, 729–​733). The significance of abstract beauty is the cornerstone of Wu’s formalism. Defending his formalist aesthetic and developing his idea of abstract form, Wu published a third

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  103 essay, “Content Decides Form?” (2011, 58) within six months in the same journal, Fine Art, in March 1981. In this essay, Wu declared that form is most important to art. To make his point, Wu first questioned a principle of the realist doctrine, “content decides form,” and then expressed his opinion that content cannot decide form, and the two should interact on an equal footing, like the equality of a spousal relationship. In his simile, the husband cannot determine what the wife should do and how to do it; the husband cannot dominate the wife, and the wife does not have to be submissive to the husband. Since 1949, under the realist eye of Chinese cultural authority, the form of art had always served the content of Communist ideology, and it was politically incorrect for it to do otherwise. In his essay, however, Wu challenged this principle and called for the independence of form. Notwithstanding, he also suggested that form could not be separated from content. Referring to Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–​1519) and the early twentieth-​century German Expressionist artist Kathe Kollwitz (1867–​1945), Wu concluded his essay by claiming that the existential being of art is dependent on the independence of form and that the value of art is pertinent to its form as well. In this essay, Wu touched on some crucial issues of formalism, which had been debated almost half a century ago by the Western formalist theorists, particularly the American New Critics. A central issue in common is the inseparable relationship between content and form (Brooks 1947, 195). However, the common contradiction in both Wu and the Western formalists is their stress on the importance of form against content. Wu had a clear sense of this contradiction and acknowledged that, since he was an artist and not a theorist, his argument was not based on logical deduction but on his own personal experience of artmaking. In other words, the attackers should not hold him accountable for logical inconsistency but should focus on his opinion. Ironically, when I consider the relationship between form and content, I regard Wu’s logic as the form while regarding his opinion as the content. Thus, I can see a self-​contradiction in that, in his essays, Wu stressed the importance of content over form. The controversy and debate lasted about five years until the mid-​1980s. Although the theoretical fight seemed over, the immense influence of Wu’s formalist opinion lingered. Artists and theorists kept talking about his essays because formalism was essential to the upcoming Chinese avant-​garde movement. Then, more than ten years after his third essay, Wu published a very short essay in Hong Kong in 1992 entitled “Brushwork Equals to Zero” (2001, 65), declaring that brushwork is nothing. Once again, this essay caused immense controversy, since brushwork is always considered vital to traditional Chinese painting. In this essay, Wu unexpectedly excluded brushwork from formal elements. As he had discussed in his previous essays, pictorial construction is based on formal elements, such as the arrangement of points, lines, planes, and masses, the use of black and white, and colouring and washing for atmospheric effect. In this essay, Wu excluded brushwork, or the use of brushstroke with ink, and did not consider it a formal element. To him, any brushwork independent of the pictorial construction is nothing. The controversy and debate over this essay centred on two issues. First, to many artists, the brushwork is the life of traditional Chinese painting; without it, there is no traditional painting. Second, the brushwork is indeed a formal element. Regarding the first controversy, some of Wu’s opponents stated that, since Wu was trained as a Western-​style artist and was not good at using traditional Chinese media, especially brush and ink, he would certainly deny the importance of brushwork. Regarding the second controversy, some assumed that, since

104  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation Wu was not good at traditional brushwork while using traditional media in artmaking, he had to deny the importance of brushwork as an artistic standard and then set up his own formalist criteria to evaluate the quality of artworks. To those who work with traditional Chinese media, the artistic quality of brushwork is associated with the craft of using calligraphic lines with skilful techniques in handling brush lines. Since Wu was not trained in traditional painting techniques and skills, he did not mean to show his excellence in handling these techniques and skills. Instead, when he made formalist paintings, he meant to show his excellence in treating other formal elements, such as colour and tonal contrast. To my understanding, this is why Wu declared that brushwork is nothing. Concerning Wu’s misperception of the second space, now comes the question of “why.” Exploring the answer, I will go back to Soja to see his interpretation of a similar situation: “Actual material forms recede into the distance as fixed, dead signifiers emitting signals that are processed, and thus understood and explained when deemed necessary, through the rational (and at times irrational) workings of the human mind” (1996, 79). Echoing Soja, I consider Wu’s misperception a double one. He first dug out formalism from the spatio-​temporally distant world of old Paris, namely, the lived and real first space buried in his memory. Then, as stated, he picked it up as a remedy for Chinese art. Correspondingly, Wu conceptualized a misperceived world of the second space in his writings, which would need formalism forever. I believe that is why he promoted the old formalist art, though it is out of place and out of date. Soja divides his Secondspace into two levels. This division suggests two similar levels in approaching the second space of Wu’s misperceived world. According to Soja, the misperceived world is introverted and indigenous on one level and extroverted and exogenous on the other. The former is internally inclined, while the latter is externally directed. In the case of Wu, the misperceived world in his writings is external, emitting signals for using formalism to cure Chinese realist art. This external level is based on the internal one, i.e., the perceived world of his life experience. To Soja, the mechanism at the internal level is somehow egocentric and self-​explanatory, signifying a “masterful creator of space to the mental mappers of human spatial cognition and the epistemological referees enforcing their control over spatial knowledge production” (1996, 79). Although I do not use the word “egocentric” to describe Wu Guanzhong, I consider his case self-​explanatory in regard to why he promotes formalism in a spatially and temporally mismatched setting. Now standing back to look at the bigger picture of Chinese art in the transformational period, I can try to relocate Wu Guanzhong and his formalism in a proper historical place. Among the varieties of Chinese response to Western influence, two play major roles. One involves directly transplanting Western art into China without change, and the other involves localizing Western art with necessary modifications. Wu exercised the second, not only with Chinese media but also with Western media. That is why his artworks, whether made with Chinese materials or Western materials, showcase the same artistic quality of formalist aestheticism, and that is why he played down the importance of the traditional techniques and skills of the Chinese calligraphic brushstroke. As a remedy to the realist problem, the ideas of universal formal beauty and abstract beauty in art indicate the nature of Wu’s formalist aesthetics. The case of Wu Guanzhong is complex. I saw the spatial dislocation and temporal misplacement in his advocacy of formalism, and I also saw the important contribution

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  105 he made to the transformation and development of Chinese art at that specific time. Although two wrongs usually do not make a right, in Wu’s case the spatial dislocation and temporal misplacement seem to make a right in his misperceived world. The significance of Wu’s case, in terms of the development of twentieth-​century Chinese art, lies in the way it illustrates the Chinese misreading of the West, not only temporally and spatially but also conceptually. The Conceived World as the Third Space: The Event of the Stars Exhibitions Discussing the spatiality of the textual space in relation to the third event of the historical transformation, the Stars exhibitions, I consider that the third space is triatic. Compared to the first and second spaces, as mentioned earlier, the third space is more about the future. The relevance of the Stars event in the transformation period is found in these artists’ power struggle with the ruling authority in seeking a change in their artistic identity. This struggle is exercised through an unusual third party, i.e., their personal and direct connection with the authorities. As such, the change in their artistic identity and their place from the periphery to the centre of Chinese art predicts a promised future for the transformation. This adds political implication to the spatiality represented in the case of the Stars art event. Referring to the narratological framework, I regard the artists of the Stars Group, their works of art, and the event of their exhibitions as the main text, and I place this event-​text at the centre of the textual space. In the terminology of Soja, since this textual space is considered a third space, it is no longer a modernist space for a binary contest but a postmodern space where Soja’s Thirdspace embraces the real Firstspace and the imagined Secondspace. In terms of its function, this third space of the event-​text is similar to Soja’s “other real-​and-​imagined place,” as the subtitle of his book, Thirdspace, indicates. Writing about the development of Chinese art in the transformational period, although I do not unconditionally accept Soja’s concept of the postmodern Thirdspace due to the contextual difference, I acknowledge that his concept provides me with an insightful point of view. In particular, when I discuss the transformational nature of the art of the Stars Group, Soja inspires me to turn away from the binary Modernist perspective and look for a third possibility in interpreting this artistic event historically. As a historically important event, the exhibitions of the Stars artists in 1979 and 1980 mark the starting point of the modernization movement of Chinese art in the second half of the twentieth century. More precisely, these exhibitions mark the restarting point of the modernization movement in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Here, the temporal specification is crucial because the modernization movement in Chinese art started in the early twentieth century but was interrupted by the Second World War. Therefore, when the development of Western art entered the postmodern phase in the 1970s and 1980s, Chinese art re-​entered the phase of modernization. At this point, regarding the issue of spatio-​temporal misplacement and dislocation, I must make it clear that the Stars Group is not a postmodern group, and neither is the Stars art event a postmodern event. However, the modernist nature of the Stars event does not prevent me from discussing this event from a postmodern point of view. Rather, this point of view provides terminology and a set of concepts that are insightful for my comparative analysis. Indeed, this is directly relevant to Soja’s notion of deconstructing the modernist binary space and

106  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation reconstructing a postmodern third space. In this space, the historical, cultural, and political significance of the Stars event can be properly interpreted and evaluated. Historically, the officialdom of Chinese art has been established and institutionalized since 1949 with the central government’s approval. Regarding art, the government is represented by Chinese Artists Association (CAA), a centralized official organization, at all levels from bottom to top, from its municipal and provincial offices up to its national office. In terms of the professional identity of an artist, membership in the association at a certain level is essential for his or her success. In other words, the artist must be a professional employed by the government, either working for an art academy or a cultural organization. The CAA organizes exhibitions at different levels and calls on members to submit their works. If a non-​member wishes to show his or her work, the exhibition must be organized or supported by the CAA and approved by the government. Unfortunately, the Stars artists were not CAA members, nor did they answer the calls of the CAA for exhibition submission. They did not work for the art establishment, were not professional artists, did not have professional art training, and had no formal art education. However, they loved art and made artworks during their spare time while doing something else for a living. Due to this, they did not have a recognized place in the institutionalized art world. Instead, they were marginalized in the periphery of the official art world. In a word, they were the “others” to the CAA and recognized artists. Fortunately, these non-​professional artists had a fighting spirit and were willing to challenge the established system of official and institutionalized art. From where and how did they obtain this fighting spirit? The answer is crucial to the discussion of power relations, identity change, and the politics of spatiality. The Stars’ idea of having an exhibition was initiated at the end of 1978 when two passionate art lovers and self-​taught artists, Huang Rui (1952–​) and Ma Desheng (1952–​ ), who both worked in local factories in Beijing at that time, talked about showing their works of art. Then, in the spring and summer of 1979, they gathered a group of young art lovers a few times at their homes in downtown Beijing, viewing each other’s works and discussing the possibility of exhibiting them. They called themselves the Stars Group. Speaking with Soja’s Marxist terminology, there was a tension between the ruling CAA and the ruled Stars Group. The ruling force was strong and forceful, whereas the ruled seemed powerless and subordinate. Such an unbalanced relationship disadvantaged the Stars artists in the game of official hegemonic power play. According to Soja, hegemonic power, wielded by those in positions of authority, does not merely manipulate actively given difference between individuals and social groups, it actively produces and reproduces difference as a key strategy to create and maintain modes of social and spatial division that are advantageous to its continued empowerment and authority. “We” and “they” are dichotomously spatialized and enclosed in an imposed territoriality … . In this sense, hegemonic power universalizes and contains difference in real and imagined spaces and places. (Soja 1996, 87) In the above, Soja’s “modes” are not only the hierarchical structures of power but also the binary oppositional power relations between the ruling force and the ruled. In this relationship, the “we,” or the CAA, occupy the central position with an upper hand, and the “they,” or the Stars artists, take the place of the marginalized outsiders. Moreover,

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  107 the difference between the two is structurally and systematically maintained, and the imbalance favouring the ruling force is empowered. Thus, it seems there is no way for the Stars artists to win the game. However, according to Soja, the irresolvable opposition of the two is a typical Modernist viewpoint. In this respect, Soja refers to Foucault and points out that there are two choices for the disadvantaged ruled: either accepting the ruling force’s control and being submissive to its dominance or struggling against the domination. For the Stars artists, neither way would reach their goal of having an exhibition and changing their artistic identity. If they took the first option, there would be a long way to go before official recognition. For these marginalized artists, this option was pointless. Meanwhile, if they took the second option, they would simply be destroyed by the dominant force; thus, there would be no possibility for their exhibition or a change in their artistic identity. Theoretically, Soja does not favour such a binary modernist notion of binarism. Concerning the “spatial turn,” he prefers the postmodern viewpoint and looks for a third possibility, which can deconstruct the dichotomous opposition and defuse the tension between the two forces. As a historical fact, this is exactly the case of the Stars artists, and this is what they did for their exhibitions and identity change. Although the Stars artists were the marginalized others, they had a unique family background, connecting the centre and the periphery with a personal or private channel. In a strictly Marxist sense, none of the Stars members was a real “proletarian”; they were mostly children of high-​ranking Communist officials who worked in the Beijing municipal government or even the powerful central government before the Cultural Revolution. Although they were stripped of power during the Cultural Revolution, they had regained power thereafter. Such a family background provided the Stars artists with a personal channel to handle the power struggle, defusing the tension and deconstructing the power relation between them and the government officials in charge of art. After all, both sides had one thing in common: They were victims of the Cultural Revolution and willing to work together for a requital. Through such personal channels, Huang Rui and Ma Desheng approached Liu Xun (1923–​2007), an artist and the director of the CAA at the Beijing municipal level. They invited him to the home of a Stars artist to inspect their works. Upon viewing these works, the CAA director agreed to arrange an exhibition for them. Although the director’s response was encouraging, there was a catch. Due to a schedule conflict, they had to wait a year or so for the exhibition. The Stars artists could not wait and did not want to. They wanted to get the exhibition going right away. Given this situation, if they did it themselves without the help of the Beijing CAA, they could end up back at square one, opposing the government and therefore hampering their original aim of having the show. However, with a feeling of urgency, they wanted to do it anyway and decided to hang their works on the outer fence of the National Art Gallery of China in the centre of Beijing. Nonetheless, the personal channel was still essential. They invited Liu Xun and some other officials of the Beijing CAA to the opening, including some from the national gallery. On September 27, 1979, more than 20 Stars artists hung their works on the 40-​meter-​ long metal fence of the east and north sides of the national gallery, turning a new page in twentieth-​century Chinese art. This is one of the most important exhibitions in the history of Chinese art in modern times. The works hanging on the fence faced outwards to the viewers and the public, shortening the physical and psychological distance between

108  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation the artworks and the ordinary people and creating a sense of intimacy and immediacy with accessibility, in contrast to the official exhibitions inside the national gallery. The unusual open display of the Stars art drew big crowds and earned many positive commentaries while also alerting the authorities. The next morning, on September 28, 1979, when the Stars artists started hanging their works on the fence again, the police arrived with an official notice that read: “This exhibition disturbed peoples’ normal lives and social order” (Yi 2002, 20), dated September 27, 1979. As a result, on the second day of the show, the Stars exhibition was forced to close. In twentieth-​ century critical theory, the notion of “resistance” is a big issue for postmodernists. However, the Stars artists had never heard of the terms “postmodern” or “cultural politics,” not to mention postmodern theories of resistance. They were not interested in theory but just wanted to put everything into practice. Once again, the artists held meetings and had fierce arguments about whether to protest on the streets, demanding democracy and freedom for art and artists. This bold and dangerous idea scared away some of the artists, but with Ma Desheng’s final call, they eventually agreed to protest on October 1, 1979. The date they chose was very sensitive, as it is Chinese National Day. On that day, there would be a grand parade in downtown Beijing with a huge official celebration of the 30th anniversary of the People’s Republic. As a general political principle in China, then as today, any display of protest is prohibited. However, a compromise was made through a third party. Before the October 1 protest, Liu Xun, the director of the Beijing CAA, had tried to stop the Stars artists from taking to the streets, but his persuasion failed. Then, with a hard bargain, they reached a compromise. To get the consent of the Beijing municipal government and avoid police harassment, they had to give the protest an ironic name: not for democracy or freedom, but a “March for the National Constitution.” So, on October 1, 1979, as planned, the protest took to the streets heading to Beijing’s city hall. Along the way, the artist protesters surprised the people with their slogans, such as “freedom for art,” and drew crowds of onlookers. Without a doubt, the police were watching, though they did not harass the protesters. The following day, October 2, 1979, the artists issued a public statement, To the People, defending their exhibition and protest. More than a month later, on November 20, Liu Xun contacted the artists again, telling them that they could reopen the show, not in the same place but in an officially assigned location: Beihai Park in the centre of the city. Spatially, the national gallery is located near the northeast corner of the ancient palace, the Forbidden City, and Beihai Park is near the northwest corner, just a few blocks away, echoing each other. In the new location, the exhibition continued for more than a week, from November 23 to December 2, 1979, with a symposium on November 30. The resumed exhibition was a big success. The most authoritative newspaper of the central government and the Communist Party, People’s Daily, published an exhibition announcement for the Stars Group, and the official journal of the CAA, Fine Art, published a very positive review written by its editor Li Xianting (1949–​), who later became the “godfather” of Chinese avant-​garde art. On the last day of the exhibition, more than 8,000 admission tickets were sold. Regarding the spatiality as it pertains to this exhibition, the change of location corresponds with the change from binary opposition between the two forces to their reconciliation. Considering the artists’ protest, it is safe to say that the ruling authorities offered their silent approval through the unofficial channels of personal mediation.

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  109 I further consider that the change of location for the first exhibition in 1979 was not a simple geographical issue but also an issue of cultural politics embodied in geographical symbols. The initial location outside the national gallery symbolizes the opposition between the marginalized underground artists and the official artists whose works were exhibited inside the national gallery. The final location of the Stars exhibition in the park symbolizes the artists’ willingness to respond to the authorities’ offer of amnesty. Thus, the Stars artists started to move forward from the political, social, cultural, and artistic periphery towards the institutionalized centre. However, to a certain extent, the case of the Stars exhibitions defies both the modernist binary position and the postmodern third option. Although the Stars artists accepted the amnesty offer, they did not reciprocate it. Their art was not intended to serve the ruling authorities; rather, they were still rebellious, they were still prodigal artists, and they eventually chose a so-​called self-​imposed exile. Interestingly, a Chinese scholar also interpreted the binary opposition between the Stars artists and the ruling authorities from the perspective of spatiality, but in a completely different way. In his interpretation of the Stars exhibitions, Yi Dan adopted the terminology of critical theory about public space versus private space, treating the two opposite spaces as social spaces (2002, 32). Of course, it is insightful to point out the sociality in and between the two spaces, but this scholar stopped short of pointing out the Stars artists’ path in moving forward from the rebellious private space to the reconciled public space. After the 1979 exhibition, as a result of the reconciliation, the Stars artists formally renamed their group the Stars Painting Society and officially registered it with the Beijing CAA in the early summer of 1980, becoming a subordinate chapter of the CAA at the municipal level. This membership highlights the change in their identity. From then on, they were recognized by the authorities as artists, although not necessarily as professional artists, and nor were they on the government payroll. This official recognition legitimized their future exhibitions. Thus, in a certain sense, the artists’ dream of exhibitions and an identity change came true. The diffusion of the tension between the two opposing forces took place in the public space, becoming a social issue. Similarly, the third-​party intervention and the uncompromised self-​exile are social issues as well. Of course, the Stars artists could have refused the offer of amnesty and continued their fight. However, due to personal reasons and their Communist family background, they left China and wandered around in the West, avoiding the binary confrontation. On the one hand, such self-​imposed exile is a gesture of no real reconciliation; on the other, it reveals the unfeasible simplicity of the binary theory. The Textuality of the Third Space: Conceptuality in Formalist Art In the above, the word “amnesty” pinpoints the identity change of the Stars artists from unrecognized to recognized status, which is symbolized by the change of location for their first exhibition and the sale of admission tickets, not to mention renaming themselves the Stars Painting Society under the Beijing CAA. In the meantime, this word, alongside the identity change, also signifies the binary position in identity conflict in the narrative of art history. However, the situation is not that simple in the de facto world. Soja proposed a trialectic formula for such complexity, and his Thirdspace is not simply

110  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation an additional option. Instead, it includes his Firstspace and Secondspace in dealing with the complexity. To the Stars artists, the third space provides a place for all kinds of complexities to unfold, including those embedded in their anecdotes. Wang Keping (1949–​), a key figure in the group, told a seemingly simple, but in reality not that simple, story in his memoir (Wang n.d.). In the story, the Stars artists wanted to hold their second exhibition at the National Art Gallery of China. For this purpose, they approached the top official in the Chinese art world at that time, Jiang Feng (1910–​1982), director of the CAA at the national level and the highest-​level official in the hierarchy of Chinese art. As always, the approach was personal and done by another artist and novelist in the group, Zhong Acheng (1949–​). Zhong’s father was a wartime comrade of Jiang, as well as a colleague and close friend of his after the Cultural Revolution. With his father’s help, Zhong invited Jiang Feng to Huang Rui’s home to see the works of the Stars artists. Inspecting their works, Jiang was very impressed and agreed to help them set up their second exhibition at the national gallery. Wang Keping also invited Jiang to his home, since his works were woodcarvings and too heavy to move around. Jiang was a modernist propaganda artist during the Second World War who admired the fighting spirit of Kathe Kollwitz, the German anti-​war Expressionist artist. He was happy to see Wang’s unconventional woodworks. Responding to the unconventional style of his carvings, and to ensure that the works were accepted by the national gallery, Jiang told the artist that he should not send the “ugly and too abstract” works to the exhibition. Wang did actually have some “ugly” and “too abstract” works in hiding, which he had also wanted to show to Jiang for exhibition at the national gallery. Frustrated by Jiang’s warning, Wang waited until the very last minute, when Jiang was about to leave, to take out these ugly abstract works and display them in front of Jiang. According to the realist aesthetics and revolutionary morality of that time, these works were considered abstract, gruesome, and ugly, delivering a clear political message critical of Mao Zedong and the Communist ideology. The other Stars artists present were shocked by Wang’s sudden move and thought that he had ruined the possibility of the exhibition. They all looked to Jiang for his response and then at Wang. Jiang looked at the ugly woodcarvings solemnly, and, without saying a word, he left. Wang said in his memoir that they all knew what was on Jiang’s mind at that moment. A few days later, as they expected, Jiang and the CAA agreed that they could hold their second exhibition at the National Art Gallery of China, including Wang’s ugly and abstract woodcarvings (Yi 2002, 42). In this story, Jiang, the top official in the hierarchy of Chinese art, exposed his double identity. On the one hand, he was a revolutionary artist during the war and then a top official of the Communist propaganda machine in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but he also belonged to the ruled and repressed artists during the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, he had fallen victim to political abuse in the previous decade, even being imprisoned. With such political and artistic experience, he certainly understood the young and rebellious artists’ difficulty and sympathized with them. To Jiang, the ugly and abstract works were associated with the anti-​war spirit of Kollwitz. Psychologically, he might have seen himself in the young artists and glimpsed his own rebellious spirit in their ugly and abstract works. After all, he saw the young artists as his own children, since he was a close friend of the father of one of the artists in the group. So, with Jiang’s

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  111 help, the second Stars exhibition was held at the National Art Gallery of China from August 20 to September 4, 1980. Among the works in the exhibition, probably the ugliest is a woodcarving by Wang Keping entitled Silence (1979). It is a carving of a human head with no top, one protruding eye with no eyeball and the other eye flat, covered by a piece of medical gauze with carved chequered lines, reminding viewers of the image of a stereotypical pirate. The nose is just a slope-​like cubic triangle, and the mouth is the worst –​wide open to its maximum and stuffed full with a piece of a big wooden plug. This human head is chiselled full of smallpox-​like bumpy spots on the face and rubbed with dark wax. According to the artist, the carving of this portrait followed the natural shape of a tree stump with warts. Working on it, the artist wanted to make the chequered gauze look like the seal strips used by police, blocking the people from seeing the truth. As for the big plug in the mouth, it is a natural burl on the tree trunk. The artist peeled off the bark, making it look like it was blocking the person from speaking. According to the artist, his inspiration for making this work came from the English Modernist Theatre of the Absurd (Lu 2006, 738). Ironically, according to Huang Rui’s memoir, Wang Keping, at the time, had never heard of Western Modernist artists such as Matisse and Kandinsky. Although this carving is not a realistic representation of a human image, it captures the true face of the repressed people struggling against the repressive ruler, with Kollwitz-​like depressing sadness and mournful melancholia, as well as her fighting spirit. Another of Wang Keping’s woodcarvings, Long Live (1979), is similarly imbued with a political message while being more formalistically innovative. It is also a human head with a simplified face. However, the face is no longer important; instead, the cubist head functions as the sculptural base. An elongated arm grows out of the head straight upwards. At the end of the arm is a disproportionately large hand, holding an even bigger red book. This red book is the iconic image of Mao’s writings published during the Cultural Revolution. This little red book was distributed to almost everyone in China, becoming a key symbol of the crazy era. During the Cultural Revolution, the second greatest Communist leader next to Mao, Lin Biao (1907–​1971), always held the red book. He waved it in the air, either walking beside Mao or standing amongst the massive crowds of Mao’s Red Guards in Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, shouting “Long Live Chairman Mao!” The artist himself was a member of the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution and knew what was in the minds of the Red Guards –​they had no brain, only Mao’s words from the red book. Stylistically, this carving is far from a realist representation but is rather a simplified human image in an abstract form. In making this carving, the artist deconstructed the human figure and reconstructed it as a distorted Cubist freak. Wang Keping’s work is defined by stylistic experimentation and political critique; the two are inseparable. In the following year, Wang sent another carving to the second exhibition at the national gallery, which was made earlier and entitled Idol (1978), with a direct and clear political message mocking Mao. Looking at it from afar, one can see that this carving is a portrait of Buddha, a spiritual god in Chinese cultural and religious tradition, possessing a mild and benevolent countenance, although a bit caricatured. However, looking at it closely, one can see that it is an image of Chairman Mao with a lovely, chubby, sagging face, both solemn and funny. This carving was probably the first artwork in modern Chinese art to make fun of Mao so straightforwardly, and it would enrage Mao’s followers. This was why, when Jiang Feng saw these works in Wang’s

112  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation

Figure 3.3  Wang Keping: Idol (1980) and Silence (1979, courtesy of Lu Peng) 王克平《偶像》与《沉默》

home, he became silent and turned away without saying a word. He knew that these works, especially this one, would cause trouble. Although Wang’s works were critical of Mao and the Communist leaders, the public approved of them and supported the Stars exhibitions. According to the statistics based on the 14 commentary books of the second exhibition, the approval percentage was 70 to 80 percent. One viewer left a comment about Wang that reads: To Comrade Wang Keping: I salute your courage. Your fearless sculping chisel exposes our society’s cruelty, vanity, and deceptions. Those official sculptors who have been walking corpses for a long time and their hypocritic soul will tremble before your works. Your carvings are full of life! The art of painting and sculpture is not just to use colours to decorate society! It must enlighten the people … . You have done well, and I hope more wonderful works of yours will emerge. (Galikowski 1998, 185) Discussing the art of Wang, Yi Ying, a Chinese art historian and critic, considers that, in terms of stylistic exploration, Wang’s carvings do not offer anything new, since there is no “visual tension” in his work (Yi 2004, 21). In this critique, “tension” is a formalist critical term referring to the artistic configuration of binary oppositions. However, in

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  113 Wang’s works, I do see a visual tension between his conceptual orientation and his formalist deliberation. I do not think either of the two can be isolated and singled out as an irrelevant element. On the contrary, I see the conceptuality in Wang’s formalist art. Wang is indeed a brave artist, daring to confront the solemnity of Mao and openly challenging Mao’s political heritage in the transitional era of the late 1970s. In this respect, speaking of the inclinations of their works, if Wang is more politically and critically conceptual, then some of the other artists in the Stars Group are more formalistic, having paid more attention to the stylistic aspect of artmaking. Ma Desheng is known for his Kollwitz-​like woodblock prints. However, I value his ink painting more, notably his untitled series of women figures (1980), which are highly expressionistic. In terms of shape, the artist exaggerated the size of the breasts and buttocks and made the figures look like the oversized prehistoric stone figurine Venus of Willendorf and African woodcarvings with enlarged sexual body parts. In terms of gesture and movement, Ma’s figures look like Matisse’s dancing women; in terms of brushwork, they are simple and straightforward. The artist applied only ink and water to paint the figures, resembling the technique of freehand literati and Zen painting. Ironically, the controversy caused by the Stars artworks is less conceptual or political than stylistic and formalistic. In 1981, after the two exhibitions, the authoritative journal Fine Art published a letter from a gallerygoer complaining that it was difficult to understand the works due to their depiction of incomprehensible images that were not realistic. Although the complaint is from a layperson, not an artist or art critic, it exposed the difficulty common people experienced in accepting new things in the realist-​dominated art world. However, it is precisely in this sense that I value the Stars art, as it played the role of an icebreaker in the frozen world of Chinese art at the turn of the 1980s. The inseparable connection, as well as the difference, between the conceptual and stylistic or formal aspects of art is always a debatable issue. Although formalists favour the “organic unity” and denounce the separation of the two aspects, just like the New Critics in the West, they isolate the formal elements from the so-​called content in their practical criticism. Although I have no intention of jumping into this old debate, it seems that the Modernist notion of self-​expression is an essential link between form and content. As for what to express, this is a conceptual issue, and as for how to express it, this is a stylistic issue. At the beginning of this chapter, I noted that formalism and self-​expression are the two main aspects of Chinese art under Western influence. In the paintings of Huang Rui, the column-​shaped human figures exemplify the artist’s rhetoric in self-​expression. The standing figures can be regarded as the artist himself, rising above the wasteland and standing high in the ruined surroundings, symbolizing the world of Chinese art ruined by the Cultural Revolution. Another allegorical painting by Huang Rui, New Life, is self-​ expressive and expressionistic, envisioning the new life of Chinese art in the future. The rhetoric is both stylistic and conceptual at the same time. In this painting, the conceptual aspects and the formal aspects are two sides of the same coin, linked by the artist’s authorial intention of self-​expression. In 1989, an art dealer organized a retrospective exhibition, “Ten Years of the Stars,” in Hong Kong, promoting the Stars art with an extensive collection of original documents. In the short preface to the catalogue, Zhang Songren (Johnson Chang), the dealer and gallery owner, pointed out the political challenge posed by the artists to the ruling authorities and stressed that the challenge is posed artistically (1989, 1). Thirty years later, in 2019, Wu Hung, a professor of Chinese art at the University of Chicago, organized a

114  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation documentary exhibition of the group, “The Stars 1979,” in Beijing and wrote an essay about it, “The Stars in 1979: Exhibition and Context.” In this essay, Wu (2020) observed that, in terms of political critiques, not many works went to an extreme like those of Wang Keping, since the majority are mild and subtle, unveiling the artists’ hopes for a brighter future. Discussing the critical conceptuality, however, critics and scholars usually value the political significance of the Stars art by stressing mostly Wang Keping’s carvings and neglecting the work of the other artists that demonstrated more stylistic experimentation. It is not surprising that some art historians and critics hold different ideas when evaluating the art of the Stars Group, saying that they did not make plausible stylistic innovations in the development of modern Chinese art in the twentieth century. This idea is historically true, since the modernization movement in Chinese art started long before the Stars. However, the value of the Stars art is indeed historical. Besides their political significance that echoed the open policy in the transformational period, the Stars artists restarted the interrupted modern art movement. They switched the development of contemporary Chinese art from Soviet Socialist Realism to Western Modernism, defining the nature of the transformation in Chinese art in the next decade. As such, the significance of the Stars Group is found in the new space, the third space, which Chinese art develops further in the rest of the twentieth century. As I have outlined throughout this chapter, the first space is the lived one with the external context framing the rise of non-​realist art in the transformational period. The second space is the perceived and misperceived one, which frames the rise of formalist art within the internal context. The third space is the conceived one, which is not only the lived and perceived spaces but a conceptually constructed space. It is built in and for artistic practice. Together with the other two, the third space functions as a socially productive place for the Stars artists to perform historically. This historical factuality, working alongside their self-​expression, integrates the formalist and conceptual inclinations of the Stars artists, making them historically significant. Although almost all the artists of the Stars Group have left China since the mid-​1980s and seemingly disappeared from the Chinese art world, their rebellious spirit has made a comeback some 30 to 40 years later with artists such as Ai Weiwei (1957–​), whom I will discuss in the final chapter. Theoretically, regarding the constitution of the third space of Chinese art in this transformational period, I consider that, although it is an integration of the first and second spaces on the one hand, it consists of three aspects, on the other. The first aspect is material or physical, as shown by the pictoriality of the artworks. The second is social, which is indicated by the conceptuality of the critical messages encoded in the artworks. The third is the spiritual aspect revealed in the works through the artists’ explorative, expressive, and rebellious personalities. Discussing the Stars’ formalist-​conceptual art in this chapter, I regard the three aspects of the third space as key to the ontological trialectics of the textual space, corresponding to its historicity, sociality, and spatiality. Referring to Soja’s trigram (1996, 71), the historicity works with the interaction of Western influence and Chinese response in this textual space, shaping the development of Chinese art in the 1980s. As for the sociality, this space provides a place for the interaction with a twist, where the spatio-​temporal displacement occurs. With the historicity and sociality, I further see the drive of the development of Chinese art as the underlying anxiety about identity, specified in the case of the Stars artists and generalized in the anxiety about the place of Chinese art and

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  115 individual artists, as well as the narrative of art history, in the international art arena and scholarly world. Conclusion: An Integral and Inclusive Textual Space in Art History In the above historical narrative, the three major art events took place in the textual space, where they are studied as texts, or event-​texts. Put differently, it is the textual space that made these art events social, cultural, and political. In other words, the textual space is not a mere container or backdrop for the texts and events, but a space of social and cultural production producing the event-​texts. Due to this, I interpret the textual space as a socio-​culturally productive space with political implications. The nature of the textual space further discloses the multiplicity of its spatiality. Speaking in my revised terminology of Soja and Lefebvre, the multiplicity comes from the lived and real space, or Firstspace, from the perceived and imagined space, or Secondspace, and from the conceived and real-​and-​imagined space, or Thirdspace. Integrating the three, I observe the birth of a fourth space out of the textual space discussed throughout this chapter. In this chapter, the socio-​cultural spatiality of this space is specified and strengthened by the three events of ship-​jumping from realist to non-​realist art, the misperception of formalism, and the power struggle for identity change. The spatiality of the textual space works in collaboration with its temporality. The first space is monistic or unitarian. It is about the past, represented by the Beijing airport mural art. The murals’ artists looked at Western art for inspiration from a premodern realist perspective of their lived and real world, then developed their non-​realist art. This case demonstrates the transformation of Chinese art from a linear development to a non-​ linear development. Namely, it is a development from realist to non-​realist art through the event of ship-​jumping. The second space is dyadic or binary. It is about the present, represented by Wu Guanzhong’s art. The artist looked at the early Modernist art in the West for inspiration from his personal angle of a misperceived world that is temporally out of date and spatially out of place. Wu dislocated the old Western formalist art and misplaced it in the Chinese art world at the turn of the 1980s. The dualism in Wu’s case is found in his spatio-​temporal misreading of both the old Western formalism and the current Chinese art developments. Like a modern Don Quixote, he took the former as a remedy for the latter, wishing to put Chinese art on the right track. The third space is triatic. It is about the future and relates to the Stars artists who looked at modern Western art for inspiration and experimented with Modernist styles and concepts. For the new art of the future and for their artistic identity in the future, they struggled against the authorities. However, this is not only a struggle between the ruling force and the ruled but a triadic struggle. A third party mediates the struggle through the artists’ private channels, which guaranteed the success of their efforts. Nonetheless, the above summarization is relative and relational. In the beginning, I discussed the airport murals as a part of the context of the textual space. Relatively speaking, in the case of Wu Guanzhong, the airport mural functions as the first space, Wu’s Paris experience functions as the second space, and his writings function as the third space. Then, in the case of the Stars artists, the mural art still functions as the first space, whereas Wu’s painting and writing function as the second space. In my writing of this chapter, although the Stars art is not postmodern, I look at the artists’ power struggle

116  1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation from a postmodern perspective of spatiality, since they fought to move from the periphery to the centre in a postmodern sense, and since the success of the fight was made possible through a third party. Although taking advantage of one’s family background is a common practice at anytime and anywhere, it is more common in premodern feudal societies such as the medieval feudal society in Europe. However, in the case of the Stars artists, the irony is that, for the down-​to-​earth purpose of identity change, they had to fight against the cultural hegemony of the art authorities, and their way of fighting was to take advantage of the power of the cultural hegemony through private channels, including their direct connection with the officials working in the headquarters of the Beijing municipal police department. This is a unique way to counter hegemony in Chinese culture. Similarly, due to their family background and personal channels, in the mid-​1980s, almost all the Stars artists enjoyed the rare privilege of leaving China for a better life in the West, with possible artistic freedom. This privilege is only for those with strong family backgrounds, such as a connection with the ruling officials at the top of the bureaucratic system. In short, due to their family backgrounds, the Stars artists had the privilege of fighting for a change in artistic identity and a better material life. However, it is ironic that they found no opponent to fight against once they arrived in the West. Thus, according to Michael Sullivan, a British scholar of Chinese art, the value of their art is lost in the West, where their formalist and conceptual art was worth nothing and deemed too banal in the Western eye (Lu and Yi 1992, 82). In the above interpretation of the development of Chinese art in the transformational period, the spatiality of the textual space for the three events is integral. I have labelled it the fourth space. This space is a new one I constructed throughout this chapter with inspiration mainly from the theory of Soja, but also from the theories of Lefebvre and Harvey. The physicality, or the materiality and factuality, of this new space is found in the lived and real world of the three events in Chinese art. Its mentality and spirituality are also found in the perceived and imagined world of the three events. Similarly, its sociality and culturality are also found in the conceived and constructed world of the three events. Concluding this chapter from this standpoint, I would say that the fourth space is more than just unitarian, binary, or triadic. It is primarily integral, demonstrating its openness and inclusiveness for the art historical narrative and the rewriting of the development of Chinese art in modern times. Theorizing the notion of textual space, I must stress that the significance of this notion is to be found in its openness and inclusiveness towards the interpretive narrative of art history in general and the critical rewriting of Chinese art in its historical transformation from 1979 to 1985 in particular. References Abbott, H. Porter. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bell, Clive. 1958. Art. New York: Capricorn Books. Brooks, Cleanth. 1947. The Well Wrought Urn. New York: Harcourt Brace. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vantage.

1979–1985: Textual Space and Historical Transformation  117 Galikowski, Maria. 1998. Art and Politics in China 1949–​1984. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. Harvey, David. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Harvey, David. 2016. The Ways of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herman, David, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson Chang. 1989. Stars Iron Box. Hong Kong: Hanart ZT Gallery. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2006. Ershi Shiji Zhongguo Yishushi 二十世纪中国艺术史 [A History of Art in 20th-​Century China]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Lu Peng, and Yi Dan 吕澎、易丹. 1992. Zhongguo Xiandai Yishushi 中国现代艺术史 [A History of Chinese Modern Art 1979–​1989]. Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House. Makaryk, Irena, ed. 1993. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McKee, Alan. 2003. Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Sage Publications. Soja, Edward. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-​And-​Imagined Places. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Tally, Robert T. Jr. 2013. Spatiality. London and New York: Routledge. Wang Keping 王克平. n.d. Xingxing Wangshi 星星往事 [“Old Stories of the Stars].” ARTLINKART. Accessed May 5, 2020. www.art​link​art.com/​cn/​arti​cle/​overv​iew/​a75dz​vtq. Wei Jianmin 卫建民, ed. 1998. Hualang Wenxin: Zhongwai Meishujia Sanwen Suibi Xuan 画廊文心：中外美术家散文随笔选 [Gallery and Literary Heart: Selected Essays by Chinese and Foreign Artists]. Haikou: Hainan Publishing House. West-​Pavlov, Russell. 2013. Temporalities. London and New York: Routledge. Wu Guanzhong 吴冠中. 1998. Erli yu Buhuo 而立与不惑 [“From 30 to 40 Years Old”]. In Hualang Wenxin: Zhongwai Meishujia Sanwen Suibi Xuan 画廊文心：中外美术家散文随笔选 [Gallery and Literary Heart: Selected Essays by Chinese and Foreign Artists], edited by Wei Jianmin. Haikou: Hainan Publishing House. Wu Guanzhong 吴冠中. 2011. Wu Guanzhong Wenji 吴冠中文集 [Collection of Essays by Wu Guanzhong], edited by Jia Mingyu. Jinan: Shandong Fine Arts Publishing House. Xia Yanjing 夏燕靖. 2011. Zhongguo Xiandangdai Yishuxueshi 中国现当代艺术学史 [A History of Studies in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art Theory: From the Early Twentieth Century to 1978]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press. Yi Dan 易丹. 2002. Xingxing Lishi 星星历史 [Stars History]. Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House. Yi Ying 易英. 2004. Cong Yingxiong Songge dao Pingmin Shijie 从英雄颂歌到平凡世界 [From Hero Lauds to the Earthly World: Modern Chinese Art]. Beijing: People’s University Press.

4 1985–​1989 Unfolding the Events of the Avant-​Garde Movement

In the second half of the twentieth century, the most important change in Chinese art was the rise of modernism, represented by the avant-​garde movement and labelled the “1985 New Wave” or “New Wave Art.” Accordingly, in the narrative model and narratological framework, the textual space indicates where the Chinese avant-​garde movement took place. In a narratological sense, this movement is a grand event that functions as the main text telling the avant-​garde story. In this chapter, the notion of the event is defined by conceptual and stylistic changes and the process of these changes –​from realist to modernist, and from painting to installation and further to conceptual performance art. The avant-​garde movement started within the mainstream of Western-​style art, then quickly expanded to traditional-​style art, formed a massive new wave in the modernization movement, and finished with a new direction towards a great confluence, merging the once-​divided two mainstreams into one. How did the avant-​garde movement reach this point? Responding to Western influence, the Chinese avant-​garde artists experimented, or imitated, within a single decade, almost all the “-​isms” in modern Western art that had occurred in the previous 100 years. Historically, the 1985 New Wave is a grand collective event consisting of many group and individual cases. Together, these cases completed the grand event, and, conversely, the grand event operated in these cases. Exploring New Wave Art through these groups and individual artists, this chapter offers a general narrative with the singular term “event” and examines some representative cases of these groups and individuals with the plural term “sub-​events.” The singular-​form event enfolds the plural-​form sub-​events, and each sub-​event, as a fold, offers an entrée to unfolding certain aspects of the singular event. Since the grand avant-​garde event enfolds, and is also enfolded in, the folds of the group and individual sub-​events, unfolding the sub-​events unfolds the grand event. In a certain sense, the narrative of art history is to unfold art historical events. Congruously, this chapter aims to unfold further the artistic, cultural, ideological, and political significance of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. For this purpose, I will expand my discussion from the narrative notion of the event to the Deleuzian notion of the event, which, in turn, could enhance narrative theory. Regarding the relevance of the Deleuzian notions of “event” and “fold” to the Chinese avant-​garde movement, I believe that this movement is primarily defined by conceptual and stylistic changes. The former is ideological and political, while the latter is generic and formalistic.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-5

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  119 Narrative Event and the Causal Context of the Avant-​Garde Movement According to some popular event theories of the late twentieth century, writing is an event, and so is reading (Komori 1996). However, the event and sub-​events to be discussed in this chapter are primarily narrative events, namely, the events told as stories by artworks and in art historical narratives. The narrative function of these events is twofold: telling stories and being told about in stories. Examining the Chinese avant-​garde movement in the second half of the 1980s, I will pay attention to the stories about the grand event and the sub-​events, on the one hand, and to how the sub-​events recount the grand event in art historical narratives, on the other. Before going any further, I shall look at some definitions for the narrative event. According to narratologist Gerald Prince (1942–​), an event is the occurrence of something and its status change, such as an action in narrative discourse (Prince 2003). In this vein, the event is one of the most important narrative elements in the textual space, and the notion of the event is one of the key notions for a narratological study of art history. The importance of this element and the notion of the event is first found in the definition of the narrative itself. In her 2007 essay “Towards a Definition of Narrative,” Marie-​Laure Ryan (1946–​) groups three kinds of functional definitions of narrative, all centring on events. Regarding the third kind, Ryan relates it to Mieke Bal’s causal relation of events. In Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Mieke Bal defines an event as “the transition from one state to another state, caused or experienced by actors” (2009, 6). According to Bal, actors in an event drive the development process; they are the cause of an event. Regarding Chinese art in the second half of the 1980s, the most important avant-​ garde event was the fourth-​ generation artists’ embrace of Western Modernist art, which caused the new wave in Chinese art. In this regard, I propose a reinterpretation that could be meaningful for my rewriting of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. The interaction between contextual change and group action, as well as the interaction between group action and individual effort, caused the rise of avant-​garde groups in the mid-​1980s. This reinterpretation comes from my reading of both first-​hand materials of Chinese avant-​garde art and secondary narrations by other art historians. In terms of the first reading, I will offer case analyses shortly, while for the second, I offer the following. An art historian and critic in China, Lu Hong, asked about the cause in his art historical narrative: “Why were the young artists of that time especially interested in forming groups?” (Lu 2014, 71). He offered three answers. First, since the Western-​ influenced avant-​garde art in China was not in line with the government’s cultural policy or promoted by the cultural authority, the avant-​garde artists had to show their artworks independently without governmental approval. Second, these individual artists had to work together to stand up to the repression from all directions. Third, an individual voice is weak, but when multiples individual voices join in unison, they may be strong enough to be heard. Contemplating these three reasons, I would revise them by integrating the last two into one, since they speak of the same issue: Individual voices are weak, but a collective voice is strong. Regarding this revision, the first answer is external, which is about the contextual condition, chiefly, the government’s cultural policy and its alienation of the avant-​garde artists. The second is internal, about the interaction between individuals and groups.

120  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement Contemplating further, I see the relationship between the two answers as causal. Due to the external hostility, the grouping of independent artists was the avant-​garde artists’ internal response, which was an effective and even the only possible response to the external hostility. According to Mieke Bal, such a causal relationship of reasons and results turns group activities into events. In Chinese avant-​garde art, this modernist event is marked out by the keyword “change.” This keyword echoes Bal’s keywords of “transition,” “process,” “development,” and “alternation” in her definition of the event (2009, 189). This is to say that the avant-​garde event signifies the change in Chinese art in the mid-​1980s in two respects. One is the directional change of Chinese art from Soviet Socialist Realism to Western Modernism. The other is the change of the developmental course of Chinese art from the once-​divided two mainstreams to their confluence into one contemporary mainstream. Another art historian and critic in China, Lu Peng, made a similar, yet opposite, observation. According to his survey of the art media and press of the mid-​1980s, the rise of avant-​garde groups resulted from the government’s new policy towards artistic freedom (Lu and Yi 1992, 121). This cause is external and contextual. With regard to the internal cause, Lu Peng insightfully pointed out a contradiction between individual effort and group action. According to him, while the avant-​garde artists promoted individualism and independent work, they also rushed to organize groups under a non-​individual but collective banner. To me, this is not only a contradiction but a paradox: The individualists wanted to be united for the purpose of being individual. To Lu Peng, however, the contradiction is not complex. He offered a sociological, psychological, and pragmatic answer: Working together, these artists could resist negative critiques and hostile attacks from all directions and put their art on display (Lu and Yi 1992, 126). This answer is first seen in his 1992 book on Chinese art from 1979 to 1989, and then in his 2006 book on Chinese art in the twentieth century, without any revision for over a decade (Lu 2006, 761–​763). In my opinion, the contradiction between individual effort and group action is causal, which makes the relation of the contradiction to the external new policy paradoxical. In other words, the individual artists’ need for individuality and individualism is the precise reason they should team up for their individualist cause. The paradox is hidden in the causal relation of why grouping was needed and what happened after that. In this sense, the causal relationship between why and what makes the grouping process an event, and this event changed the landscape of Chinese art in the second half of the 1980s. As for the direct cause of the rise of avant-​garde groups, or the preparation for this rise, art historians, art critics, and cultural researchers have a consensus that the rise was initiated by the “Yellow Mountain Symposium” of April 1985, Anhui, and the “Progressive Young Artists Exhibition” of May 1985, Beijing. According to Yi Ying, an art historian and critic, the symposium was a critical response to the government-​ organized “The Sixth National Art Exhibition” (1984), which exposed some of the institutional problems of realist art, such as the ideological demand that art must serve the Communist revolutionary cause (Yi 2004, 114). More specifically, the symposium was also a response to the official process of the organization of art exhibitions by government institutions within the bureaucratic hierarchy system. This symposium started the process of questioning the realist art doctrine and promoting modernist art. It paved the way for avant-​garde groups to move towards the centre stage of Chinese art.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  121 If the symposium is somehow more theoretically oriented, the “Progressive Young Artists Exhibition” put theory into practice. Reading the first-​hand artworks, I believe that this exhibition responded to both the “Sixth National Art Exhibition” and the symposium, albeit this may not have been the original intent. The young artists exhibition was partially sponsored by government agencies and held in the National Art Gallery of China in Beijing. The word “partially” indicates the crucial fact that this exhibition was also partially non-​governmental. As a result, some modernist works were also exhibited in the show. One controversial modernist painting was New Era, the Inspiration from Adam and Eve (1985) by Zhang Qun and Meng Luding, two students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). This painting was not a depiction of the biblical scene; instead, it was about contemporary life, about the liberation of the mind and education reform. The controversy was about nudity, which was still a forbidden subject in China at that time. Refusing to remove this painting, the organizers repositioned it in a marginal corner of the exhibition hall. Surprisingly or not, this corner drew crowds, turning it into the central place of the exhibition. This unexpected event was phenomenal and predicted the upcoming change. What is change? This anecdotal story of the marginal corner speaks of the breakdown of ideological confinement, which is indeed the subject of this painting, as signified by the broken frames or cages depicted in the centre of the picture. However, regarding the topic of this chapter, I wish to point out that this painting was an adaptation of Western Modernist art, especially the Surrealist art of Salvador Dali (1904–​1989), who was immensely popular among the young artists in China in the 1980s. The point I wish to make is that this painting showcased the direct influence of Western Modernism on young artists and art students in China, who audaciously imitated Western Modernist art. Another painting showcasing the same influence was Longing for Peace (1985) by Wang Xiangming and Jin Lili, also students at CAFA. In a seemingly realist manner, this painting depicts a female student standing in front of a massive painting in an art gallery. However, this is not a realist painting at all. On the floor of the gallery, small trees sprout beside old stumps, morphing the gallery floor into an interior scene similar to those in Rene Magritte’s (1898–​1967) paintings. Significantly, the massive painting is a recomposition of Picasso’s Guernica on the top and Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian at the bottom, juxtaposed with some other images from Western masterpieces in the middle. The undercurrent of the above two preparational events for the rise of avant-​garde groups can again be described by the word “change” in both conceptual and stylistic terms. The former is more ideological, concerning the current socio-​political situation, while the latter is more artistic, concerning the current cultural situation that witnessed the aesthetic change. Around 1985, the rise of avant-​garde groups was seen across China, and the group members were mostly unestablished but emerging young artists. In Beijing, these young artists were from two opposite camps: the art academies and the outskirt villages where migrating artists organized group activities. These artists sometimes worked together for group events, such as performances and exhibitions. Following these Beijing events, those from nearby provinces such as Hebei and Shanxi also organized groups for events. Among them, Xia Xiaowan, Wen Pulin, Song Yongping, Song Yonghong, and others were active. At that time, avant-​garde groups were on the rise everywhere. In the northeast, the “Northern Art Group” was formed by young artists Wang Guangyi, Shu Qun, Ren Jian,

122  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement Liu Yan, and others in July 1984. In general, they were inspired by Western Surrealist art and interested in capturing irrational dream images in a rational disguise. In the southwest, the “Southwestern Art Study Group” was formed by young artists Zhang Xiaogang, Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehai, Ye Yongqing, Mu Heng, and others who were related to the 1985 exhibition “Neo Figura.” The commonality of their art is the depiction of the Kafkaesque absurdity of life and history blended with shamanistic scenes, corresponding to the native folk culture of the remote southwestern periphery. In the southeast, young artists from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xiamen, and other places also organized avant-​garde groups, such as “New Space” and “Pool Society”, whose members include Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, Song Ling, Ren Rong, Ding Fang, and others. Another important group in the southeast region is “Xiamen Dada,” inspired by Western Dadaism and Freudian theory. The artists in this group include Gu Wenda, Huang Yongping, Wu Shanzhuan, and others. The young artists from this region were inspired by Western formalist art and interested in artistic language, paying more attention to the visual forms of Western Modernist art. In Central China, young artists from the Hubei and Hunan provinces organized groups such as “Clan-​Clan” and “Stones and Rocks,” sharing a common interest in Picasso-​like primitivism, which was similar to the interests of the southwestern artists. The active artists in these groups were Wei Qingguang, Zou Jianping, and others. How can we regard the rise of avant-​garde groups as a grand event in the modernization process of Chinese art in the second half of the 1980s? Discussing these groups, Gao Minglu considers that Chinese avant-​gardism is rationally based (Gao et al. 1991, 92–​93). In this regard, I have three remarks. First, in terms of artistic styles and visual presentation modes, these young artists directly imitated Western Modernist art, notably, Surrealist and conceptualist art. Second, in terms of ideology and aesthetics, these young artists gave up traditional notions of beauty, idealism, and representation. They explored the potential of critical absurdity in artistic practice due to their critical rethinking of the old realist doctrine. Third, artists are not philosophers and theorists, however, so they do not have to follow formal logic and or rationalize their art. This is why their artworks sometimes expose the incoherence of their aims and means, even the conflict between their rational reading of modern Western philosophy and their irrational works of art. These three remarks point to an even more serious problem: While avant-​gardism was on the rise, its theoretical preparation was not yet ready. Neither Chinese artists nor the theorists of that time were clear about the difference between the rational and the irrational. Instead, they did things with passion. They were passionately critical of the old, the past, and they passionately embraced the new from the West without critically rational comprehension. The rise of avant-​garde groups across China signals the beginning of the grand event of the Chinese modernist movement in the second half of the 1980s. In this narratological study, I consider the grand event of the Chinese avant-​garde movement and the sub-​event cases of the groups and individual artists to be “event-​text.” I will theorize this notion later in this chapter. The Deleuzian Event and the Change in Avant-​Garde Painting From the causal consideration of the rise of the avant-​garde movement, I now turn to the “evental” consideration of its change in the terminology of Gilles Deleuze (1925–​1995). Although some important philosophers of the late twentieth and early

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  123 twenty-​first centuries discussed the notion of the event, such as Jacques Derrida (1930–​ 2004), Alain Badiou (1937–​), and Slavoj Zizek (1949–​), the Deleuzian notion is more relevant to my topic in this chapter due to its connection with the notion of the fold. The Deleuzian event is multifaced and complex; it cannot, and need not, be fully covered in this chapter. I will only discuss some relevant aspects of it regarding change and its process. In The Fold, Deleuze devoted a chapter to discussing his notion of the event and related the causal condition of an event to a sub-​notion, chaos: “Events are produced in a chaos, in a chaotic multiplicity, but only under the condition that a sort of screen intervenes” (1993, 76). Alongside the process of sorting out the chaos and making things normal from the chaos, an event emerges. How to reach the normal? Deleuze proposed another sub-​notion, screen, which has two crucial functions for an event to occur. One, the screen provides a place for an event to play out; two, the screen also functions as a filter for an event to sift through. Although Deleuze’s discussion of the event is somewhat abstract without specific examples, Chinese avant-​garde art could be illuminative. Alas, it is the other way around: The Deleuzian theory can be used to illuminate the evental change of Chinese art. At this point, the Deleuzian screen can be regarded as the place where the event of Chinese avant-​garde art occurred, i.e., the screen is the performative place for the rise and transition of Chinese avant-​garde art. Referring to Deleuze’s description of the screen, the place for Chinese avant-​garde to emerge is politically and aesthetically chaotic for several reasons, among which the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution is the major one. This includes the continued dominance of the Revolutionary Realist doctrine and the ongoing struggle of the avant-​gardists fighting against this doctrine. In The Fold, Deleuze offered a few more elaborate sub-​notions in support of his notion of the event. In addition to “chaos” and “screen,” “Many” and “One” are also important. In his terminology, “Many” indicates the multiplicity of possibilities in the chaotic place, or on the screen, where they fight to go through the historical and existential screen sieve. “One,” meanwhile, refers to the final one that eventually survives by passing through the filtering screen. The process from “Many” to “One” is the process from the chaotic to the normal. According to Deleuze, what makes the final “One” successful is the “compossibles” –​“and only the best combination of compossibles –​to be sifted through” (1993, 77). On the chaotic screen of Chinese art in the first half of the 1980s and the mid-​1980s, avant-​garde art gradually became a successful one, though the success was not easy; it was not sanctioned by the government. In the above, when I say avant-​garde art became a successful one, I do not mean “the successful one is the avant-​garde art.” The former is inclusive and open, while the latter is exclusive and closed. The difference exposes the chaos. In the factual scene of Chinese art in the first half of the 1980s, not only one but at least two passed through the Deleuzian screen. The other one is Revolutionary Realist art, which was supported, protected, and promoted by the government’s cultural policy. The two fought against each other through the screening process, causing major chaos. So, without government sanction, how did avant-​garde art pass through the screen? My answer is that, in the chaos, Chinese avant-​garde art showed two faces wearing figurative and non-​figurative masks. With the disguise of figura, figurative avant-​garde art posed no significant threat to realist art and the government’s cultural policy. It was even regarded as a kind of realist art, thus surviving the censorship screening.

124  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement An art critic of an official art journal at that time published a short review about the rise of avant-​garde art. This critic mentioned the chaos and the filtering choice in the review, though he did not use the Deleuzian terms, since Deleuze had not yet been translated into Chinese. According to this critic, the rising new wave of avant-​garde art created a binary opposition between the new and the old, or the Western modern and the Chinese tradition, forcing Chinese artists at the time to make a choice. The young avant-​ gardists took sides with the new (Zhang 1988, 84). There is no doubt that this was a chaotic scene. Since the Stars exhibitions of 1979, the once imbalanced fight between realist art and underground avant-​garde art gradually reached a power equilibrium, and both sides prepared their screen to filter out the other. On the avant-​garde screen, the filtering process had three steps: from figurative to semi-​abstract to abstract. In this process, as a historical fact, semi-​abstraction was critically important, since it could develop in multiple directions, including pure abstract, Cubist, Expressionist, and other Modernist directions. Whichever is the case, in this process, the filter is always semi-​abstraction, which is the unavoidable passageway or bridge connecting the two ends of figurative realism and non-​figurative avant-​gardism. To start this transitional process, one must wear a figurative disguise. At this point, I should go back to the causal context of the screen, which relates to the main topic of this book, Western influence and the Chinese response. Referring to the four channels of how Western influence reached China, I specify two as part of the direct causal context: translations of Western art theories and exhibitions of Western art. In the early 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution, there was a boom in reading Western art theory and philosophy in the Chinese intellectual world. With this boom, many series of translated Western art theories and modern thoughts were published. Among them, the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud (1856–​1939) and the existential philosophy of Jean-​Paul Sartre (1905–​1980) were immensely popular and influential. They caused a frenzy of reading among young artists and college students. Another crucial translation was the “Series of Aesthetic Translations,” edited by Li Zehou (1930–​2021), a leading philosopher of the time, and first published in 1980. Understandably, the theories included in this series were Modernist, not postmodern, such as those of Robin George Collingwood (1889–​ 1943), Susanne Langer (1895–​ 1985), Rudolf Arnheim (1904–​2007), and other formalist art theorists and philosophers. In the first half of the 1980s, mainly due to these translations, the notion of “conceptual renewal,” or “conceptual upgrading,” was widely embraced by and circulated among young intellectuals in China, including avant-​garde artists, who were thirsty for anything new and modern from the West. As for the exhibitions of Western art, this channel is slightly different. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western art exhibitions held in China were mostly premodern, namely, realist, such as the 1979 exhibition of the French Barbizon School of landscape paintings. However, towards the mid-​1980s, Western Modernist exhibitions arrived with a realist disguise. Among these disguised exhibitions, one from Canada caused a sensation: the 1984 Alex Colville (1920–​2013) exhibition. Colville’s paintings seem figurative and thus realist to the Chinese eye. However, his art was not realist but late-​Modernist and even postmodernist, due to its sociological, psychological, and philosophical inclination towards contemporary issues. Nevertheless, with a figurative disguise, Colville’s art looked accessible to Chinese artists, and Colville himself was much appreciated for his hyper-​realistic depictions and painstakingly detailed rendering of the seemingly

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  125 representational images. Soon after, non-​realist art reached China without a realist disguise. Among them, the 1985 Pop Art exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg (1925–​2008) caused another sensation and brought late-​modern and postmodern art to China. This time, the disguise was no longer needed, and the Chinese eye encountered no major issues when looking at non-​realist art. In the terminology of Deleuze, the above translations and exhibitions can be considered events, since they are eye-​opening and mind-​changing, passing through the Chinese screens, from the realist screen to the avant-​gardist screen. By going through the screens, Chinese art reacted to Western influence with changes –​hence the rise of avant-​garde art in China. In this sense, Western influence is a part of the contextual cause of the rise of Chinese avant-​garde art from chaos. Following my discussion of the external cause, I will now examine the internal workings of the rise and transition of the Chinese avant-​garde by further applying the Deleuzian elaboration of his evental notion with a triad of sub-​notions: extensions, intensities, and prehensions. The Deleuzian notion of the event comes from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–​1716) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861–​1947), with revisions and twists, such as developing sub-​notions. Reading Deleuze, I see the applicability of the three Deleuzian sub-​notions to my discussion of the Chinese avant-​garde groups. First, the “extensions” denote the outward connections, or external successions, connecting Chinese avant-​garde art to the contextual conditions. In this regard, I value the translation of Western art theories and exhibitions of Western art, which provide direct channels for Chinese artists to access Western modern art. Second, the “intensities” connote the inward connections, or internal successions, which, in Deleuze’s own words, are the integration of “intrinsic properties,” such as “a tint, a value, a saturation of color” in painting (1993, 77). The intrinsicality of Chinese avant-​garde art is not only related to these visual elements but also the conceptual connections among the groups. In this regard, the key concept is to be artistically independent. However, the very idea of being independent puts the avant-​garde groups together, wherever they are, forming a nationwide network of the modernist movement. Third, “prehensions” refer to the dialectic between the extrinsic and intrinsic successions that make the Deleuzian event well-​connected while independent. I referred to this earlier by using the term paradox, which describes the contextual connection, internal integration, and successive independence of Chinese avant-​garde art. The phrase “successive independence” possesses a self-​contradictory paradox. While the two words in this phrase are contradictory on the literal level, in the case of Chinese avant-​garde art, they are also complementary, and neither one can exist without the other. In my study of Chinese avant-​garde art, this paradox indicates the nature of the modernization movement: The external connection helps internal independence, and vice versa. Indeed, this is the paradox of the independence, or the interdependence, of the external influence and internal response. For instance, among the artists of the “Northern Art Group,” Liu Yan (195?/​196?–​), in his figurative paintings, demonstrated a particular external connection with premodern realist art and modern Expressionist art in the West, such as the art of Edvard Munch (1863–​1944). In Munch’s psychologically disturbing painting Puberty (1895), the artist depicted an eerie frontal image of a naked young girl sitting on the side of a bed covered with a ghostly white sheet. The girl’s figure casts a massive shadow on the wall behind her, which creates an overwhelmingly creepy feeling. Similarly, in Liu Yan’s painting

126  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement Midnight (1985), the artist depicted a similar image of a naked young girl with a twist in position. The sinister-​looking girl stands in the dark at one end of a bed covered with a ghostly white sheet. Contrasting the interior white sheet and the bright exterior sunlight, the girl herself could be seen as a dark shadow. In the room, the bed is placed against the wall on one end, leaving no space for the girl to stand between the bed and the wall. Lacking space, the artist created a spatial ambiguity with an open window. The shadowy dark girl seems to be standing outside the window with two hands crossing over the windowpane, holding the bedhead rail. The apparent connection between the two paintings of Munch and Liu is the figurative image of the naked girl in each picture, and the hidden link is their psychological restlessness and sentimental mood. The above descriptions of the two paintings demonstrate the external connection of Chinese avant-​garde art to Western Modernist art. As for the twist, the ambiguous spatial position of the naked figure in Liu’s painting discloses its external connection. However, the interdependence of external connection and internal independence is paradoxical. The artist’s intention of artistic independence cannot be realized without the appropriation of the Munch painting, which serves as a referential contrast. In the mid-​1980s, the sense of being independent was common for Chinese avant-​garde artists, and so was the paradoxical interdependence. If the above expressionistic painting of Liu Yan is more figurative, then his later works are less figurative and more semi-​abstract. Similar changes happened to almost all the other artists of this group and artists from the other groups. Wang Guangyi (1957–​), of the same group, is a good case. His paintings capture the Cubist image of human figures, which is much less realistic in terms of visual representation. Wang is more independent, although his connection to Western art is also undeniable. The visual references of his cubic figures are mostly premodern, with images appropriated from paintings by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–​1519), Rembrandt H. van Rijn (1606–​1669), Jacques-​Louis David (1748–​1825), and some other old masters. Why premodern artists but not Modernists? Wouldn’t Wang have had access to Western Modernist art in the mid-​1980s? Of course, the artist had access. But with the titles of his paintings, the artist purposely disclosed his references to premodern Western art. His purpose was to distance his art from the common dependence on Western Modernism and thus gain artistic independence. Regarding the interdependence between external connections and internal intensities, the Deleuzian notion of the event is paradoxical. Looking at Wang Guangyi’s Post-​ Classic: After Mona Lisa (1986) with this paradox in mind, I see that the artist simplified the facial features of Leonardo’s smiling lady and reduced the depiction of it to zero, leaving only a tonal contrast between brightness and darkness and making the lady’s face and head look like a geometrical cylinder. Except for the picture format and composition, this painting has nothing to do with Mona Lisa. If there were no mention in the title, probably no one would associate this cylindrical image with Leonardo’s famous portrait. In my descriptions and discussions of Wang Guangyi’s paintings, I have used the word “cubic” but not “Cubist.” The purpose is to keep Wang’s paintings apart from Cubist works and show the independence of his art. Wang is very conscious of distance and independence, and he purposefully revised his visual references. Applying the Deleuzian notion of the event in the above discussions, the interdependence between the external influence from the West and the internal pursuit of artistic independence is the key to my interpretation of the development of Chinese avant-​garde

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  127 art. It is also the key to a broader range of Chinese avant-​garde development in the mid-​ 1980s and afterwards. The Fold of the Event and the Event of Unfolding The above cases of modernist painting in Chinese art do not tell the whole story. I must go beyond the genre of painting and discuss the art of installation and performance, which reveals the broader generic range and more aspects of the rise, transition, and development of Chinese avant-​garde art since the mid-​1980s. In particular, I will discuss the transition from realist to modernist and then to postmodern art. This transition resounds with the expansion of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. In the terminology of Deleuze, the transition, expansion, and development of this movement are enfolded in individual cases as evental folds. To Deleuze, there are always connections between the notions of event and fold. The connections are not only expounded in his 1988 book The Fold, but also in his 1969 book The Logic of Sense, although Deleuze did not use the word “fold” at that time; he used the words “a state of affairs, an individual, or a person” for the temporal moment that embodies the actualization of an event in a specific case. To Deleuze, an individual case of a momentary event enfolds the event’s entirety. To my understanding, this is a fold. Deleuze pointed out “the double structure of every event” (1990b, 151), namely, the current event and the past-​future event, or the entire process of the event. To Deleuze, the “double structure” indicates the connections of the present fold and the temporal entirety of the event and its whole process of change. This notion is crucial for discussing the connections between the Chinese avant-​garde event and the fold of individual cases. To the movement, a specific event is a present event in its own right; it comes from past events and leads to future events. An individual case is a part of the Chinese avant-​garde art event. On the other hand, an individual case maintains its relative autonomy as a fold, though it implies the whole of the event. Thus, once the case is unfolded, the entire event of the Chinese avant-​garde movement, and its evental process, can be exposed. Such a connection between an individual case of the fold, or sub-​event, and the entirety of the grand event of the Chinese avant-​garde movement is not simple. For its complexity, I wish to refer to a Deleuzian concept, “counter-​actualization” or the “actor’s paradox” (1990b, 150). In the “Twenty-​First Series of the Event” in his The Logic of Sense, Deleuze presented the case of an actor and acting. In this case, the actor’s acting on stage seemed to be an actualization of an event based on the playwright’s script. However, to the actor, it was an act of counter-​actualization because the actor actualized an event of himself. In art history, artists act as actors and actresses, and each of their individual cases is twofold: actualization and counter-​actualization, framing the individual case within the evental entirety. In such a Deleuzian sense, the issue of genre in art history is a fold, making it valid for the topic of this chapter. Historically, the genres of fine art in premodern times were limited to three: painting, sculpture, and architecture. Then, in modern times, the generic scope of art expanded to a broader range that covered more genres, such as the art of installation and performance. Referring to the premodern notion, I see that this modern expansion is externally oriented. It goes outwards, enlarging the scope and changing the idea of fine art. Meanwhile, considering this generic issue from a postmodern point of

128  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement view, the modern expansion is also an internal process, going inwards and revealing more aspects of modern art, such as the conceptual aspects associated with installation art and performance art. The two opposite processes testify to the Deleuzian notion of the fold. Deleuze’s notion of the fold is inspired by the same notion of Leibniz. However, the Leibnizian fold is somewhat limited and closed, whereas the Deleuzian fold is unbound and open. In the above, I have discussed the interdependence of the external connection of the Chinese avant-​garde movement to Western influence and the internal connections among the avant-​garde responses to this influence. In theory, this interdependence echoes Deleuze’s fold and reflects the two opposite processes of inward folding and outward unfolding. According to Tom Conley, the English translator of Deleuze’s The Fold, the process of folding and unfolding is an event (Deleuze 1993, xii). In this sense, the rise, transition, expansion, and development of the Chinese avant-​garde movement can be considered an event, and so can my study of this event, which aims at unfolding the event. Discussing Foucault, Deleuze summarized his notion of the fold with two sides, inside and outside (2006, 80). His notion of inside and outside coincides with the external and internal connections of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. In this regard, I consider a folding fan with two to multiple folds to be an effective analogy for the Deleuzian fold, Usually, the fan has two sides, with images of painting and calligraphy on each side. When it is folded, the images are concealed, and when unfolded, they are revealed. In Chinese and Japanese tradition, the side with painting is the inside, or the front, and the side with calligraphy is the outside, or the back. Theoretically, the number of folds of a folding fan could be limitless, exposing the analogical differences between the two sides and the numerous steps of the transition in the development process of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. Reading Deleuze on the notion of the fold chronologically in The Logic of Sense (1968), Difference and Repetition (1968), Foucault (1986), The Fold (1988), and other writings, I have the analogical image of a folding fan in my mind. I wonder why Deleuze himself and other scholars studying Deleuze did not use the analogy of a folding fan in their discussions but only an éventail, denoting an electric ventilation fan (Deleuze 1993, 31; Conley 2011, 202). Regarding the analogy of the folding fan, I will refer to Deleuze’s reading of the paintings by Francis Bacon (1909–​1992) and consider his notion of “the body without organs” a corporal fold, which enfolds the difference and interaction between the distorted human bodies in the artist’s paintings and “the forces acting on the body” (Deleuze 1990a, 48). Then, speaking of the fold of the Chinese avant-​garde movement from this point of view, I will discern three main differences. In addition to the interactive difference between Western influence and Chinese responses, the second difference is the transition from realist art to modernist and postmodern art. The third is the difference between form and conceptuality in Chinese avant-​garde art. These three differences have been enfolded by time in the three-​decade-​long historical narrative discourse of all sorts, but mainly of art historians, art critics, cultural researchers, and artists. Unfolding these differences, I will offer a twofold analogical elaboration of the Deleuzian fold. The first is the inside and outside surfaces, and the second is the limitless folds. In addition to the analogy of the folding fan, I will further propose a similar yet more relevant analogy: the album leaf. This is a classical bonding format of Chinese painting books designed to store artworks, enfolding paintings sheet by sheet. The viewer unfolds the album leaf page by page to display and view artworks. The side that stores and shows the paintings is always the inside or front, and the back is always the back or

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  129 outside. The album leaf demonstrates the two sides of the Deleuzian “fold of the infinite, or the constant folds (replies) of finitude which curve the outside and constitute the inside” (Deleuze 2006, 80). As an event, this limitless movement of folding and unfolding the two sides is not only spatial but also temporal, as Deleuze said with two more analogies: “It resembles exactly the invagination of a tissue in embryology, or the act of doubling in sewing: twist, fold, stop, and so on” (2006, 81). History is like a book of an album leaf, and so is Chinese art history. In the early and mid-​2010s (the Deleuzian “present”), a critical current surfaced in the scholarly world of contemporary Chinese art, stressing the importance of the 30-​year-​old modernist New Wave (the Deleuzian “past”), mainly its inspiration of enlightenment to present-​ day Chinese art (Lu 2012). Then, as an immediate reaction, from the mid-​2010s on (the Deleuzian “future”), an undercurrent in the circle of art history and art criticism in China emerged that called for a rethink and re-​evaluation of the spiritual and aesthetic significance of the New Wave. Some young scholars and critics published articles and gave public speeches urging that the pages of contemporary Chinese art history be turned and downplaying the historical importance of the avant-​garde movement. Turning the pages of history is to fold the book of history. According to Deleuze, the way of unfolding the folds follows the direction of folding (1993, 6). However, in my review of the Chinese avant-​garde movement, the best way to unfold the history book is not to follow the Deleuzian direction but to go against it, turning the pages back to the past. It is not to flatten the folds but to take the inside out in three ways, reflecting the three traits of the Deleuzian fold. First, unfolding the folds of external connection, I must go back to the 1985 Rauschenberg exhibition in Beijing. This exhibition exemplifies the fold of the co-​ existence and interaction of Western influence and Chinese response. The influence of this exhibition was immediate, and it directly demonstrated to the Chinese avant-​garde artists what the so-​called international language of art was and showed them how to approach conceptual art. Once the fold of this exhibition is open, the significance of the Rauschenberg influence is displayed: Technically, it directly demonstrates how to make installation art. Some avant-​garde artists were instantly inspired by the exhibition and made their installation works right away. Second, unfolding the folds of internal connections within the Chinese avant-​garde movement, I must dig into the evental transition from painting and sculpture to installation, integrating the generic, stylistic, and conceptual considerations. To Deleuze, one crucial point of the fold is understanding and handling the differences. This is to understand the difference between realist art and modernist art, and to comprehend the transition from the two-​dimensional realist painting to the three-​dimensional avant-​garde installation. This transition involves the event of stylistic and conceptual change. In other words, the difference and the transition not only make a Deleuzian fold but also signify the generic change and expansion, which are evental, from realism to avant-​gardism. For this purpose, I chose to read some contemporary scholars’ writings on Chinese avant-​garde art and noticed that almost all mentioned a work of mixed media by Hu Zhaoyang and Wang Baijiao entitled Abandoned Dream (1986). However, they mostly failed to point out the historical significance of this work, which should help art historians and critics open the stylistic and conceptual fold of the generic transition in the development of Chinese avant-​garde art. This work is a small installation of dissected soft-​drink cans attached to a framed canvas, constituting a fold of differences. This work shows the

130  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement difference and connection between painting and installation and between realist and conceptualist art. Some scholars might be interested in interpreting the political dream for freedom hinted at by this work’s title and in finding out why and how the dream had been abandoned. However, I am interested in the narrative function of this work, which could help open the fold of the Deleuzian differences and connections. Speaking more specifically, unfolding this work tells us how the Chinese artists tried to add a third dimension to the surface of a two-​dimensional canvas and eventually gave up the illusionary realist painting. In the terminology of Deleuze, while the other scholars emphasized the Oneness of this work, I value the Many of it, which exposes the difference between the old realist painting and the new modernist installation. Notably, the difference is internally connected to the transition from painting to installation and from realist art to modernist and postmodern art. Before discussing this issue further, I must quote an interpretation of this work by Yan Zhou. While most scholars focused on political interpretation, Zhou went further. His undertone extends in another direction, to reality in life, which is relevant to my reading of the generic transition. In his book A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1949 to Present, Zhou writes: The significance of this Rauschenberg-​inspired piece was its direct relationship to the rhetoric of hegemonic discourse –​“art is from life and above life.” It points out the hypocrisy of this rhetoric. When most Chinese were struggling with the hardships of real life, what they saw in official art was nothing but smiling faces and exciting celebrations. The artists wanted to tell audiences that life was just what you see and you feel every day, and that art was not something above life, it was indeed the life surrounding you day and night. (Zhou 2020, 191) The above is a political and realist reading, with Marxist critical ideology hidden between the lines. In my opinion, such a typical reading closed the album leaf that enfolded this work and made the fold a Leibnizian monad and the monad of the Deleuzian One. Facing this Oneness, I read and unfold this One and make it a Deleuzian Many. I intend to unfold more layers and aspects of this work. Precisely due to its Many layers and aspects, I value Yan Zhou’s extended political reading of the “life” issue. In addition to political and realist readings, the Deleuzian Many readings (the unfolding process) disclose the transition from the genre of the two-​dimensional painting to that of the three-​dimensional installation with stylistic and formalist differences. As discussed in previous chapters, due to the dominance of the official realist doctrine, Chinese painters were confined to the two-​dimensional canvas surface, and their work was to build a three-​ dimensional visual illusion on the plane surface. However, the two artists’ small work of mixed media shows the first step of breaking away from the realist illusion by adding three-​dimensional objects to the two-​dimensional surface, thus making the illusion real. Referring to Yan Zhou’s observation that “the artists wanted to tell audiences that life was just what you see,” it is at this point that I see the relevance of Zhou’s reading to that of mine, although mine is not necessarily political. Moreover, while Yan Zhou gives a political remark that “art was not something above life,” I stress the importance of the third dimension that the real soft-​drink cans give to the two-​dimensional canvas. Although this is just an initial step and the real objects were

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  131 still attached to the illusionary surface, not entirely breaking away from the canvas, this work illustrates the transition from the confinement of realist doctrine to the independence of the conceptual development of Chinese avant-​garde art. This is what I meant by pointing out its narrative function: This work tells a story about the early development of conceptual art in China. To Chinese artists before the modernist movement, the three-​dimensional illusion was indeed a dream. Alongside the avant-​garde New Wave, the dreamers were woken up by Western Pop Art, such as the art of Rauschenberg, and thus the dream had to be abandoned. Although the two artists of this work might not think this way, and neither might other scholars, I consider this to be the historical significance of this work, which tells the story of the avant-​garde transition in the stylistic and generic aspects, the two main aspects of the visual language of art. Coming back to the Deleuzian notion of the fold, I wish to emphasize the importance of the framed canvas to which the real objects of the cans were attached. This canvas surface is a key fold. When it is unfolded, the process of the generic extension from two-​ dimensional painting to three-​dimensional installation begins. Unfolding the Double Transitions in a Triangle Fold The double transitions refer to the generic and conceptual changes. In the above, I looked at a case that enfolds the transition from realist painting to avant-​garde installation. This transition is genre-​crossing. It is also found in the case of the change from sculpture to installation. However, beyond the generic transition and the transition from realist art to modernist art, the next case is more conceptually oriented. It enfolds and unfolds the change from modernist to postmodern art, involving the issue of form versus conceptuality. In other words, the transition to postmodern art is twofold, with the generic outside and cultural inside beneath the binary opposition of form and content. In Deleuzian terminology, a fold is found in the difference between form and conceptuality. According to the English translator of Deleuze’s The Fold, the Deleuzian folds consist of binary oppositions, such as front versus back, soul versus body, and image versus text (Conley 2011, 194). Due to such binary opposition, each fold has a fissure, which can help crack the fold, just like opening a folded oyster. In twentieth-​ century critical theory, there are two basic ideas about this difference and opposition between form and content. One stresses the separation of form from content in a work of art, while the other denies this rift and emphasizes the organic unity of the two. Looking into the crack and opening the oyster shell for a pearl, I discern at least three layers of significance from an artwork: form, content, and concept. The form is the outside shell of the Deleuzian fold, the content is the inside of the oyster, and the conceptuality is the pearl inside, beneath the binary opposition. The three constitute a triangle fold. Once the fold is unfolded and the pearl is revealed, the conceptual implication can be decoded. Deleuze did not provide a formulaic method of unfolding but asked his readers to think while offering samples of opening the baroque folds. In this instance, I would think about the above analogous oyster. Facing a closed oyster, we do not see the inside and need to investigate the fissure. Once the oyster shell is opened, referring to the fold of image versus text, we can speak and write about what we see and read. Hence the boundary between image and text can be crossed.

132  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement In Deleuze’s samples, unfolding is to follow the direction of folding and not the other way around. With this direction, there should be two ends at each folding and unfolding process. As previously mentioned, one end is the outside form, and the other is the inside content. However, I do not have to follow the Deleuzian direction but hold the two ends fast to explore the hidden conceptual implication. For this purpose, the two ends can be utilized to show the unfolding process. For my exploration of the generic transition, this utilization is best demonstrated by the process of unfolding Huang Yongping’s (1954–​2019) work entitled Two Books of “History of Chinese Painting” and “A Concise History of Western Painting” Washed in A Washing Machine for Two Minutes (1987). Huang and this work are crucial to Chinese avant-​garde art, since this work demonstrates the triangle of the fold. The outside end of its visual form is the sculptural shape of the paper pulp and the sculptural base, and the inside end of the content is the event of book laundering. Beneath the two are the encoded implications. One implication is the generic transition from the old sculpture genre to the new installation genre, which is the first of the double transitions. Similar to the narrative function of the earlier case of painting-​installation, this work is a sculpture-​installation with a narrative. The work of book laundering looks simple. It is just a pile of blended paper pulp in a pyramid shape placed on a glass at the top of a wooden box. Scholars and ordinary gallerygoers usually do not pay attention to the box, not to mention the narrative function of the box used as a sculptural pedestal to support the installation. Nonetheless, the narrative function pertains to the box base and the work’s wholeness. Due to its narrative function, this work tells the story of a further transition, not only from realist to modernist art but also to postmodern art. Why postmodern? The two transitions from sculpture to installation and from modernist to postmodern art are inseparable. In the mid-​and late 1980s, the Western term “postmodern” had barely reached China. As mentioned, but not elaborated on, the generic scope of modern art in the West is no longer confined to the trio of painting, sculpture, and architecture but reaches out to include installation art and performance art, as well as other genres. In a generic sense, the origin of postmodern art in the West can be traced far back to early-​modern Dadaist conceptual art and to late-​modern Pop Art, exemplified by installation and performance art, such as the Rauschenberg works exhibited in Beijing. Installation and performance are two key genres of postmodern art in the late twentieth century. In this sense, I regard Huang Yongping’s sculpture-​installation as a form of postmodern art. Huang was ahead of his time and of other artists. In 1986, he referred to his work as “a kind of postmodernism” (Gao 2011, 206), although many other artists may not yet have heard of this term back then. Postmodern art is not only about genre and form but primarily about conceptual issues, such as ideology and politics. Reading Huang’s work of book laundering from the perspective of the Deleuzian fold, I see that the generic issue adheres to its outside form, whereas the conceptual issue is hidden beneath the inner content or its subject matter. Interestingly, some of the old masters foresaw such a conceptual inside of sculpture, as Michelangelo said of himself that he sculpted with his mind rather than his hand (Minor 1994, 13). In my reading of Huang Yongping, postmodern conceptuality is very true to his sculptural installation. Huang is a leading artist of the “Xiamen Dada” group in southeastern China, where he organized the first public exhibition for this avant-​garde group in 1986. In a radical gesture of artistic rebellion, Huang and other group members burned all the exhibited

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  133 works to ashes on the very spot of the exhibition on the exhibition’s closing day. Thus, they claimed not only the end of art but also the end of being artists, reminiscent of the thoughts shared by Marcel Duchamp (1887–​1968). However, Huang continued his artistic career, regardless. To unfold Huang’s work, I will start from the outside in and investigate the folds made by his critics to examine their enfolding processes. In his 1992 book A History of China Modern Art: 1979–​1989, Lu Peng folded Huang’s book laundering with a somewhat sarcastic interpretation. Lu claimed that this work was a nihilist prank with a critical and challenging purpose aimed at assaulting artistic tradition and insulting other artists and museumgoers (1992, 286–​287). Over the next 15 years, this critic continued to hold this opinion and repeated it in his 2006 book A History of Art in Twentieth-​Century China (Lu 2006, 841). This claim is a negative assertion that puts the outside form and inside content of Huang’s work together and enfolds it without exposing its generic change and conceptual implications, negating its hidden cultural critique. Another art critic, Lu Hong, arguably went one step further and offered two interpretations of Huang’s work. In addition to the same “prank,” he added one more idea of “washing history” but did not elaborate on it (Lu 2014, 104). This idea helps little with unfolding Huang’s work because everyone knows that the function of a washing machine is to wash something if not the emperor’s clothes. Without elaboration, the idea of “washing history” is hardly an actual development from the “prank.” Thus, this critic goes one step further in fastening up the fold. Gao Minglu, a leading art critic of contemporary Chinese art in both China and the West and the spokesman of the Chinese avant-​garde movement in the 1980s, enfolded Huang’s book laundering in another way. He first defined this work as a “cynical conceptual” work, then provided intellectual knowledge as context, and finally quoted the artist himself as an interpretation, which folds and unfolds Huang’s work by reaching the inside of the fold: On December 1, 1987, Huang created one of his most cynical conceptual works by placing two books in a washing machine. The books were A History of Chinese Painting by Wang Bomin, recognized as one of the most authoritative texts on Chinese art history, and A Concise History of Modern Painting by Herbert Read. Read’s was the first book of its kind to be translated into Chinese, and it was the most influential English text on modern Western art in China of the mid-​1980s. Huang offered a cynical interpretation of this work: “In China, regarding the two cultures of East and West, traditional and modern, it is constantly being discussed which is right, which is wrong, and how to blend the two. In my opinion, placing the two texts in the washing machine for two minutes symbolizes this situation well and solves the problem much more effectively and appropriately than those debates lasting a hundred years.” (Gao 2011, 206) It sounds as if a two-​minute book laundering can beat a 100-​year-​long fruitless debate over the issue of cultural influence from the West and the Chinese response to it. The above quotation leads my unfolding process to the entry point inside. Although the authorial intention is effective in interpreting artworks, the opposite perspective, the reader’s response, is also critical in unfolding artworks. Without the receptive interpretation of the readers, the authorial intention cannot be realized. Indeed, Huang’s own

134  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement words disclose the conceptual consideration of his book laundering, which leads to the hidden conceptual implications. This is to say that, referring to the specific intellectual context of the mid-​1980s, Gao enfolded Huang’s work from the outside in. Meanwhile, by quoting the artist, Gao also indicated the opposite entry point for unfolding this work from the inside out. To fully unfold a work of art, a reader should take the best from the interpretations by both the author/​artist and the art historians/​critics, integrating these selected interpretations with the reader’s own understanding. Unfolding Huang’s work from the outside in, I consider that its hidden significance is first to be found in the relevant historical narrative. This narrative is about the generic connection and difference between the old form of sculpture and the new form of installation, and about the transition from the old to the new and further to postmodern conceptual art. Second, unfolding this work from the inside out, the hidden significance is to be found in its cross-​cultural blending of Western art and Chinese art, as well as its historical blending of traditional art and modern art, whereas the event of blending is postmodern. So, what is in between the outside and inside of this fold? Once the fold is open, I see an evental process in it. Throwing two books about Chinese art history and the history of modern Western art into a washing machine for laundering is the first event of the responsive process to Western influence. This initial event intends to clean up the age-​old art and historical narratives about art in China and the West, and to eliminate their cultural repellency so that they may better understand and accept each other. Consequently, in the next event of laundering, the two books became pulp, lost their respective cultural identity and immunity, and were mixed into one. This second event intends to make a new cultural product that is universal, without a cultural barrier between the West and China. Then, the third event of this process is to display the blended pulp in the shape of a pyramid. In this sense, I do not think Huang’s conceptual work is “nihilist.” Instead, it is very constructive, although it wears a deconstructive mask. Why a pyramid? Reading other critics’ interpretations in Chinese and English, I found that none have asked and answered this question. However, this question and its answer are critical because they constitute the core of the fold. It is the fold of folds. Unfolding it, I offer my answer that, historically, the ancient Egyptian pyramids are among the oldest surviving human constructions, representing the lasting value of civilization. Physically, the pyramid shape stands for the triangular stability that explains the long-​lasting value of ancient culture. Finally, although the artist makes the pyramid shape of the pulp, it is a natural shape. If not natural, the pulp cannot be piled up on the box base. Thus, the significance of this work is the artist’s visual statement that the future of art is to take the best from other cultures for the construction or reconstruction of a new pyramid. Although this is a personal response to Western influence, this response is also a collective one, to a certain extent, from the Chinese avant-​garde artists of the 1980s. The generic transition and cultural blending correspond to the fold’s outside and inside. To postmodern art such as Huang’s book laundering, conceptuality is at issue, but there is no longer the issue of separation or unity of form and content, which is an invalid modernist issue. In the case of Huang, the postmodern issue of cultural relationship makes the fold conceptual. In the meantime, the conceptual fold makes this work an instant postmodern masterpiece of the Chinese avant-​garde movement.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  135 Performance Art and the Grand Exhibition of “China/​Avant-​Garde” In the above, I have unfolded the generic and conceptual folds of installation art. However, the conceptual fold needs to be further opened, since it is enfolded with not only installation art but also the evental art of performance and happening. According to traditional narrative theory, as Aristotle described in his Poetics, the whole process of an event (Aristotle termed it “plot”) is shown in its development from the beginning to the middle and the end (1997, 14). As Deleuze observed, every minor event is a part of a greater event, and every grand event consists of minor events (1990b, 152). Speaking of the development of the Chinese avant-​garde movement from its beginning to its end, the grand exhibition “China/​Avant-​Garde” in the National Art Gallery in Beijing in the spring of 1989 must be regarded as the climax between the middle and the end. On the exhibition’s opening day, works of performance and happening, authorized or not, turned the exhibition into a grand event and a great work of evental art. This climax was signalled by two sudden gunshots, resulting in the arrest of the involved artist and her partner and the closure of the exhibition. This dramatic event predicted the beginning of the end of the avant-​garde movement. At this point, I dare to say that it is the exhibition that enfolds the development process of the avant-​garde movement; it is the event of the performances and happenings that enfolds the exhibition; and it is the gunshots that enfold the event of performances and happenings. The connection of the seemingly individual events outlines the enfolding process. Accordingly, the interactive working of every individual event of performance and happening collectively made the exhibition a grand event and enfolded the avant-​ garde movement as a great fold. Unfolding this sensational event of the grand exhibition, I have a conceptual concern. With this concern, step by step, I intend to explore deeper into the ideological and political significance of the exhibited works, the exhibition itself, and, consequently, the avant-​garde movement. The firing of the gunshots was not disclosed in advance to the exhibition’s chief organizer, the exhibition committee, the administration of the national gallery, or the municipal authority of Beijing. This plot is allegedly a conspiracy related to internal ideological, political, and curatorial disagreements among the members of the preparatory committee for the exhibition. Since the plot and the disagreements were crucial, I take them as a critical entry point to unfold the event of this exhibition. Reaching this point, I will start with a brief tour of the grand exhibition and describe some works of performance and happening that were not previously admitted to the exhibition but then became legendary events on the day of the vernissage. The exhibition was conceived and initiated by Gao Minglu (1949–​), an art critic, exhibition organizer, art journal editor, artist at that time, and currently a professor of art history at Pittsburgh University in the United States. Due to political, financial, and other practical obstacles, the exhibition was delayed repeatedly and eventually scheduled for February 5–​19, 1989. Gao also organized the preparatory committee and nominated committee members, including art historians, theorists, critics, artists, and government officials from the cultural administration sector. Among them, Li Xianting (1949–​), an art critic, curator, and art journal editor, was assigned to be the leading curator of the exhibition (at that time, the word “curator” did not exist in Chinese art vocabulary) and responsible for gallery space planning. Next to the exhibition’s organizer Gao, Li was

136  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement equally important in terms of organizational and executive responsibility and power. Li played the role of Gao’s professional collaborator and critical rival in organizing the exhibition and was later named the “godfather” of the Chinese avant-​garde movement and New Wave Art. According to art historians Lu Peng and Lin Xingyu, and their respective first-​hand documentation and interviews with the committee members, Gao’s initial intention was to have a retrospective exhibition in the National Art Gallery, presenting the artistic achievements of the Chinese avant-​garde movement and thus incorporating the then sidelined avant-​garde art into the government-​sponsored official art (Lu and Yi 2002, 413–​414). However, Li Xianting had a different idea. His hidden agenda was to have the exhibition be the pinnacle event of the Chinese avant-​garde movement, presenting what was going on rather than what had already happened. In other words, while Gao intended to legitimatize underground art, Li insisted on resisting and challenging the government and cultural authority. Therefore, while Gao refused the conceptual art of performance, which was provocative and dangerous in the eyes of the government, Li contacted some artists behind Gao’s back and planned, or plotted, certain works of performance for the opening day. Regarding the relationship between Gao Minglu and Li Xianting during the exhibition’s preparation, I value their complementary work rather than their difference. I consider that their collaboration pushed the exhibition to the apex of the Chinese avant-​ garde movement, thus making it historical. On this topic, I exchanged ideas with an art historian and critic in China, Lu Hong, the author of Chinese Contemporary Art History: 1978–​2008. In our online conversation on February 15, 2021, Lu emphasized that, first, Gao’s cooperation with the authorities made the exhibition possible. However, Gao was not necessarily aware of some of the performances beforehand. Second, possibly with Gao’s acquiescence, it was Li’s behind-​the-​scenes plotting for the unauthorized performances that guaranteed the success of the exhibition, as it was eventful and thus meaningful. In the planning of the gallery space, had it been a retrospective exhibition, the works would have been displayed chronologically, following the timeline of the development of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. However, Li planned to show the works in a counter-​ chronological sequence, placing the latest works of installation art and upcoming works of performance and happening in the main halls. With this plan, when the museumgoers entered the national gallery, they would see these provocative works first. As this plan unfolded, at the grand opening on the morning of February 5, 1989, some artists unexpectedly appeared in the main halls on the first and second floors right after the opening ceremony, causing a sensation with their unauthorized performances and creating a stir in the audience. One artist, Wang Deren, threw 7,000 condoms filled with coins into the air and dispersed them in every exhibition room on every floor of the entire national gallery, challenging the official moral censorship with a vulgar and profane “wrong-​ doing.” Another artist, Wu Shanzhuan, sold 30 kilograms of frozen prawns on the spot, instantly turning the national gallery into an illegal seafood market, foretelling the commercialization of Chinese avant-​garde art in the next decade. Still another artist, Li Shan, washed his feet in a corner of the gallery, suggesting a story of Jesus, but in an anti-​Jesus way. This performance of feet washing also delivered a political message encoded with icon-​like portraits of the then American president Ronald Reagan, which were stuck to the bottom and the side of the washbasin.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  137 One of the most talked-​about performance works on the opening day was Zhang Nian’s (1964–​) Hatching (1989). This artist placed straws on the gallery floor for his performance, making a hatching nest with chicken eggs; then, he sat in the nest, hatching the eggs. He wore an oversized white sheet of paper with a hole in the middle for his head, making it look like a baby’s bib. On the front of the paper, he had written three lines of big words with vigorous brushstrokes in dark ink: “While hatching, [I]‌refuse theory; please do not disturb the next generation.” The artist also placed smaller pieces of paper around the nest, forming a circle. In front of him, there were seven pieces with the same word written on each: “waiting.” In a certain sense, this performance is a work of the absurd, reminding the audience of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (1953) and the biblical story of God creating the world in seven days. But who is Godot? The chicks of the next generation? If so, are the chicks the new avant-​garde artists and their art? Unfortunately, in Beckett’s play, Godot never arrived, and in Genesis, God assigned the seventh day to be Sunday for a break from work, presumably including an artist’s creative work. Regarding the absurdity of Zhang Nian’s conceptual work, a gallerygoer might wonder what it was about. An art historian said the male artist acted like a rooster hatching chicks (Lin 2002, 419). I do not see the gender issue in this work but note that the artist might be somewhat pessimistic because of the coming of the fin-​de-​siecle, worrying about what kind of new art will arrive at the turn of the century. However, his doubtful attitude and hostility towards art theory make me care less about who could be his Godot or God and more about the conflict between art and theory, between artists and theorists. Beyond this conflict, I care also about the connection between this work and the curatorial intentions of Gao and Li, the two organizers of the exhibition. The artist talked about his hatching in this respect: “Nowadays, dog-​fart theories are increasingly incomprehensible. Who can make a judgement on (prediction of) the art of the future? The end of the century is coming. Who knows if God will create some kind of strange birds?” Lu 2014, 125). I do not think this was about the two organizers, although they were indeed art theorists. The artist might either be referring to the then dominant official doctrine of Revolutionary Realism or the newly imported Western Modernist theories, or art theory in general. Whichever the case may be, the artist only cared about his hatching and wanted to turn away from any theoretical intervention and disturbance. Ironically, as soon as the artist sat down to hatch his eggs, some theorists from the exhibition committee approached and asked him to stop the performance and leave the exhibition hall. In a photo of this incident, two men from the exhibition committee squatted down with the artist, flanking him, and patiently talked to him, persuading him to leave. I recognize one of them, Fan Di’an, an art historian, critic, faculty member, and administrator of CAFA at that time. Fan later became the director of the National Art Gallery of China until the mid-​2010s and is now the president of CAFA and the chairman of CAA, the Chinese Artists Association. Fan’s professional identity is quite interesting. On the one hand, he was involved in theoretical debate regarding the avant-​garde movement and befriended some avant-​garde artists. On the other hand, he was also a cultural official working for the government. This is why, according to the photo caption, he persuaded the hatching artist to leave on behalf of the exhibition committee and the authorities. Due to his double identity, Fan was the best person to implement the agreements co-​signed by the exhibition’s preparatory committee and the National Art Gallery of China, particularly the agreement on political issues, though in the name of public security.

138  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement As a big surprise, however, two gunshots suddenly broke this agreement on the exhibition’s opening day. The shots were fired about three hours after the opening ceremony by a participating female artist, Xiao Lu (1962–​), at her own installation work, Dialogue (1988). The installation was made of two telephone booths with two life-​size pictures of a male and a female figure stuck on the transparent glass door of each booth, showing the two persons speaking to each other over the phone. In the small space between the two booths, a red telephone was placed on a white platform against a mirror background, with the handset dangling towards the floor. The shots were fired at the mirror, making two holes in it and causing cracks. Instantly, this unexpected shooting event turned the installation into a new work of performance and happening. In a Deleuzian sense, an event is a change and a process of change (Williams 2011, 81). As I remarked earlier, the grand exhibition signalled the climax in the developmental process of the Chinese avant-​garde movement, and so did the shooting in the exhibition process. In an evental sense, art is not wholly temporal, and a work of art is but an image showing a specific moment as a part of the whole process of an event. The moment can be a point of climax that enfolds the entire process. In the Xiao Lu case, the shooting is a critical moment, enfolding the event that changes her work of installation into a piece of performance and happening. Due to this consideration, I will take the shooting as the entry point for unfolding Xiao’s work and then rewrite a particular part of the development of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. This extended unfolding process testifies to the significance of Xiao’s work.

Figure 4.1 Xiao Lu: Dialogue (1988, Taikang Manual Life Insurance, Beijing, courtesy of the artist) 肖鲁《对话》

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  139 According to the agreement between the exhibition committee and the national gallery, any illegal or unruly action was forbidden, such as possessing and using weapons in the gallery. Because of the gunshots, the authorities forced the closure of the exhibition for five days. Gao Minglu could not have known in advance about the previously plotted shooting, otherwise it would not have happened. Nonetheless, in his A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1949 to Present, Yan Zhou writes: “In 2004, however, Xiao Lu wrote letters to Gao Minglu and Li Xianting, and declared her solo authorship [of the shooting at her Dialogue] encouraged by Gao Minglu” (Zhou 2020, 240). In this short quotation, the word “encouraged” is semantically telling while temporally ambiguous, since it suggests that Gao had showed his support for the artist’s authorship and her shooting at least after the event took place. Gao Minglu also described this shooting event in his 2011 book Total Modernity and the Avant-​Garde in Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art: Xiao Lu suddenly pulled out a gun and fired two shots at her installation, Dialogue; or more precisely, at a mirror between two telephone booths in which stood full-​length pictures of a male and a female student talking to each other on the phone. The president of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, who was on the spot, immediately seized Tang Song, a friend of Xiao, who was standing near the installation, and ordered me to close the exhibition. (Gao 2011, 158) According to Gao’s description, the top policeman of Beijing was at the scene at that very moment, and so was Gao, presumably. Why were they there? Did they know beforehand what would happen? Semantically, Gao’s phrase at the end of this passage, “immediately … and ordered me to close the exhibition” is vague in meaning and does not clearly indicate if Gao was there at that very moment. The question is, although the president of the Beijing Public Security Bureau “immediately” seized Tang Song, did he then immediately order Gao to close the exhibition? If the order was given immediately after the gunshots and the arrest, then Gao was most likely there on the spot, but if it was a few minutes later, then Gao might not have been there. Why is Gao’s presence/​absence important? If he was present, then the artist might have disclosed the shooting plot to him in advance. Sadly, other art historians such as Lu Hong, Lu Peng, Lin Xingyu, and Yan Zhou have not paid attention to the issue of Gao’s presence or absence in their art historical narratives of this event. Nonetheless, some other people might have listened to the artist’s talking about the plot in advance. After the exhibition and after the Tiananmen Square crackdown of June 1989, an involved artist, Wen Pulin, escaped from Beijing to Chengdu in late 1989 or early 1990 to avoid his arrest. Wen and I met in Chengdu and had a few chats. According to Wen, Xiao Lu had told him what would happen beforehand and asked him to be the only cameraman to videotape the event of the shooting. Thus, Wen arrived ahead of time on the very spot,e waiting to witness and document the happening of the gunshots. Telling or not telling in advance, and being there or not being there at that very moment, why does it matter? For my rewriting of this event, these issues are related not only to the difference in the curatorial intentions of the exhibition organizers but also to the call for new art and artistic freedom by the Chinese avant-​gardists in the second half of the 1980s.

140  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement As for the authorship of this evental work of shooting, there were certain confusions about what was going on. According to Lu Peng, once the artist had fired the two shots she gave the gun to Tang Song, which is why Tang was arrested immediately (Lu and Yi 1992, 342). Meanwhile, Gao Minglu recounted who provided the handgun: “Xiao declared that the gun she used was in fact borrowed from Li Songsong, a teenage friend of hers, who did have a military family background” (2011, 161). While the issue of authorship concerning Xiao Lu’s installation and the shooting is still debatable in the early 2020s, I have a different perspective on it, which is relevant to the topic and the theme of this book, namely, Western influence and Chinese response. In 1993 I read a journal article by Bruce Parsons (1937–​), an artist and art professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. In the article, Parsons told the story of his direct contact with Xiao Lu and his direct suggestion regarding her Dialogue. Since the article was informative regarding Xiao’s installation and insightful on Chinese avant-​garde art in general, I thought it might be helpful for Chinese artists to look back at their art from a Western point of view. So I translated the article into Chinese and had the translation published in a Nanjing art journal, Jiangsu Pictorial Art Monthly, issue number 7, July 1994. Then, I met Professor Parsons in Montreal and heard his story again in person. According to Parsons, he met Xiao Lu in 1988 when he visited the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou, China, where Xiao was showing her Dialogue in the senior student exhibition. Parsons found her installation fascinating, but something was missing. Parsons observed that the telephone handset between the two booths was off the hook, hanging and dangling towards the floor, inviting gallerygoers to pick it up and listen to it. Thus, in Parsons’s opinion, a sound should be heard when one picked up the handset. However, no sound came from the phone. Hence, Parsons talked to the artist and suggested that she put a tape recording on the phone so that people would hear something when they picked it up. According to Parsons, it was the sound itself that was crucial, not necessarily the message carried by the sound. Xiao Lu did add a sound the following year. But, beyond Parsons’s expectations, the sound was huge, literally and symbolically, and it shocked the whole National Art Gallery and the whole world of Chinese art at that time. One artist, who was also making an unauthorized work of happening and performing in the main hall of the national gallery on the same day, said that, when he heard the gunshots, he instantly realized that someone had created something much bigger and better than what he wanted to do. He realized that no matter how loud, provocative, and outrageous his own performance was to be, everything he had done and plotted to do for that occasion was now in vain, becoming nothing compared to the sound of the gunshots. Since Tang Song was detained right away at the scene and Xiao Lu surrendered herself to the authorities afterwards, they had to play down the possible political significance of this event and explain their intention regarding the shooting. In a co-​signed letter to Gao Minglu, which Gao then made public on February 17, 1989, they stated that their purpose in firing the gunshots was artistic and personal, not political at all. In this regard, Wu Hung, a professor of Chinese art history at the University of Chicago, remarks: Although the artists stated later that this “happening” was meant to reflect on their personal relationship, it incited an intense political interpretation because of the sensitive occasion and the unusual method they employed. … On a more practical level,

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  141 the incident brought tensions among the exhibition organizers and the participating artists to the front. (Hung 2014, 87) In this remark, Wu makes at least two points, curatorial and political. The curatorial difference among the committee members and artists can be represented by the discordance between Gao Minglu and Li Xianting, which I have mentioned already. By contrast, the political interpretation is not discussed in depth. Understandably, Chinese scholars must be mute in regard to the unavoidable political issue, whether they are in China, such as Lu Hong and Lu Peng, or in the West, such as Yan Zhou, Gao Minglu, and Wu Hung. In addition, deliberately or not, by using the two words “artists” and “their” in the first line of the above citation, Wu Hung suggests a dual authorship of the shooting event. Relatedly, the Chinese avant-​garde artists were very political. Almost all of them were familiar with and in agreement with Li Xianting’s call for the politicization of their artworks. In 1986, Li published a short essay about the cause and aim of Chinese avant-​garde art entitled “The Important Matter Is Not Art.” Although very short, this essay is one of the most important critical texts about New Wave Art and the Chinese avant-​garde movement. In this essay, Li Xianting stated in the opening sentence that New Wave Art was not an art movement per se and not a movement of modernist art either, due to its historical and cultural conditions. Instead, New Wave Art ought to be a movement of mind liberation and ideological emancipation, which was not just for individuals but for the entire generation of avant-​garde artists collectively (Li 2013, 128–​129). Although Li was somewhat indirect, the undertone of his essay was clear: New Wave Art should be political and encoded with political messages or statements. Due to this powerful call, the entire generation of Chinese avant-​garde artists gained a sober idea about what kind of artwork they should make, and thus they took Li’s essay as their bible. Almost all the avant-​garde artists of that time knew that it was politics, not art, that mattered. They knew that politics could make their work great, and they also learned how to politicize their works. Indeed, this is why Li Xianting was regarded as the godfather of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. In the early 1990s, the New York Times Magazine published a lengthy feature article about contemporary Chinese art after the avant-​ garde movement and about Li Xianting’s role in developing Chinese art. In the article, the author suggested that Chinese avant-​garde art was politically subversive due to Li’s efforts (Solomon 1993). Politics is not only sensitive but also unpredictable in relation to contemporary Chinese art. Chinese artists, art critics, and committee members of the 1989 exhibition have never talked about Parsons’s suggestion to Xiao Lu. They might not have even heard about his suggestion of making a sound. I am not sure if the artist herself still remembers his suggestion, since she has not mentioned it either. As an individual case, it does not matter if the suggestion inspired the gunshots. However, regarding the collective response from Chinese avant-​garde artists to Western influence, in general, Xiao’s shooting testifies to the critical role Western influence has played in the development and transformation of Chinese art in the late 1980s. It further testifies to the positive response from Chinese avant-​garde artists and their willingness to embrace and localize Western influence with necessary changes, adapting Western ideas for their own needs.

142  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement An Evental Writing and the Experimental Paintings While the above event of Xiao Lu’s work of shooting is theorized in accordance with the subject of this book, i.e., Western influence and Chinese response, a further theoretical discussion of cultural politics must go back to 1985, the beginning of the avant-​garde movement, when a young art critic and art historian, Li Xiaoshan (1957−), published a controversial article declaring the death of the traditional Chinese painting (Li 1985). Since this article caused, or is related to, a crucial change in art-​making, art criticism, and art theory in the following years, it should be regarded as an event. In the thematic setting, this evental article is relevant to the concluding issue of this chapter, the confluence, indicating the final phase of the development of Chinese art in modern times. The thematic and historical relevance of Li’s article is found in its audacious denial of the Chinese art tradition, on the one hand, and its call to modernize traditional-​style Chinese art, on the other. With this call, knowingly or not, the young art critic pointed out the direction of the historical confluence for Chinese art at the end of the twentieth century. Li Xiaoshan started his article with the main idea that the development of traditional-​ style Chinese painting had reached a dead-​end and thus needed innovation for a rebirth. From this point of view, Li recounted the development of Chinese painting from its beginning to the present day and, based on this grande ligne recount, summarized two fundamental problems that were causing the death of traditional painting. First, according to Li, the 2,000-​year-​long Chinese social system was a closed one, and, developed within that system, Chinese art was not open to change and innovation. Thus, the development of Chinese painting saw an improvement in technical methods and skills only, but no conceptual change that would require open-​mindedness. Second, correspondingly, traditional Chinese art theory was primarily about techniques and skills and much less about aesthetic conception. Due to these two problems, Li called for an abandonment of the old theory and a conceptual change. For this purpose, according to Li, artists must not admire old masters but liberate themselves from the confinement of the ancient tradition, both old ideas and old methods. Unfortunately, the modern masters of the twentieth century scarcely offered good samplers in this regard. To make the conceptual change happen, Li had to clarify the obstacles. He listed some mid-​and late twentieth-​century masters of Chinese painting, criticizing their conservativeness in artistic practice and likening them to Don Quixote, the out-​of-​date knight errant in seventeenth-​century Spanish literature. This list included the big names in modern Chinese art, such as Pan Tianshou (1897–​1971), Li Kuchan (1899–​1983), Fu Baoshi (1904–​1965), Li Keran (1907–​1989), Cheng Shifa (1921–​2007), and Huang Zhou (1925–​1997). Although Li acknowledged their contributions to technical renovation, he dismissed their art for its lack of conceptual innovation. Since these artists were generally considered to be the most prominent at that time, Li’s list caused tremendous rage and controversy, as did his negative criticism of traditional art and art theory. Nevertheless, Li listed some other artists as opposite examples due to their experimental ambition, such as Zhu Qizhan (1892–​1996), Liu Haisu, Shi Lu (1919–​1982), and Lin Fengmian, who demonstrated a better sense of modernity. However, according to Li, what these artists did was not enough. With the two lists of masters, Li Xiaoshan remarked that none of them could lead the upcoming change and innovation because what they did primarily was to carry on the ancient tradition, not open up a new world for the future. Then, Li

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  143 concluded his article with a further call for artistic freedom, abandoning the old aesthetics about technical and skills training and pursuing diversity in artistic practice. The controversy over Li’s article is due to the author’s denial of traditional art, save for his denial of the artists on the first list. Interestingly, I made an unexpected discovery when I reread the article for writing this chapter. The article is included in a reader, a kind of textbook for students majoring in art and art history, Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art Criticism: A Reader (Mu 2013). In this collection, the compiler/​editor omitted extensive passages from Li’s article, primarily the passages that caused debate and controversy, including the above two lists of modern masters. I do not think the omission is a result of length-​related considerations. Since the two lists are crucial to my thematic opinion of this chapter, I contacted the author, Li Xiaoshan, and asked him three successive questions with an internal logic. One, did you know beforehand about the compiling of the reader and the removal of those passages from your article? Two, if you knew, did you agree with the removal? Three, if you agreed, why? What were the reasons that made you agree? On the evening of February 24, 2021 (the morning of February 25 in China), Li Xiaoshan contacted me online via WeChat and answered each of the three questions with a definite “No.” He said: First, he did not know of the compiling of the reader; second, should he have known it, he would 100 percent not have agreed with the omission; third, there was no reason to agree with the omission. Since the answers from Li were negative, the questions came back to me. First, why did the compiler of the reader remove the crucial passages from Li’s article? I do not think the omission was entirely down to the compiler’s personal preference. I would speculate that, although the reader was compiled and published about three decades after the article’s first publication, the controversy was still lingering because the cultural conditions had not changed much since then. Or, even if it had changed somewhat, the old cultural policy had been partially restored and the conservative force was again in command about 30 years later. Second, why are the two lists of the modern masters important to my writing of this chapter? If one is familiar with twentieth-​century Chinese art, then one can see that the artists on the two lists are almost all from the mainstream of traditional-​style art. As I described in Chapter 1, there is a sub-​split within each of the two mainstreams. Reading and contemplating the two lists again, one can further see that the artists on the first list mainly belong to the sub-​mainstream of conservative traditional art, whereas those on the second list mostly belong to innovative traditional art. Thinking about the second list, one will also see that most artists on this list are border-​crossing, such as Liu Haisu and Lin Fengmian. They belong to both mainstreams, traditional-​style art and Western-​style art. Thus, a further question arises: What is the relevance of their art to my topic of the great confluence? Within the context of the development of traditional Chinese art, the artists on the second list are relatively and comparatively innovative because they are enthusiastic about Western Modernist art. They break the boundary between Chinese and Western art, converging the two mainstreams in their artistic practice. This is an early sign of the later great confluence. However, at their time, this confluence was only happening at a personal level and was found only in individual practice. Besides, in the first half of the twentieth century, the cultural condition was not yet ready for the confluence, and it was not ready in the 1970s and early 1980s either.

144  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement Li Xiaoshan was sharp. In the mid-​1980s, he saw the timely coming of a new type of art. Although he did not use the word “confluence” and did not even mention the issue of convergence, he suggested a possible future of merging the two mainstreams. At this point, I see two relevances of the Deleuzian notion of the event to Li Xiaoshan’s article and the Chinese avant-​garde art: the “becoming” and the “connections” (Williams 2011, 81–​82). First, the Deleuzian elaboration of the notion of the event, with the idea of becoming, suggests the emergence of a new type of art. Regarding the Chinese avant-​ garde, the new art transcends the division between the two mainstreams. Second, the Deleuzian elaboration of the event, with the idea of connections, suggests the temporal relevance of the past, present, and future. In this regard, Chinese avant-​garde art of the late 1980s is conceptually connected with the new art of the upcoming 1990s and the early twenty-​first century, namely, with the art of the great confluence. Although Li did not name a particular artist in his article as an example of the conceptual innovation he called for, his writing reminded me of the rise of new art. In the mid-​and late 1980s, this new art was represented by the semi-​abstract paintings of Gu Wenda (1955–​) and his later installation works of Chinese words. These works were made with traditional Chinese media, such as ink, brushes, and rice paper. Although Li did not mention Gu Wenda, I believe Gu’s new art exposed the decline and even the death of old traditional-​style painting and explained why Li denied the traditional style and called for conceptual innovation. Traditionally, the art of Chinese painting is centred on the notion of “bimo” (brush and ink), or brushwork. This notion sounds like it is about materials and media, but it is actually about the techniques and skills for using brush and ink for painting. Judging traditional Chinese painting, artists and scholars value the excellency of using brush and ink. In terms of the brush, the quality of the calligraphic line employed in painting is crucial. This means the use of brush lines to draw the shape of images, such as the contour of a figure, the leaves and branches of a tree, the waves on the river surface, or the traces of formation on the surfaces of mountain rocks. Moreover, the quality of brush lines refers to the brushwork itself, such as the pace of the musical movement in drawing a line and the sharpness of a skilful turn of the line –​the so-​called rhythm of the calligraphic line. In terms of the ink, the quality is found in the so-​called “five shades,” referring to the tonal change from the darkest to the lightest in a mixture of ink and water. Importantly, the best is marked by the flawlessness in a harmonious melange of brush line and ink wash. In this sense, the notion of “bimo” in Chinese painting is formalist. However, to the avant-​garde artists, it is not only formalistic or stylistic but also conceptual, being about the aesthetic change from traditional to modern. This change is exemplified in the experimental work of Gu Wenda, who made the change in the two respects of giving up brush linearity in favour of the painterliness of Western-​style art and of regaining brush linearity by reconsidering its cultural significance for traditional-​style art. In Gu’s case, these two eventually lead to the confluence of the two mainstreams. Gu studied traditional Chinese painting at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art in Hangzhou and then studied the same for an MFA degree (1981) at the same academy. However, as a leading artist in the new wave of the avant-​ garde movement, Gu experimented with new painting methods. In his early paintings, he tentatively gave up the ideal of harmony in using brush lines and ink wash and gradually abandoned the use of lines, applying ink wash with water only. Before the 1985 New Wave, he used non-​ calligraphic lines in some semi-​abstract paintings to draw the shapes of images. He drew

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  145 inspiration for this kind of painterliness from Chinese Taoist philosophy and Western Modernist art. After 1985, inspired by the Surrealist Salvador Dali (1904–​1989), Gu reduced the use of brush lines, not to mention calligraphic lines, in his painting of massive semi-​abstract compositions. Eventually, traditional brush lines disappeared from his painting altogether, and only the ink wash with tonal changes remained. In a way, Gu Wenda used ink and water to make chiaroscuro paintings, semi-​abstract first and then pure abstract. Such practice is conceptually subversive. In Gu’s new paintings, the artist denied the basic aesthetics and the value system of traditional Chinese painting and blurred the difference between Chinese art and Western art. However, he used traditional Chinese media and materials, such as those in his painting Universe (1985). Referring to Western formalist art theory, the old Chinese aesthetic notion of brush line versus ink wash is comparable to Heinrich Wölfflin’s (1864–​1945) notion of the binary opposition between linearity and painterliness, further to another binary opposition between the plane and the recession (Wölfflin n.d., 18, 73). In Universe, Gu used Chinese ink in the same way as charcoal is used in Western drawing. Moreover, the artist replaced linearity with painterliness to create a visual sense of spatial recession, depth on a two-​dimensional plane surface. Why did the artist keep using traditional Chinese media while denying traditional Chinese aesthetics and embracing a Western Modernist conception? This is a crucial question, and the possible answers can be found in his integration of Chinese calligraphy and painting in the mid-​1980s. Reading these integral paintings, I feel that the artist had somehow become sceptical of the artistic nature of calligraphy. So, purposefully or not, Gu went in another direction in two senses. One is his rethinking of the aesthetic value of Chinese calligraphy, and the other is his reconsideration of the critical value of Western Modernist art, which is more critical of and less complementary to traditional Chinese art. In the first sense, the sceptical artist gave up the art of calligraphy and adopted a non-​ calligraphic style in writing Chinese characters in his painting. In the painting Front and Back (1985), the artist wrote two characters in the centre of a sheet of paper. The first character, “front,” is at the top and written backwards, like a reversed mirror image. The second character, “back,” is at the bottom and not reversed. As such, the artist proposed an antithetical question: Which is the front and which is the back? Furthermore, the two characters are composed up and down as one character, forming a new, or third, character. Unfortunately, the new character is not readable, since the top one is reversed. Thus, the artist posed further questions about the significance of using characters in painting: Is writing a part of painting? Can words be a type of art? Interestingly, the ink-​wash background is made of the same characters with watery ink in multiple layers of grey shades, framing these questions in a specific context of anti-​traditional culture. In the second sense, the two characters are written in a non-​calligraphic printing style, modern rather than traditional. In the Chinese language, the character “front” could be read as “right” or “correct,” whereas “back” could be “reversed” or “opposite.” I do not think this is mere wordplay. Instead, I consider this to be the artist’s rethinking of the significance of Western Modernism that was used as a weapon to attack the old tradition of Chinese art. Contemplating the opposition between Chinese art and Western art and the opposition between traditional art and modernist art, I believe the artist was trying to figure out, pragmatically, which was right and which was not. To be more philosophical,

146  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement is there a right or wrong, how do we tell right from wrong, and what are the criteria? Moreover, how can one legitimize the criteria, and why do we need such criteria? These questions are paradoxical and seemingly unanswerable. So, do we have to answer these questions, and do we even need to ask them? In the West, the idea of personal uniqueness is promoted, and so is the individuality of artists. Artists like to declare that they are different, special, and unique –​a meaningless cliché. However, to the Chinese avant-​garde artists of the mid-​and late 1980s, anything from the West was practically useful and helpful as a weapon to attack the old rotten traditions. To many artists, the cliché was a genuine and powerful statement of the artist’s personality and purpose in making art. As an artist of this kind, Gu Wenda was also different, special, and unique; he always had an unexpected twist in his art, which attracted many followers for its epiphanic inspiration. Since the mid-​1980s, many avant-​garde artists with a background of training and education in traditional Chinese painting have experimented with installation art. To show their radical rebellion against what they had previously learned, they attacked traditional art in their installation works. For instance, one artist made an installation with a pre-​Columbian-​like totem pole and banners. The pole looked like a road sign, and the banners were like a map with images from Joan Miró’s paintings. Another artist made an installation with banners in front of a store rack. On the banners, the artist printed shamanic masks and old wineshop posters; on the store rack, the artist displayed daily goods. If the first installation promotes Western modern art and the second attacks Chinese tradition, then, to Gu Wenda and other leading avant-​gardists, these works were simplistic because they were mere illustrations of some modernist ideas. Gu Wenda is both critical and radical, always one step ahead of his fellow artists. The next stage in the development of his text art can be seen in his massive installations, which consist of written Chinese words in various styles, sizes, formats, and frames. I believe this artist has a master plan for making these installations. In the mid-​1980s, when the other avant-​garde artists started to embrace Western culture and criticise Chinese traditional culture for its backwardness, Gu initiated a series of works to reconsider the value of Chinese traditional culture, such as the historical importance of Chinese characters and the writing system. In his installation Tranquillity and Soul (1986), Gu made a massive interior scene with works consisting of gigantic characters of calligraphic art written with ink. These written characters were placed on both sides of the interior, with massive red seals in the middle. The seals were usually used to stamp on traditional painting and calligraphy for the artist’s aesthetic or philosophical mottos or to show authentic authorship. On top of the handwritten characters were symbols of cancellation (crossing out) and emphasis (circling). On the right side of this installation, the essential title word “tranquillity” was defaced by a cancellation sign, while an inessential word was emphasized with a circle. Ironically, on the left side of this work, another essential title word, “soul,” was stressed, while an inessential word was crossed out. Does this installation signal a conflict between left and right, and between conservatives and radicals? What is the position or stance of the artist between the two sides? Does the artist have to choose sides? The artist installed the calligraphy and seals as an altarpiece, though not a Buddhist temple altarpiece or a Christian church altarpiece. This installation looks like a studio back wall in a traditional house of a literati artist in ancient China. The artist sits in meditation in front of this installation like a Zen master who does not have to show his stance or choice of sides.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  147 I interviewed Gu Wenda in his Brooklyn studio in New York in the late 1990s and learned that he is interested in the Freudian theory of the unconscious. According to Gu Wenda, when the other avant-​garde artists were busy doing new works, he was quiet and slow, spending time reading Freud and other Western philosophers such as Nietzsche. That might be why his chiaroscuro paintings are embedded with archetypal images from Salvador Dali. However, while his works of ink chiaroscuro depict the universe’s chaos before the biblical creation, his installation works present the effort to find a universal order, if there is one, to reconstruct a utopian world. In a way, the installation of the literati studio presents the artist’s meditation on order, consciously or unconsciously. As for the artist’s plan for art, I speculate a countertrend in his rethinking and re-​ evaluating of the value of traditional Chinese culture, which is shown in his use of old materials and media in his installation works. When other avant-​garde artists were in a frenzy of deconstructing traditional Chinese culture, Gu Wenda took an ironic turn and quietly deconstructed their deconstructions, demonstrating the difference and uniqueness of a leading artist of his generation. But not ironically, seeing the twist in Gu’s works, many fashion-​chasing avant-​garde artists grasped the point and jumped ship to work on similar installation projects. At that point, Gu Wenda left China for the US, stayed away from trendy art, and started his new projects with a new agenda for the coming 1990s, such as his massive installation The United Nations (1992). This project was a decade-​long installation series, using classical-​ style Chinese characters. These characters were no longer written with brush and ink but made with human hairs in different colours, collected from women worldwide, referring to the American melting pot culture. Nonetheless, is Gu Wenda’s experimental work a solution to the crisis pointed out by Li Xiaoshan in his controversial article? I am afraid not. The intricacy of this crisis is found in the paradox of Gu Wenda’s works. The solution is supposed to be found in the process of looking for a solution, and it is the experimental process that makes his works conceptual and significant. In this regard, his continuous experimentation from the mid-​ 1980s and 1990s leads to the great confluence, as it responds to Western modernist and postmodern influences on his work. Conclusion: The Great Confluence as an Evental Fold Since its beginning, the Chinese avant-​garde movement has encountered criticism and attack from conservatives and reformers alike. Of the two, the criticism from the insiders of the avant-​garde movement is worth paying attention to. First, the insiders are primarily artists and art critics. Gu Wenda is one of them, though he is an artist, not an art historian or critic. What is his criticism about? In a word, it is about the blind attack on Chinese cultural tradition by some avant-​gardists. His criticism disclosed the diverse opinions and different ideas of avant-​garde artists. Meanwhile, other avant-​garde artists also saw the same problem of attacking traditional culture and criticized the blind attack. Xu Bing is another example. He has worked with Chinese characters and the writing system in his installation works since the mid-​1980s. However, the conceptual concern of Xu Bing is not directly the crisis of traditional Chinese painting that Li Xiaoshan pointed out, since his experimental work is not brush writing. A print maker, Xu carved thousands of movable woodblock types of Chinese characters for mass printing, similar

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Figure 4.2 Gu Wenda: United Nations: The Babel of the Millennium (1998–​1999, MoMA, SF, courtesy of the artist) 谷文达《联合国-​仟禧年巴比伦塔》

to the Gutenberg printing technology in Europe. Why is this old technology worthwhile? The movable type for printing is one of the ancient Chinese inventions created a thousand years ago by Bi Sheng (c.972–​1051), representing a great achievement of traditional Chinese culture. However, Xu’s critical attitude towards the avant-​ garde attack on Chinese tradition is a mixed one. On the one hand, he values tradition, and the value of the ancient tradition is embedded in his meticulous hard work in carving the woodblock characters. On the other hand, he thoughtfully creates at least two twists. The first is about reading and writing. While Bi Sheng used clay to carve the movable type characters, Xu used woodblock, the old material, not the later metal type. Moreover, while Bi Sheng carved characters to make words and print texts, Xu carved deconstructed characters into ones that are not readable. Thus, the artist poses a question to his viewers: Why these characters? The other twist is about the notion of communication. For this, Xu printed a book of endless volumes with nonsense words and made a work of installation with the unreadable texts. He named the work The Book from the Sky (1988), meaning “a heavenly book” –​of course, sacred books are not readable. It instantly became one of the few phenomenal and monumental works exhibited in the 1989 “China/​Avant-​Garde” exhibition in the National Art Gallery of China. If the answer to the question with the first twist is “for communication,” then there is a further question with the second one: Why communication and how to communicate? In a way, proposing and answering the two questions are the artist’s rhetoric by which he reduces the blind attack to absurdity.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  149 Second, inside the avant-​garde movement, art critics, art historians, and scholars have criticized the fact that some artists were copycats; their works were not created with originality, which is the key to defining Modernist art. Instead, many Chinese avant-​garde artists imitated or copied Western Modernists. A widely accepted comment on Chinese imitation is that within ten years, from 1979 to 1989, the Chinese avant-​garde artists experimented, or repeated, all the Modernist “-​isms” that had occurred in the previous 100 years. This comment tells a fact while also missing the point. The point of Chinese avant-​garde art is not the originality in creating works of art. Instead, the point is its critical sense, critiquing the old conservative tradition of Chinese culture and promoting the Western value that is new to Chinese culture and much needed for social, cultural, and artistic reform. In the meantime, the “critical sense” is also about critical judgement, namely, distinguishing the valuable and the valueless in the old Chinese tradition and in the new Western modern art. Due to their critical nature, the works of Gu Wenda, Xu Bing, and other leading avant-​ garde artists are considered highly valuable, with cultural and cross-​cultural significance. Gu Wenda transcended the binary opposition between brush line and ink wash, bringing Chinese painting into the realm of modernist abstraction. Then, he further transcended the binary opposition of painting and writing, or image versus text (words), bringing Chinese art into the realm of postmodern conceptual art. Xu Bing is another case. In terms of his professional background, he was not trained in traditional painting but in woodblock carving and printing, which can be found in both Chinese and Western art. Thus, it is not difficult to see that Xu is not concerned with the two binary oppositions

Figure 4.3 Xu Bing: The Book from the Sky (1998, Hong Kong Museum of Art, courtesy of the artist) 徐冰《天书》

150  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement but with his own nirvana. He first deconstructed the existing languages and writing systems by subverting them with non-​existing words, then he created a new language with images and texts. After the grand “China/​Avant-​Garde” exhibition, Xu Bing left China for the United States in 1990 and settled in New York City. In New York, the cultural centre of the West, he further deconstructed the English language, turning alphabet-​based words into nonsense marks and making English texts unreadable. In the mid-​1990s, I visited and interviewed Xu in his Brooklyn home studio, where I saw his old heavenly book of printings. As for his new works, in the early 1990s the artist developed his work of printing-​installation into performance with nonsense Chinese and English words; the performer is not the artist but pigs, and the work is A Case Study of Transference (1994), also called Cultural Animal by others. For the performance, the artist shaved two white-​ skin pigs and printed nonsense Chinese words on the body of the female pig and nonsense English words on the male pig. Meanwhile, he also tested the effective time of sexual drugs for the male pig, calculating and scheduling a mating time. Many books were placed on the gallery floor for the performance and used as bedsheets for the pigs. Driven by the drug, the male pig was sexually fanatic and assaulted the female. Thus, the two rampaged the books and then mated. The artist first conducted this performance in Beijing and then in New York. In Beijing, some gallerygoers were outraged: Although the words on the pigs were not readable, why was the rapist printed with Western letters and the raped with Chinese characters? When I interviewed the artist in New York, he was working on a new project about cross-​cultural communication entitled New English Calligraphy (1995). For this project, Xu designed a unique type of calligraphic words. In terms of configuration and shape, this type of words looks like Chinese characters, but when you try to read them, you realize they are not Chinese at all. Since the English text wears a Chinese mask, it first appears unreadable, and one must receive special training in visual recognition beforehand. Xu showed me a newly completed booklet, a thin training guide pamphlet, saying that anyone can read and write the new English words as long as they read through this small guide. The final stage of this project is evental: The artist organized classes in New York and elsewhere, teaching young kids to read and write his new English with brushes, ink, and rice papers, the traditional Chinese materials and media. At this point, Xu Bing seems to have returned to traditional Chinese culture. Indeed, at the end of the 1990s, a part of his Himalaya Project (2000) was to sketch sceneries with words. The artist mailed me a postcard on the eve of the new millennium. Looking at the picture on the card from afar, I see a sketchy image drawn with brush lines and ink depicting a small scene of a pastoral enclosure. Looking closer, however, I see words morphing into sketchy lines. The artist wrote the same Chinese words repeatedly to form brush lines depicting the image of a circled fence. The words are “rocks with green moss on the surface.” Inside the fence enclosure, the grass leaves were drawn with thin brush lines, formed with the repeated Chinese words “small grass, small grass, small grass.” Reading the above works of Xu Bing, I am sure of one thing: The works of the late 1980s led his art to a confluence in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is the artist’s response to the cultural trend of globalization and glocalization. With the above cases of Gu Wenda and Xu Bing, I have offered a narrative about the decisive stage in the development of Chinese art in modern times, which leads to the great confluence. Hence, as a crucial part of my conclusion to this chapter, in line with the three

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Figure 4.4 Xu Bing: A Case Study of Transference (also named Cultural Animal, 1994, courtesy of the artist) 徐冰《一个转换案例的研究》（又名《文化动物》）

or five narrative phases in developing a storyline, I state that the great confluence is the final stage of the Chinese avant-​garde movement. A Chinese scholar of general narratology, Zhao Yiheng, defines the notion of “narrative” with two key elements, people and change: “Change involves people” (Zhao 2013, 8). Since change is the nature of an event, his definition also works for the notion of the narrative event. According to Zhao, eight narrative elements (italicized) are involved in elaborating the definition: A narrator organizes people (characters) and events as signs in a narrative text, thus enabling the reader to perceive the people and events as a meaning-​oriented text with internal temporality. For the topic of this chapter, I will count on this elaborated definition as support for my above narrative centring on the notion of event: I am the narrator who discussed some leading avant-​garde artists (people) and events in my narrative (text) organized in accordance with its evental temporality in case (signs) analyses, which are oriented to encode the thematic meaning of this chapter for the readers of art history. Moreover, in my historical narrative of this chapter, the grand event is the Chinese avant-​ garde movement, which is enfolded in the individual sub-​events and contextualized by its external conditions, namely, the political, ideological, social, and cultural conditions. The grand event (and sub-​events, as well as the narrative elements of who did what and when) plays the role of an event-​text, which works within the historical context of the second half of the 1980s, framed by the specific contextual “open policy” and economic

152  1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement reform of that time. In other words, the grand event (and sub-​events) is the main text that works on the centre stage of the textual space. So, again, what is a text? In literary studies, a literary work is a text; in the study of art, an artwork is a text or visual text. Similarly, in an art historical narrative and narratological study of art history, an art event is a text, or event-​text, central to the art historical narrative and narratological study of art history. So, another question arises within a scholarly setting: Is there a difference between the text and work (literary, visual, or evental)? Roland Barthes distinguished the text from work in seven respects. Among them, the sixth difference places the text in the centre between author and reader (Barthes 1977, 161–​163). This centre stage is no different from the contextualized performative place in my narrative model and the narratological framework of this book. Barthes wrote the essay “From Work to Text” in 1971 when he turned from a structuralist to a post-​structuralist and from a late modern formalist to an early postmodern contextualist. To Barthes, this transition played the role of the personal and intellectual context for his conceptual change from the notion of work to that of text. A decade later, in the heyday of postmodernism, Edward Said (1935–​2003) offered his own opinion and pointed out a key to the relation of text and event, which is contextual, interweaving the social-​historical context of the two. According to Said, “texts are worldly, to some degree that they are events, and, even when they appear to deny it, they are nevertheless a part of the social world, human life, and of course, the historical moments in which they are located and interpreted” (1983, 225). There are mutual echoes between Said’s event-​text and Zhao Yiheng’s elaborated definition of narrative. The Saidian social-​historical context can certainly help a reader understand the notion of event-​text. Rewriting art history, the unfolding process from sub-​events to the grand event is a narrative process. In this process, an individual case of an avant-​garde sub-​event, such as the art of Gu Wenda or Xu Bing, can be taken as an entry point and analysed as a sampler of a specific aspect of the historically enfolded grand event. Based on the above discussions of the sub-​event cases, I will now summarize the grand narrative of the grand event: The significance of the Chinese avant-​garde movement is enfolded conceptually and stylistically with the pursuit of the liberation of the mind and artistic experimentation. As a grand event of modernization in art, this significance is historical, converging the two once-​divided mainstreams of Chinese art for the great confluence, which is a decisive event in the turning point at the end of the avant-​garde movement. References Aristotle. Poetics. 1997. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang. Cobley, Paul. 2014. Narrative. London: Routledge. Conley, Tom. 2011. “Folds and Folding.” In Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts, 2nd ed., edited by Charles J. Stivale, 192–​203. Montreal and Kingston, Ithaca: McGill-​Queen’s University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990a. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 1990b. The Logic of Sense. New York: Columbia University Press.

1985–1989: Unfolding the Events of the Avant-Garde Movement  153 Deleuze, Gilles. 1993. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, Gilles. 2006. Foucault. London and New York: Continuum. Gao Minglu 高明潞等, et al. 1991. Zhongguo Dangdai Meishushi 中国当代美术史 [History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1985–​1986]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House. Gao Minglu. 2011. Total Modernity and the Avant-​Garde in Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hung, Wu. 2014. Contemporary Chinese Art: A History (1970s–​ 2000s). New York and London: Thames and Hudson. Komori, Yoichi. 1996. Reading as an Event. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. (Chinese translation: Wang Yihong, and He Xiaoxing 王奕红、贺晓星. 2015. Zuowei Shijian de Yuedu 作为事件的阅读 [Reading As An Event]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press.) Li Xianting 栗宪庭. 2013. “Zhongyaode Bushi Yishu” 重要的不是艺术 [The Important Matter Is Not Art]. In Ershi Shiji Zhongguo Meishu Piping Mingpian Duben 二十世纪中国美术批评名篇读本 [Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art Criticism: A Reader], edited by Mu Qun, 128–​129. Shanghai, China: People’s Fine Art Publishing House. Li Xiaoshan 李小山. 1985. Dangdai Zhongguohua zhi Wojian 当代中国画之我见 [Contemporary Chinese Painting According to Me]. Jiangsu Pictorial Art Monthly, no. 7. Lin Xingyu 林惺嶽. 2002. Bainian Zhongguo Youhuashi 百年中国油画史 [History of One-​ Hundred-​Year Chinese Oil Paintings]. Taipei: Artists Publishing House. Lu Hong 鲁虹. 2014. Zhongguo Dangdai Yishushi 中国当代艺术史 [Chinese Contemporary Art History 1978–​2008]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2006. Ershishiji Zhongguo Yishushi 20世纪中国艺术史 [A History of Art in 20th-​ Century China]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Lu Peng, and Yi Dan 吕澎、易丹. 1992. Zhongguo Xiandai Yishushi 中国现代艺术史 [A History of China Modern Art 1979–​1989]. Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House. Minor, Vernon Hyde. 1994. Art History’s History. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Mu Qun 牟群, ed. 2013. Ershishiji Zhongguo Meishu Piping Mingpian Duben 二十世纪中国美术批评名篇读本 [Twentieth-​Century Chinese Art Criticism: A Reader]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Art Publishing House. Prince, Gerald, ed. 2003. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. ed. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Ryan, Marie-​Laure. 2007. “Towards a Definition of Narrative.” In The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, edited by David Herman, 22–​35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Said, Edward. 1983. The World, the Text and the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Solomon, Andrew. 1993. “Their Irony, Humor (and Art) Can Save China.” New York Times Magazine, December 19, 1993. www.nyti​mes.com/​1993/​12/​19/​magaz​ine/​their-​irony-​humor-​ and-​art-​can-​save-​china.html. Williams, James. 2011. “Event.” In Gilles Deleuze Key Concepts, edited by Charles Stivale, 80–​90. Montreal, Canada: McGill-​Queens University Press. Wölfflin, Heinrich. n.d. Principles of Art History. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Yi Ying 易英. 2004. Cong Yingxiong Songge dao Pingmin Shijie 从英雄颂歌到平民世界 [From Hero Lauds to the Earthly World: Modern Chinese Art]. Beijing: People’s University Press. Zhang Qiang 张蔷. 1988. Huihua Xinchao 绘画新潮 [New Tide of Painting]. Nanjing: Jiangsu Fine Art Publishing House. Zhao Yiheng 赵毅衡. 2013. Guangyi Xushuxue 广义叙述学 [A General Narratology]. Chengdu: Sichuan University Press. Zhou, Yan. 2020. A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1949–​Present. Singapore: Springer.

5 The 1990s Postmodern Characterization

According to a stereotypical perception, the Chinese cultural mentality is more figural than abstract. Figure painting as an essential aspect of figurative art is indeed viewed as more important by Chinese artists, scholars of art, and the educated public. This chapter discusses Chinese art of the 1990s, chiefly postmodern figure painting, focusing on the figural issue of characterization. This issue is a narrative subject related to facial and bodily depictions, as well as individual personality and collective traits or psyche represented by individual characters or groups of characters. The notion of character is crucial in postmodern and contemporary critical theory. In the narratological framework outlined in the introduction, the notion of character is placed at the centre of the textual space. Due to the openness of the framework, this notion will be approached not only intrinsically but also extrinsically from historical, political, and other contextual perspectives. The narrative notion of character is loaned from literature and defined in contemporary literary study as any entity, individual or collective –​normally human or human-​like –​introduced in a work of narrative fiction. Characters thus exist within storyworlds, and play a role, no matter how minor, in one or more of the states of affairs or events told about in the narrative. Character can be succinctly defined as storyworld participant. (Margolin 2007, 66) This participant acts in the centre stage of the textual space and the storyworld. The above succinct definition offers a standpoint for my discussions of character and characterization. From this point of view, I will consult the character theories developed throughout the twentieth century, namely, the premodern, modern, postmodern, and contemporary theories. Since literature and art share the same narrative function, these theories are applicable to the topic of this chapter. In the art historical narrative, although a character is an individual, it represents collective characteristics, playing a certain role in the visual perception of the world created by artists in an artwork. In this regard, the creator of artistic characters is also a character in the narrative of art history, although art history is nonfictional. Writing an entry on the notion of character for The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Uri Margolin categorizes characters into three types:

DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-6

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  155 Character as literary figure, that is, an artistic product or artifice constructed by an author for some purpose; character as non-​actual but well-​specified individual presumed to exist in some hypothetical, fictional domain –​in other words, character as an individual within a possible world; and character as text-​based construct or mental image in the reader’s mind. (Margolin 2007, 66) Concerning these three types of character, Margolin’s categorization is adaptable for the narrative study of art history as well, should her words “literary,” “author,” and “text-​ based” be replaced by “visual,” “artist,” and “image-​ based,” respectively. As mentioned, adaptability comes from the shared narrative function of literature and visual art. All three types of character exist in visual art and are indeed in the Chinese figurative paintings of the 1990s. The 1990s was crucial for cultural and artistic change in the development of twentieth-​ century Chinese art, and the direct cause of this change was the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The spring of that year saw the rise of an intellectual movement protesting corruption and calling for democracy and political reform, echoing the May Fourth Movement of seventy years before. When the protest spread across the nation and became out of control, the government sent in the military with tanks to the centre of the movement, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, for a crackdown, resulting in bloodshed. The crackdown disillusioned the reformist intellectuals with its stoppage of the Westernization process and economic reformation in China. This incident also ended the modernist avant-​garde art of the 1980s and forced the artists of the 1990s to turn to figurative art, though with less socialist realism and more cynical realism. Nevertheless, Deng Xiaoping, the behind-​the-​scenes leader of China at that time, realized that economic development and modernization should continue. He issued and implemented a reform initiative in 1992 calling for a resumption of economic reform and the accelerated development of the Chinese economy. Within this seemingly confusing and uncertain social and cultural setting, China resumed its open policy, and Chinese art continued embracing Western influence, mainly the influence of postmodern culture. In the West, postmodernism is a general term for the anti-​modernist or non-​modernist cultural trends developed since the 1970s. The Chinese postmodern art of the 1990s is a response to the Tiananmen crackdown and the influence of postmodernism from the West. Undoubtedly, this response is political. Figure Painting and Marxist Theory about Characterization At the beginning of the 1990s, Chinese postmodern art started with old-​fashioned realist art, which had been the archenemy of avant-​ garde art in the previous decade. There are numerous reasons why the Chinese cultural authorities allowed artists to embrace Western postmodernism. One is that the postmodernists wore a premodern mask of realism. For one thing, Chinese artists of the early 1990s had been indoctrinated with realism. For another, the modernist avant-​garde movement came to a stop at the time of its 1989 grand exhibition and the Tiananmen crackdown. In these artistic, cultural, and political circumstances, the Chinese art of the last decade of the twentieth century had every reason to go back to the old realism and use its figural mask as a disguise.

156  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization This is to say that premodern realism reappeared alongside postmodernism in the early 1990s. In fact, realism had never disappeared from Chinese art, though its dominating role had been replaced by modernist avant-​garde art in the previous decade. Although realism was back and dominated the early years of the 1990s, it was no longer the Socialist Realism enforced by the government with a specific political agenda. The realism of the early 1990s is a combination of realism, romanticism, and expressionism alike, and it was showcased by the figure paintings in some important academic exhibitions, such as the “Art Exhibition of the New Generation,” held in the National Museum of History, Beijing, July 1991. A year before, in 1990, certain art critics from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), including Yin Jinan (1958–​), Fan Di’an (1955–​), and others, started organizing an exhibition for some young artists born in the 1960s, chiefly the new faculty members of CAFA. Yin named these artists the “New Generation,” since they were the generation after the avant-​gardists of the previous decade. Moreover, these New Generation artists differ from the previous generation in terms of artistic style, intention, and subject; their paintings realistically depict individual life in actual surroundings, such as in private environs. Since they are mostly faculty members in art academies, they are also labelled the New Academics. Remarking on their style, intention, and subject, Lu Peng, an art historian and critic, makes some insightful, though somewhat negative, observations in his historical account. First, the realist style of these artists is closely associated with the academic skill training they received when they were students. Second, their refined skills have very little clear connection with their intended content, and their works have almost no clear subject or purpose. Third, the characters depicted in their paintings are not characteristic but vague and mediocre (Lu 2000, 68). Nonetheless, due to their academic background and the central place of CAFA in the Chinese art world, these artists became celebrated at that time. Among the New Generation artists, a young couple, Liu Xiaodong (1963–​) and Yu Hong (1966–​), are both outstanding and typical in that they represent with their characters the collective characteristics of this generation. Although Liu purposefully declined to send his works to the exhibition in order to avoid the “New Generation” label, his works are representative of the type of paintings exhibited. Here, the term “type” refers to the keyword “typical” for Liu’s representativeness. Liu’s 1991 snapshot-​ like painting Supper is typically New Generation. This painting depicts a group of young friends chatting at a table in a small restaurant, with one man from the older generation alienated. Although the young people are smiling and looking happy at their gathering, they are also alienated from the outside world just like the alienated man of the older generation. In a way, this work is a live painting like those by Lucian Freud (1922–​2011), and the five young characters in the picture could be modelled on real people, most likely the artist’s friends from CAFA. Two of them in the lower-​left corner are turning back to look at the camera for a snapshot. Their gazes are seemingly connected to the outside world, but, in reality, they are confined within the VIP room of the restaurant. The waiter standing on the right side of the picture functions as a prison guard, preventing the artists from escaping to the outside. Reading this painting and contemplating the term “typical,” I have two considerations. One, this snapshot painting is individual, not only depicting five individual young men and the lonely older man but also the individual occasion of the young people gathering at a dinner table to welcome the father of one of them. Two, this painting is

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  157 collective, representing the psychological state of helplessness and the idle daily life of the young intellectuals after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. According to premodern Marxist art theory, if a character in an artwork is highly individual while also highly representative, representing the collective nature of a specific group of people to which the individual belongs, then the character is “typical.” Similarly, Yu Hong’s painting High Noon, Under the Sun (1991) depicts a group of young women happily chatting in a seemingly abstract setting, with short cast shadows under their feet. The four young ladies in the front wear similar sweaters, pants, and shoes. Their hairstyles are similar too, and they even look alike, though one shows no face and another shows only half of her face. This painting is similar yet different to Liu’s snapshot. The similarity is in the subject of psychological confinement and social alienation. Indicated by their shadows under the sun, these young ladies are gathering in an open place outside, with a strange green wall encircling them and a loop of bright ground surrounding them. They are not connected with the outside world but are watched by the others, whether or not the watchers are in the same loop. The difference is primarily in the brushwork. Yu’s painting looks more finished and less snapshot-​like. Still, it is typically representative of the type of young people, or the young artists, of the New Generation. Under the high-​noon sun, although they look carefree and self-​absorbed, they feel disappointed and helpless, with no idea of the bright future promised by their elite education. In Marxist realist theory, typical characterization is essential to premodern realism and Socialist Realism. This theory is typically exemplified by Friedrich Engels’s (1820–​ 1895) commentary on the characters in the novel City Girl (1887) by Margaret Harkness (1854–​1923), an English writer and socialist activist, and his appraisal of nineteenth-​ century French realist novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–​1850). In April 1888, Engels wrote a letter to Harkness, commenting on her newly published novel: Realism, to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances. Now your characters are typical enough, to the extent that you portray them. But the same cannot be said of the circumstances surrounding them and out of which their action arises. (Engels 1972, 49) As mentioned before, the New Generation artists were born in the 1960s and educated in the 1980s with realist skills training. These artists are familiar with the above realist commentary of Engels. Like these artists, I was born in the same period and read Marxist realist theory during my college years in the early 1980s. Today, four decades later, I can still recite the above quotation of Engels from memory. Now reading and interpreting this commentary again, I will summarize four viewpoints about typical characterization in the terminology of Engels. First, the “truth of detail” denotes two meanings: the truthful description of the details of the characters and the realistic description of truthful details. The truthful description requires skilfulness, and the truthful details need selective judgement to tell which detail is truthful. In Liu’s painting Bright Sunshine (1990), a group of naked young men enjoy sunbathing on a beach while chatting with one another, showing their sunny, smiling faces. The truthful descriptions of the men’s nipples and genitalia are in detail, such as the anatomically accurate depiction of the foreskin of the foremost boy’s genitals, regardless

158  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization of whether the detail is necessary. Then, in his painting Supper, discussed above, the chef and busboy in white in the right corner of the far background are depicted with truthful details. They are essential references for the surroundings, or the “circumstance” in Engels’s terminology, of the confined VIP room, although they are not necessarily the main characters in the restaurant. Second, Engels’s “typical characters” refer to those who are individuals, different from others while also collective, representing the group they belong to, such as the disappointed and helpless young intellectuals of the post-​1989 era. In Supper, these intellectuals are represented by the New Generation artists gathered in the VIP room. Third, the “typical circumstances” refer to the relevant historical, social, and psychological conditions, such as the carefree and self-​absorbed spirit and the helpless feeling of the young intellectuals after the Tiananmen crackdown. Engels criticized Harkness for not being “typical,” because the characters in her fiction are temporally displaced and thus could not represent the proletariat class of their time. Fourth, the typical characters should act in typical circumstances and not be separated from them. The VIP room in the restaurant in Liu’s painting is a typical setting of this kind, which is more concrete and specific. In contrast, the sunny outdoor setting in Yu’s painting is also typical but more abstract and less specific. According to Engels, Balzac offered better examples of typical realism and representative characterization regarding the temporal or historical displacement of characters. On this point, Engels said Balzac “gives us in his Comedie Humaine a most wonderfully realistic history of French ‘society,’ describing, chronicle-​fashion, almost year by year from 1816 to 1848, the ever-​increasing pressure of the rising bourgeoisie upon the society of nobles” (Engels 1972, 49). To Engels, a typical character should be historically situated in its proper place, like the characters in Balzac’s works. Thus, the characters can be specific individuals, on the one hand, and collectively represent the people of their type at that historical time, on the other. As for the characterization in the realist paintings of the New Generation artists, the feeling of helplessness disguised with smiling faces in the post-​1989 historical setting is typically collective, represented by the typical individual characters, such as those in the paintings of Liu and Yu. However, not all scholars think this way. Lu Hong considers that Liu Xiaodong and other artists of the New Generation are more individual and personal, and less collective and representative. According to Lu, these artists do not have the same life experience as the previous generation, such as the avant-​gardists’ direct experience with the Cultural Revolution and the 1985 modernist movement. Thus, the New Generation artists do not necessarily care about the so-​called “sublime” or “grand” narrative in their art. Regarding representativeness, Lu Hong observes that, while the avant-​garde artists of the 1980s represented their generation due to their strong sense of the sublime, the New Generation artists did not represent their generation of the 1990s. Instead, they cared more about their own immediate private experience and thus went beyond objective representation and became more subjective (Lu 2014, 143). At this point, I agree with Lu Hong that Liu is different from the older generation and does not have to pursue the so-​called sublime or grand narrative in his art. However, referring to the four viewpoints in Engels’s discussion of realism, I consider that Liu is a typical realist artist in his own right, representing his own group of New Generation artists, precisely because his art represents the self-​centredness of his generation. In this sense, his art is well-​positioned in the post-​1989 historical, social, and psychological setting.

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  159 In addition to such typical representativeness, Liu’s painting further represents the New Generation’s interest in the old-​fashioned Western realism, such as the figurative snapshot-​like painting of the British artist Lucian Freud and American realist painting in the guise of Neo-​Expressionist art, such as that of Eric Fischl (1948−). This is not only the old fashion of an individual artist or an individual group but also the old tradition of CAFA, which Xu Beihong had established in the early 1950s. Although realist art was long outdated in the West, Xu’s realist curriculum emphasized skills training in life drawing and painting with live models. The Soviet Socialist Realist curriculum reinforced a similar realist training. As a result, the studio works of the students and artists from Liu’s generation resemble each other. Their typical and representative style, such as the realist-​expressionist brushwork of studio studies, is called “student taste,” which has lingered in Liu’s painting. Of course, the artists of the New Generation were no longer students in the early 1990s. Some of them had joined the faculty of CAFA, and their work became mature without “student taste.” However, rethinking the art of that particular group more than 30 years after the “New Generation” exhibition, I believe that their art was not simply realism but a mixture of realism, romanticism, and, to a certain extent, expressionism. Although late twentieth-​century Chinese realism was no longer the old Soviet Socialist Realism, it was still defined and confined by Marxist doctrine, particularly Engels’s “typical” theory about representative characterization. Chinese romanticism was associated with, though different from, Western romanticism due to its expressiveness. In Western art history, the term “romanticism” refers to the pursuit of individual and spiritual freedom in a general sense (“romanticism” with a lower case “r”) and to a specific type of art of the early nineteenth century in a narrow sense (“Romanticism” with an upper case “R”) (Honour 1979, 11–​14). In the narrow sense, later scholars stressed the historical connection of Romanticism to Neoclassicism (Day 2012, 3). However, concerning Chinese art, any discussion of romanticism must be associated with realism due to their differences and similarities. Since the narrative topic of this chapter is character, I will emphasize the realist characterization with romantic sentiment and expressionist brushwork. In this respect, Yu Hong’s Traffic Jam (1990) presents a realist depiction of characters, such as the patient look on the old man’s face as he holds his bicycle, waiting to cross the intersection. Moreover, the artist’s realistic depiction of characters is also demonstrated on the worried face of the little boy. The boy looks forward with no visual communication with his father, who is looking back at him from the front of his tricycle. In the same vein, another of Yu’s paintings, A Popular Work-​Out Exercise (1992), depicts a group of self-​absorbed young women who seem to be enjoying a group work-​out but are actually paying no attention to their teammates. They are individuals in a seemingly connected world with lonely hearts, representing the typical loneliness of the post-​1989 era. Due to the Chinese cultural and intellectual condition of the late twentieth century, realism was persistent and resilient for some “typical” academic artists, mainly those of the New Generation. When other non-​typical realist artists turned away from premodern realism and searched for new directions in the early 1990s, the typical realists made little change. However, Liu is an exception. On the one hand, he continues his realist practice, and, on the other, he indulges in intellectual and conceptual parody and appropriation. He learned these from Western postmodern art, and, in particular, repaints Western old masters with a cunning or funny twist. Later, from the late 1990s to the early twenty-​first

160  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization century, he purposefully dislocates figures from Western masterpieces to contemporary Chinese settings and misplaces Chinese figures in Western settings. The two practices of realist and postmodern art seem different, but, for Liu, they are typical in hitting the same bird with two stones –​making new works and commercializing them. In this sense, such a realist-​postmodern practice portrays the typical character of the New Generation artists, representing the realist direction towards the commercialization of academic art in the 1990s. Postmodern Art and Three Types of Characters In the early 1990s, the new direction of commercializing art is typical of the postmodern-​oriented artists in the Kitsch Art, Cynical Realism, Political Pop, and Super Realist Painting groups alike. These artists are loosely associated with the New Generation in that they mostly studied art at art academies at the same time, receiving similar training in realist art. Some went on to become faculty members teaching studio art at art academies. They belong to the same generation and share similar ideas towards Western influence, chiefly the influence of postmodernism. They enjoyed being regarded as nouveau riche because Western collectors enthusiastically pursued their artworks. In the West, postmodernism differs from modernism in several respects, and the crucial differences are the sense of history and the ways of dealing with relevant issues. While modernists believed in the linear progression of history towards an ideal future in a unified and fixed social setting, postmodernists deconstructed that belief and proposed an opposing historical view. Postmodernists emphasized the ever-​changing historical conditions and history’s aimless and non-​linear progression. Accordingly, when modernists emphasized the centralized hierarchical entirety of art history, postmodernists stressed the decentralized fragmentality and aimless development of art history. Considering the post-​1989 socio-​political and cultural reality in China, the modernist historical view of linear development towards a beautiful and bright future seemed laughable. With such a changing historical landscape, the postmodern historical concept can explain why the ambitious and radical Chinese avant-​garde movement of the 1980s was brought to an end. Meanwhile, it can also explain why the characters in postmodern art of the early 1990s look light-​hearted, like heartless clowns and senseless jokers. Even if the characters in some paintings are portrayed as revolutionary leaders, they look ugly, parodic, and ridiculous. In the West, postmodernism is generally considered anti-​elitist. The shape of a pyramid is a feasible analogy with which to describe the difference between modernist and postmodern art. Looking down at the pyramid from above, one can see fine art, or beaux-​ arts, in the centre of the square and the marginalized art near the four borders of the square. Postmodernists hate the elite modernist art in the centre, calling it politically incorrect, and promote minority art in the square’s periphery, such as women’s art, non-​ white art, queer art, street art, etc. Looking at the same pyramid again from the front as a triangle, one can see the elite high art at the apex and the grassroots low art at its base. While modernists promote high art, postmodernists denounce it and promote low art. In this regard, the case of Chinese postmodernism is distinctive. In the early 1990s, a considerable percentage of the artists at the bottom of the art pyramid in China were new academics with a prestigious educational background and upper-​middle-​class family

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  161 background. However, the characters they depicted and the subjects they dealt with in their works were not necessarily high society but the marginalized lower ones. Even if they worked on grand subjects with heroic characters, they purposefully degraded their subjects and made the characters anti-​heroic or into caricaturized ordinary people. To the postmodern artists in China in the early 1990s, the Western idea of democracy meant to belittle the great heroes of realist art, hence the postmodern characterization of heroes as ordinary people, or even anti-​heroes, in their art. Liu Wei, born in 1965 and graduating from CAFA in 1989, earned the label of scoundrel artist for his portraiture series The Revolutionary Family, which he started a year after graduation. An early work in this series, Dad and Mom (1990), portrays the artist’s parents with ugly images. In this painting, the father in profile wears a solemn military uniform, but the depiction of his face is malevolent, with protruding white eyes and white teeth. The artist depicted his mother, a housewife, in the same way, with inappropriate white eyes and white teeth. While the father looks solemn and angry, the mother appears frightened, with a self-​forced smile upon her face. Discussing this double portrait, an art historian and critic, Yan Zhou, makes an insightful observation that the artist painted “his dad, a military officer, and his mom, all in an unsightly way.” Zhou then continues with a moral description: In a culture where filial piety is one of the most important moral codes, Liu Wei’s disgraced rendering of his parents was derogatory and offensive. In “The Revolutionary Family: Dad and Mom,” both figures were deformed: showing the whites of their extremely small eyes, out-​of-​proportion or displaced noses and mouths with buckteeth, distorted faces as rugged slope, plus mom’s messy hair. (Zhou 2020, 281) In my own personal experience of visual and psychological perception, when I first saw this painting in the early 1990s and similar grotesque figures from the series, I was disgusted by the ugliness of the images. I felt like vomiting. I was also outraged by the indecent images of the artist’s parents. In this regard, I consider Zhou’s observative phrase “distorted faces as rugged slope” accurate in describing the artist’s horrific rendering of his parents’ facial appearance. However, three decades later, when I look at this picture again, my reaction is different. Now, speaking not from a moral point of view but from a historical and metaphorical one, I have three observations about Liu’s portrayal of his parents. First, the artist’s demonization of his parents is anti-​heroic. On a personal level, the great father figure is no longer a hero in the eyes of the son but a disgrace. In the portrait titled Dad in Front of TV (1992) from the same series, the father is supposed to be a family man, enjoying a popular TV show with his family, but he is alone. Although a man and a woman are shown on TV, the artist’s father is not with anyone. His head is depicted much larger than the heads of the couple on the TV screen, occupying almost half of the picture and dominating the whole painting. It is no surprise that the artist’s signature rendering is the same: His father’s face is rendered “as rugged slope.” Second, the anti-​heroic significance of the father figure extends from personal to familial and societal. The son knew his father well; he can depict him with a disrespectful rendering. Although the father figure is a great revolutionary leader and an army general in real life, he is demystified and belittled in his son’s art. In another painting from the same series,

162  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization the artist’s parents are horseback riding side by side, supposedly to look like the heroic images of ancient kings and emperors in history. Unfortunately, the couple, again with rugged faces, are rendered as moronic, square-​headed country pumpkins. Third, when a mystified and then disenchanted hero is no longer regarded as a hero but as ordinary, the social and psychological equality between the highness of the ruling class and the lowness of the ruled class can be constructed. As Mao Zedong once said, if someone had the guts, they could drag the emperor off his horse and take over the throne. In this sense, the artist is courageous enough to downsize his father and demonize the revolutionary ruling party for a possible democratic agenda. With the above three observations, I would say that the father figure in Liu’s The Revolutionary Family series is metaphorical and symbolic, not merely realist. For the artist, perhaps, demonizing his military father, who represents the oppressive leadership, was the only thing he could do with his art in the post-​1989 era. Therefore, I do not think the artist really hates his actual father; rather, he dislikes the father figure in the Freudian sense. With the above considerations, I could also say that the image of Liu’s father figure is not one-​but three-​dimensional. First, the father figure is depicted as a one-​dimensional solemn military officer, a heroic general. However, this figure is not a heroic model for children but a grumpy man, which adds a second dimension of an ugly side to this figure. Finally, beyond the personal and familial levels, this anti-​heroic character embodies a political type, the demonic suppressor, which adds a third dimension to this character. In this political dimension, the father is no longer the artist’s father but a representative father figure of the older generation, the superior Communist cadre who leads the clueless ordinary people. The three dimensions raise a question about Liu’s portraiture: Is this an actual father figure? Reading the images of the father closely, I am convinced that the artist doesn’t hate his father. On the contrary, he loves him. At least, he has great sympathy for his father for being disgusting and foolish. To the readers and viewers of the father image, the question is about truthfulness. This question and its answers connect the premodern realist theory about character with that of modernist theory. As I cited earlier in this chapter, Marxist character theory stresses the “truth of detail” and the “truthful reproduction of typical characters.” In this respect, E. M. Forster (1879–​1970), an early modern British writer and literary theorist, introduced a dichotomic notion of real personality and fictitious personality in history and fiction. According to Forster, the fictional character created by a novelist or an artist is more faithful to life than a real person in history because the fictional character “goes beyond the evidence, and each of us knows from his own experience that there is something beyond the evidence” (Forster 2012, 61). Forster argued that a real person in history hides his or her secrets, whereas a fictional character does not because its creator, the author or artist, knows all the character’s secrets and discloses them in the works. This is to say that a fictional character is self-​evident and that, as Engels pointed out, the character is typical and representative. Thus, the ugly and moronic image of the father figure in Liu’s paintings leads to the modern narrative issue of characterization, the development from a flat character to a round character. Forster discussed this issue in his theoretical treatise Aspects of the Novel (1927) and divided characters into two groups, flat and round. The former is easy to recognize for its unchanging simplicity, or simple characteristics, like the characters in comics or comedies that remain unchanged even if the surrounding environment changes.

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  163 The latter is the opposite, possessing “the profundity and complexity of human mind” (Forster 2012, 68) and ample life experiences, like the characters in serious plays or tragedies. Applying this character division to the Chinese postmodern art of the 1990s, I consider the hilarious characters in Kitsch Art and the pretentious characters in the works of Political Pop as flat, whereas the ugly characters in Cynical Realist art are round. However, this division might be simplistic. Reading Forster again, I discern three types of characters: not only the flat and the round, but one more type in between, the one in process of becoming round. Discussing a character in English literature, Forster remarked that “he would have turned from a flat farmer into a round one” (2012, 71). Although it “would have turned,” Forster saw the potential for change. So, I must revise Forster’s terminology with these three divisions in mind. I will term the three types of characters as one-​dimensional flat characters, two-​dimensional characters turning from flat to round, and three-​dimensional round characters. Rethinking the three types of characters in the Chinese art of the early 1990s, I consider the characters in the paintings of some New Generation artists to be flat, since they are one-​dimensional and superficial. This superficiality is testified by Engels’s “truth of details,” such as the indifferent realistic and objective depiction displayed by the character who is destined to represent a collective characteristic, the so-​called typical character, without his or her own individuality. Rethinking the same issue in the Chinese postmodern art of the mid-​1990s, I consider the characters in the paintings of some artists of Kitsch Art and Political Pop to be in the middle, turning from flat to round, since the characters look superficial but actually are not. These paintings reveal that both the characters and their creators have a mind and heart and that the seemingly flat characters extended, as Forster noted, becoming a globe (2012, 72). Nevertheless, while the images of some New Generation artists look flat and one-​dimensional, the characters in some of Liu Xiaodong’s paintings are closer to the second type. Similar and different, the father figure of Liu Wei also falls into the second type, though it relates more to the third type: the three-​dimensional round character. Regarding the third type, I consider the self-​portraits of Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun to be round. Reading this type of character with Forster’s “visual eye” first, a reader may see the skinhead image of Fang’s self-​portrait and the white-​teeth image of Yue’s self-​portrait as superficial and one dimensional. Then, with Forster’s “emotional eye” (2012, 66), the reader can see another dimension, such as the feeling of helplessness in Liu Xiaodong’s characters and the love-​hate relationship of Liu Wei’s father figure. Of the three dimensions, as Forster observed, the third type “cannot be summed up in a single phrase” (2012, 67). The characteristic of the third type is multiple and complex; it changes according to the constantly changing environment and situation. The Political Dimension in Fang Lijun’s Characterization When the influence of Western critical theory reached China in the early 1980s, a literary scholar from Xiamen University in Fujian, Lin Xingzhai, published an analytical article about characterization, which benefited from Western system theory. The topic and method of Lin’s article drew wide attention from the scholarly world in China. Soon after, applying system theory to character study became fashionable in literary and critical writings. Then, in the mid-​1980s, another literary scholar from the Social Science Institute of China in Beijing, Liu Zaifu, published a series of articles about

164  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization characterization, which blended system theory with structuralist theory. Liu’s articles caused a scholarly sensation, and many young followers started writing about characters using system theory and structuralism. Liu revised his articles and turned them into a full-​ length book, A Combinatorial Character Theory (1986). Then, in the late 1980s, another literary scholar from Fudan University in Shanghai, Fang Ke, published a small book, On Character System (1988), summarizing the character studies from system theory and structuralist viewpoints. Fang considers that a character possesses biological, psychological, and sociological elements; together, the three disclose the character’s race, class, and identity. According to Fang, a character system can be constructed based on the interactions between the characters in a literary work. However, the system is not limited to an individual work but extended to the collective works of a certain writer, a certain group of writers, a certain historical period, and a certain nation (Fang 1988). Among the above character theories of the 1980s, Liu Zaifu’s A Combinatorial Character Theory is important and influential. In his book, Liu offered analytical studies of classical and modern literary works in China and the West and constructed a comprehensive characterization system, naming it a combinatorial character theory. In this binary opposition system, according to Liu, a character consists of two opposing idiosyncratic traits and shows two opposing sides of its internal world, such as a bright side and a dark side. Liu denied the possibility of multiple sides, saying that a possible third side is always accompanied by a fourth side; thus, a character is still binary (1986, 498). Developing his theory, Liu Zaifu takes Forster’s theory as the starting point and promotes the round character. According to Liu, a typical round character has two opposite extremes, whereas a flat character has one. So far, in my discussions of 1990s Chinese postmodern art, my readers have been apprised of Political Pop, which features poster-​like flat characters with a single dimension, such as the works of Wang Guangyi. In contrast, in Liu Wei’s Cynical Realist paintings, the ugly father figure looks one-​ dimensional but is not a simple flat character. It moves from one extreme to another towards a round character. In addition to Engels’s “typical” idea, Liu Zaifu embeds the Marxist dialectics in his theory: The two opposite sides of a character are complementary to and against each other. These two sides are fluid and rotate with each other. This Marxist dialectic sounds like the old Taoist yin-​yang theory in classical Chinese philosophy. In my discussion of Liu Wei’s father figure, I mentioned the love-​hate feeling of the artist towards his father. In his paintings, he projected an ambiguous feeling onto the father figure and thus blurred the borderline between the two sides of his character. Throughout the 1980s, the French theories of structuralism and existentialism, exemplified by Claude Levi-​Strauss (1908–​2009) and Jean-​Paul Sartre (1905–​1980), respectively, were overwhelmingly embraced by Chinese intellectuals. Of the two, structuralism played a vital role in the theoretical system of Liu Zaifu’s combinatorial characterization. Although Liu did not mention any specific structuralist theory or quote any specific structuralist theorist, his main idea about the combinatorial character is fundamentally structuralist. His key concepts about entirety and the relationship between superstructure and deep structure are typically structuralist, not to mention the concept of binary opposition. Since its publication, Liu’s theory has been regarded as the bible for the literary study of the fictional character. Nevertheless, more than 30 years later, I see one crucial problem.

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  165 Although his theory is dynamic, emphasizing the interaction between the two opposing sides of a character, Liu did not point out the mobility of the character’s position between the two extremes. In my opinion, the position of a character between the two extremes is not static but constantly moving back and forth from one side to another. The movement of the position balances the character and makes it dramatic and eventful. In my reading of the characters in Chinese postmodern art, especially the self-​portraits of some of the leading Cynical Realist artists, such as Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun, the dramatization is politically charged with a sinister twist. Fang Lijun, born in 1963, was a classmate of Liu Wei and graduated in the same year, 1989. Like Liu, Fang received a strict classical and realist training in art. Seeing the political aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown during his final days at CAFA, Fang, like his fellow artists, felt helpless and became disillusioned. He knew he could not do anything about the hopeless situation and thus turned to self-​indulgence, mocking himself and the so-​called post-​1989 generation in his art for their cowardness. In this psychological and cultural state, where the character of his generation is concerned, the meeting point of the two opposite extremes has actively moved to the passive and negative side. We shall read his painting Yawn (1990), from his self-​ portrait series with the same title, to discuss this issue. In the middle of the picture, a bald young man is yawning. His shaved head, with an elongated face and a small mouth opened to its maximum, sticks out from the neckline of a casual white T-​shirt. The round neckline of this T-​shirt beneath his chin echoes the rounded outline of his bald head. It also contrasts the straight, angular lines of the collar of his formal white shirt that sticks out from inside the T-​shirt. One pointed collar tip of this formal shirt folds down and the other folds up, adding a little humorous contrast to his round face, which is bathed in the intolerably strong light of the high-​noon sun, leaving the lower two-​thirds of his egg-​shaped face in a large shadow. In my reading of this portrait, the intense contrast is the artist’s rhetorical device for characterization, showing the moving meeting point between the character’s two extremes. Moreover, the contrasts between the bright forehead in the sunlight and the dark cheeks above the white shirts, the seemingly closed eyes beneath his eyebrow ridges and the widely opened small mouth, the dare-​to-​yawn figure in the central front of the picture and the frightened figures in the background, as well as other contrasts, all signify the mobility of the main character’s meeting point. Looking at these contrasts again and making references to some masterpieces in Western art, I see the Mona Lisa-​like hairless eyebrow ridges that cannot cast shadow to shelter his eyes. I also see the frightened figures in the background, which resemble the terrified dog of Alberto Giacometti (1877–​1966), trying to sneak away quietly. These art historical references reinforce the visual power of the above contrasts at an ideological level. Why and what ideology? In 1988, when Fang Lijun was in his senior year at CAFA, he participated in the Chinese modernist avant-​garde movement during its final stage. He even sent works to the grand exhibition “China/​Avant-​Garde” at the national gallery in 1989. However, Fang does not belong to that idealistic 1980s generation. The artists of the previous generation believed in the steady progress of history, society, and art towards a bright future. Although Fang sent his works to that exhibition, he received little response. He was not recognized at that time. Fang once believed in the same ideal as his predecessors and had faith in a bright future, setting the positive extreme of the

166  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization

Figure 5.1 Fang Lijun: Yawn (1992, courtesy of the artist) 方力钧《打哈欠》

characterization in his self-​portrait series. Then, after 1989, the Chinese modernist faith was gone, and the hopeless and helpless postmodern non-​believers arrived on the scene. They mock and belittle themselves, and their art seems to lack purpose. They are therefore known as the Cynical Realist artists in the early 1990s. Their cynicism set the negative extreme of their characterization in art. Fang is typical of this generation with two opposite extremes: out-​of-​date positivity and ongoing negativity. Since the positivity is out of date, we have little difficulty comprehending that his characterization takes a negative tone. Thus, the meeting point between the two extremes in his self-​portrait series has moved ever closer to the negative extreme. Indeed, the process of characterization is dynamic. As already pointed out, the meeting point of the two opposite extremes is constantly moving back and forth, and the character’s location between the two extremes is not fixed. While the ideological difference between the modernist avant-​gardists of the 1980s and the postmodern Cynical Realist artists of the 1990s seems temporal, the character in the specific portrait from the series, the 1990 Yawn, is not temporal. So, how can the moving position of the character at the non-​temporal meeting point be understood? This is an issue of control, demonstrating the artist’s capability of making the character restrained and constrained. Reading the character of Yawn, I see that the eyes look closed but are in fact slightly open with almost unnoticeable seams. These seams disclose the restrained visual perception: watching the sneaky movements of the cowardly escapists behind the main character. The seemingly careless yawn of the main character

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  167 with its wide-​open mouth is also restrained and constrained. Ironically, although the mouth is open to its maximum, the size of the mouth is surprisingly small and out of proportion, showcasing the artist’s control of the characterization process. In this sense, the main character’s daring yawn towards the social and cultural reality post-​1989 is audacious. It is a dramatic contrast to the cowardly people in neat clothes in the background. As far as the clothing is concerned, the two collar tips of the main character constitute another contrast, with one showing orderliness and neatness and the other, casualness and disorder. This contrast enhances the sense of control and restraint, balancing the character between the opposing extremes. Moreover, the sunny, bright-​blue sky offers an external contrast to the shadowed inner world of the background characters, and these characters serve as a foil to the main character in the foreground. Such pictorial and visual control is politically delicate in the post-​1989 years. The yawn is well controlled. As the cover of the New York Times Magazine declared on December 19, 1993, it is “not just a yawn but the howl that could free China.” Reporting on the rise of Cynical Realist art in China in the early 1990s, the journalist Andrew Solomon wrote the feature article for this issue of the New York Times Magazine, entitled “Their Irony, Humor (and Art) Can Save China.” The article offers a political reading of the art of the Cynical Realist group, and the sub-​heading for the part about Fang Lijun is “Purposeful Purposelessness.” Regarding the coverline, I can see that the yawn and howl stand, respectively, at two opposing extremes, and regarding the sub-​heading, the purposefulness and purposelessness also stand at two opposing extremes. Moving between the two extremes in Fang’s paintings, Solomon observed, Fang Lijun paints men without hair caught in disconnected proximity: one is in the middle of an enormous yawn; one grins at nothing; black-​and-​white swimmers float in a blank sea. The characters are always idle, sitting or swimming or walking around with complete purposelessness. Using very sophisticated composition and exquisite technique, Fang depicts an absence of activity that seems hardly worth depicting. The result is often funny, lyrical and very sad, a poignant imaging of what he calls “the absurd, the mundane and the meaningless events of everyday life.” (Solomon 1993) In this observation, Solomon grasped the character’s middle position between two extremes but, like Liu Zaifu, missed the character’s mobility. Nevertheless, while he saw one side of the character, the idleness, he also saw the artist’s other side. This side shows the artist’s active passiveness in the characterization process. Namely, the artist purposefully makes the characters do purposeless things, thereby controlling the characterization process and keeping his characters restrained and constrained. Then, Solomon reaches the point of his thesis: The Cynical Realist movement is not entirely cynical; the idealism of these artists lies in their portraying a cynicism their society would deny. These works are like cries for help, but they are also playful and roguish, pretending humor and insight as empowering defenses. (Solomon 1993)

168  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization Here, the political dimension is extended from an individual artist to an artistic movement and further to a relevant society, exposing that the society could deny their seemingly purposeless idealism hidden in the purposeful roguish play with the art. In a certain sense, I can see that everything was pretentious and meaningfully meaningless after the political crackdown following the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Summarizing the above discussion of Fang Lijun’s characterization, I believe that the skinhead self-​portrait of the yawning artist is “typical,” not only in Engels’s sense of representing a specific type of people but also in the sense of representing almost all the characters in his paintings. Yue Minjun and the Intertextual Characterization Liu Zaifu’s theory about the combinatorial character set the tone for Chinese scholars to develop new ideas about characterization more systematically in the 1990s. Comparably, Zhao Yanqiu, with his A New Theory of Literary Characters (2000) and Poetics of Characterization (2004), also provides a theory for the character study in visual art. The topic of Zhao’s first book is broad, situating the issue of characterization in the framework of a general theory about literature, whereas his second book is more specific, developed from the last chapter of the first one on the mechanism of characterization. In this second book, Zhao deals with the issue of characterization in three aspects, the internal structure of a character, the combinatorial principles for characterization, and the types of combination. Regarding the first aspect, Zhao discerns four structural levels in character construction. The first he labels the linguistic level; at this level, the auditorial, etymological, and semantic elements of the literary language work together to describe a character. He labels the second the verbal iconic level; at this level, the visual perceptuality and sensuous effect of the language work together to construct the character. The third is the figural level, where the integration of the iconic use of language is reached. The fourth is the level of the idea or thought, where the meanings of the character are manifested. Discussing the second aspect, Zhao proposes three principles for creating a combinatorial character. The first is the organic principle, which stresses the connections among the different sides of a character and the interactions among the characters. Discussing this principle, Zhao emphasizes the inseparability of the different sides of a character and the mutual dependence of the characters. The second is the entirety principle, which requires a character to be a full character, not only in its own right but also in actions and events involving others. Moreover, a character system should be an entity in and of itself, putting different sides of a character in order and integrating the system as a whole. The third is the figurative principle, which values the perceptive tangibility in character depiction. Categorizing the ways of combination, Zhao summarizes seven: the juxtaposition or parallel combination, the series connective combination, the progressing combination, the concentrical combination, the extending combination, the binary opposite combination, and the dominating combination. Referring to Zhao’s theory on studying postmodern characters in 1990s Chinese art, specific applicability is crucial. Although I have touched on this issue already, I wish to add one more idea about the relevance of Zhao’s theory to my study, which is related to the internal structure of a character. According to Zhao, a character is constructed

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  169 at four levels: the linguistic, iconic, figural, and ideational (2004, 212, 237). Aptly, in my Semiotics for Art History, I developed a “Semiotic Structure in the Interpretation Framework” (Duan 2019, 231–​234). In the centre of my “structure,” the “code” of image and text consists of four levels: formal, rhetorical, aesthetic, and conceptual. Where the comparability of literary and visual art is concerned, Zhao’s linguistic level and my formal level echo each other, and so do his iconic level and my rhetorical level, his figural and my aesthetic level, and his ideational and my conceptual level. Since my study of characterization in this chapter is relevant to my four-​level semiotic structure, the correspondence and compatibility between Zhao’s four-​level structure and mine support the applicability. Regarding the internal structure, the essential question is how to integrate the four levels. While Zhao proposes seven ways of character combination, I value the constructive function of intertextuality that builds the character structure from the inside out and the outside in. Therefore, when I refer to Zhao’s theory, I will make adaptive revisions for my purpose of analysing characters. Yue Minjun is another important artist in the Cynical Realism group, and his artworks are significant due to their intertextual characterization. Born in 1962, Yue studied studio art at Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang, near Beijing, from where he graduated in 1989, the same year Liu and Fang graduated and the year of the Tiananmen crackdown. Like his fellow artists in the same group, Yue belongs to the 1990s postmodern generation. All the same, he made his own portrait, with the visual rhetoric of hyperbole, as a signature image for political idolization. Just as Fang Lijun does with his bareheaded portraiture, Yue simplifies his own image and exaggerates his wide mouth and two rows of tiny teeth. The rows are hilariously long, stretching his mouth extremely wide, and the teeth are ghostly white, contrasting dramatically with his pinkish face. Although using drastic lighting like an old master of European Baroque art, Yue greatly simplifies the shading of the transitional grey from brightness to darkness and simplifies the colouring and its tonal value. Such a simplification makes the image of his self-​portrait more striking and appealing to the viewers. This simple image in the pinkish self-​portrait appears in almost every painting he has created and multiplies itself in his group portraits, which are politically thematic and narrative. The political dimension of Yue’s characterization is implied in his multiplied self-​image in the paintings he made in the second half of the 1990s, such as Liberty Leading the People (1995). This painting is an appropriation of the 1830 French Romantic painting with the same title by Eugène Delacroix (1798–​1863). However, there are two crucial differences between the appropriation and the original. First, in the Delacroix painting, the artist’s own image appears only once, portrayed as a young gentleman in a black suit and high hat with a rifle in his hands, fighting a battle at a street barricade in Paris. In Yue’s painting, all the figures assume the exact image of the artist himself, including the leading female figure, the goddess of Liberty, and the fallen men. Second, the original fighting spirit of high Romanticism has disappeared entirely from the appropriation. Instead, Yue creates a light-​hearted, playful, and staccato scene in his painting. The scene seems humourless but evokes a degenerated sense of childish play. Considering the despairing feeling of helplessness and hopelessness in the Chinese intellectual world after 1989, it is not difficult to understand why the artist depicts his characters with such a heartless self-​image. This image is meant to replace and equalize the various characters in the original painting of Delacroix and take away Delacroix’s spirit of fighting for freedom

170  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization

Figure 5.2 Yue Minjun: Liberty Leading the People (1995–​1996, collection of Uli Sigg, Switzerland, courtesy of the artist) 岳敏君《自由引导人民》

and the Romantic spirit of “Sturm und Drang.” With this consideration, I observe that what Yue does with his appropriation is more than an appropriation. It is a parody, just as Fang Lijun does, aimed at mocking his generation by mocking himself. Similar to, yet different from, appropriation, parody is also a postmodern approach, which Linda Hutcheon elaborates as ironic quotation, pastiche, appropriation, or intertextuality[, which] is usually considered central to postmodernism, both by its detractors and its defenders. For artists, the postmodern is said to involve a rummaging through the image reserves of the past in such a way as to show the history of the presentations their parody calls to our attention. (Hutcheon 1989, 93) With this elaboration, the historical-​political dimension in Yue’s intertextual parody can be grasped by referencing Delacroix. The absence of the fighting spirit from Yue’s painting is precisely the presence of the hidden politics of his mockery. Yue’s multiplied self-​image that replaced all of Delacroix’s characters in the original painting indicates that the postmodern intertextual parody is politically insightful, mocking the post-​1989 totalitarian oneness, which signifies the departure from the good old times. At this point, I further refer to Hutcheon: “Postmodern parody does not disregard the context of the

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  171 past representations it cites, but uses irony to acknowledge the fact that we are inevitably separated from that past today –​by time and by the subsequent history of those representations” (1989, 94). Along with this political dimension, I can now summarize the internal structure of the character in Yue’s parodic painting by referring to Zhao Yanqiu’s theory. Earlier, I described the artist’s simplification of shading and colouring at a formal level. Such description concerns the artist’s visual language, echoing the auditorial, etymological, and semantic effects at Zhao’s linguistic level. Then, I further observed the pinkish face and white teeth of the artist’s self-​image at a rhetorical level. This observation of the artist’s use of figures of speech corresponds to Zhao’s second level of the verbal icon. At the third level, Zhao considers the figural image of a character to be a combination of verbal icons, forming an autonomous entirety to represent a particular aspect of life. In Yue’s painting with the image of his self-​portrait, this aspect of life is the seemingly funny, silly, and childish human world represented by the figural image. Finally, Yue encodes political messages in characters based on his self-​image. This codification shows the political dimension of Zhao’s “thought” at the fourth ideational level. At this level, the political dimension in Yue’s parodic painting is intertextual, which turns the rhetorical issue into a conceptual one. For this issue, I shall discuss another of Yue’s paintings, Execution (1995), an appropriative parody of paintings by Francisco Goya (1746–​1828), Edouard Manet (1832–​1883), and Pablo Picasso (1881–​1973). To begin this discussion, I will first juxtapose four paintings of the above artists. The first is Goya’s The Third of May 1808 (1814), depicting a bloody scene of execution conducted by the invading French army during Spain’s Peninsula War in the early nineteenth century. In this painting, a group of Napoleonic soldiers in military uniform open fire at a group of Spanish peasants from a short distance away. The central figure of the victims is a simple peasant in a white shirt, whose arms are outstretched in front of an eery lamp light, akin to Jesus on the cross. In this historical painting, Goya monumentalized the inferior poor peasants in front of the superior villain force. The peasants bravely face the firing squad. In contrast, the executioners all lower their heads, avoiding visual contact with the fearless gazes of the condemned. The onlookers, also Spanish peasants, cover their faces with hands or turn their heads away, not wanting to see the brutal massacre. The dead bodies lie on the ground in a pool of red blood, and the warm red colour corresponds to the white shirt and lamp light. The second painting is Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868–​1869), a reversive appropriation of Goya’s above painting. Manet depicted the execution of the French-​imposed emperor by the Mexican Republican Army. Ironically, as a sympathizer of the Republic, Manet made his appropriation a subversive parody, playing down the bloodiness of the execution. While Goya placed a guilty sense of heaviness on the French soldiers, who are absorbed in firing, Manet placed the opposite, the lightness of the execution, on the Republican soldiers, who do not take the firing seriously. In Manet’s painting, the dethroned emperor seems indifferent, and the onlookers watch the execution as if it is a reality show. The third painting is Picasso’s Korea (1951), which depicts a group of soldiers in sci-​fi-​ like shining armour with medieval swords and other weapons, firing at a group of pregnant women and children. The name and date of this painting suggest the Korean War in the early 1950s and the atrocities committed by the American army during this war. The background of the brutal scene is a country landscape, with a meandering river running

172  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization down from the background to the foreground, separating the two groups: the innocent and the soldiers. There are four children on the left side of the river. One hides his head in his pregnant mother’s arms and holds her tightly. Another is a baby who clings to his or her mother’s neck. The third child runs away from the riverbank to his mother, while a younger child plays on the ground without noticing the danger. Picasso once joined the Communist Party, and the political message in this painting is apparent. Due to its “anti-​ American” nature, this painting was once prohibited in South Korea. Nevertheless, the above three paintings are associated with one another intertextually. They were exhibited together at Reina Sofia in Madrid at the beginning of the twenty-​first century to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Picasso’s birth. Now comes the fourth painting by Yue Minjun, Execution. Alluding to Goya, Manet, and Picasso, Yue presents two groups of characters in this intertextual painting, opposing each other as the Western masters did. Four executioners are on the right side of the picture, and four victims are on the left. While the painting is a parody, the artist made a change. He depicts the characters of both groups based on the same image of himself. Thus, they all look the same as in Liberty Leading the People. However, where the issue of intertextuality is concerned, I can see a twist to repainting the Western masters in a Kristevan sense of “intersection” (Kristeva 1980, 66). All the executioners in Yue’s painting are in white, wearing the same casual white T-​shirt and dark khaki trousers, intersecting the dark uniforms of the executioners in the Goya and Manet paintings. Ironically, the four victims are almost naked, wearing only tiny triangular swimming suits, shining like silver, corresponding to the shining armour uniform of Picasso’s executioners. Meanwhile, the swimming suits also make the victims look like sexy showmen in a strip club, posing a serious yet hilarious contrast to the solemn peasants in Goya’s painting. Furthermore, all the four victims in Yue’s painting are laughing, two with hands covering their private parts and one with hands resting leisurely on his waist –​in coherence with the lightness of Manet and in contrast with the Christ-​like peasant of Goya. Regarding the issue of intertextuality, there are more details worth noting. In Manet’s painting, an executioner steps back from the firing squad line to reload his rifle. He is the only one to show his face, though only part of it. In Yue’s painting, an executioner also steps back to reload his rifle, but with no rifle and no ammunition in hand. In fact, all the executioners in this painting are empty-​handed. Another detail is the same stepped-​back executioner turning towards the viewers and exposing a funny cartoon image of a cute erotic pet printed on his white T-​shirt. Speaking of the executioners, Manet repaints Goya’s characters to recodify the political message. In Manet, the soldier reloading ammunition suggests the endless violence, on the one hand, and the unbearable lightness of life, on the other. In the same line of intertextuality, Yue repaints Manet, exposing the playful lightness and meaninglessness of life after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. At this point, the issue of intertextuality leads the reading of Yue’s characterization further to a political dimension. The mood in Goya’s painting is heavy. Goya sets the background as a rural scene at night, creating a terrifying, dark feeling. Manet is the opposite; he is light-​hearted. The background in Manet’s painting is an indifferent stone wall with a cold inhumane façade in bright sunlight. The background in the Picasso painting is a vast country landscape, extending the personal feelings of Goya and Manet to a national and even universal level regarding political and inhumane brutality. Referring to the three forerunners, Yue is political in a disguise of lightness, with a Goya and a Picasso

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  173 within and a Manet without. He sets the imperial red wall of the Forbidden City as the background, which witnessed the Tiananmen crackdown, though the artist purposefully denied this allusion in an interview. Against their respective backgrounds, Goya deifies the victims, Manet reduces the sense of guilt of the Republican executioners to a minimum, Picasso denounces human atrocity, and Yue makes the executioners and victims playmates. In Yue’s painting, both groups share the joy of the playful action and the event of firing without rifles. Indeed, Yue purposefully omitted the depiction of weapons in his painting. The executioners fire without rifles, empty-​ handed, and with smiling faces. The empty-​ handedness gives the artist a free space and a chance to replace the rifles with anything one could imagine, such as musical instruments. As an intertextual repainting, when Manet pulls one soldier away from the firing squad for bullet reloading, Yue does the same, but with a twist. The out-​of-​line executioner holds no rifle and reloads nothing in his empty hands. The absence of a firearm is the punchline of Yue’s intertextual parody. Looking at the executioner’s posture of reloading ammunition in this painting, one finds no difference from the posture of playing music. Thus, one can imagine a beautiful musical instrument in the executioner’s hands. Absent from this painting, the killing machine transforms into a piece of art. In such a scenario, the executioners could play beautiful music and amuse the victims, as if to entertain the cute, sexy pet. In this instance, all the characters have changed their identity from executioners and victims to entertainers and spectators. The two parties interact and make each other’s dreams come true, whatever the dreams are, in the brave new world after 1989. Regarding the image of the characters in Yue’s paintings, as previously mentioned, the artist’s self-​portrait plays a leading role, giving the same image to all the characters, and thus becomes central in his oeuvre. In Zhao’s character theory, this is the fourth of seven ways to construct a combinatorial character: the concentrical character combination. However, concentricity is internal and intrinsic, whereas intertextuality is not. Instead, it is external and contextual, opening the internal character structure to embrace historical and cross-​cultural studies of character. Conversely, in my opinion, intertextuality constructs Zhao’s “internal structure” from the inside out, completing the structure internally and extending it to the outer context externally. The characterization process cannot be complete unless from the two directions, from the inside out and the outside in. Yue Minjun is not the first artist to use his or her self-​image to develop a character and character system in their art, and nor is Fang Lijun. In twentieth-​century Chinese art, Xu Beihong, a realist painter, depicted himself in a supporting role in his historical painting Tian Heng and His Five Hundred Followers (1930). This tradition of using a self-​image in one’s own art also has a long history in the West. In addition to Delacroix, Raphael (1483–​1520) did the same in his The School of Athens (1508–​ 1511), and so did other old masters, such as Rembrandt (1606–​1669) in his The Night Watch (1642). With such external reference to art history, one can see the significance of intertextuality in characterization. Self-​image is not only for portraiture and personal identity but also for thematic and narrative painting with external considerations. In Xu Beihong’s paintings, it bears a historical consideration, and in Delacroix’s, a political one. In Rembrandt’s, the consideration might be artistic and commercial, whereas in Raphael’s, it is intellectual. In Yue Minjun’s paintings, the external consideration is political, and the

174  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization political dimension makes his seemingly light-​hearted paintings serious and conceptual, typical of 1990s Chinese postmodern art. Zhang Xiaogang’s Characters and the Reader’s Identification In the following discussion, the significance of the character comes from the reader, from the reader’s identification with the characters. This reader is integral, and the notion of the integral reader comes from the recent character theories developed in the West. As a pretext for the integral reader’s identification with the characters, this receptive consideration is firstly an ontological issue about the fictionality and actuality of the characters. This issue can be traced back to Plato’s mimic theory about the falsity of representational art in his allegories of the bed and the cave. Within this pretextual framework, then, in the late twentieth century, some scholars in literary and film studies developed theories about the reader’s identification with characters. Among them, Murray Smith, in his well-​received Engaging Characters (1995), proposed a structure of engagement that describes a reader’s identification with the characters at three levels. On this topic, Smith writes: Fictional narrations elicit three levels of imaginative engagement with characters, distinct types of responses normally conflated under the term “identification.” Together, these levels of engagement comprise the “structure of sympathy.” In this system, spectators construct characters (a process I refer to as recognition). Spectators are also provided with visual and aural information more or less congruent with that available to characters, and so are placed in a certain structure of alignment with characters. In addition, spectators evaluate characters on the basis of the values they embody, and hence form more-​or-​less sympathetic or more-​or-​less antipathetic allegiances with them. (Smith 1995, 75) According to Smith, it is the reader that constructs characters. But how can a reader do this? In my practical study of characters in Chinese art, I reconstruct the reader as an integral one, and then I further construct the characters. In other words, I conduct this reconstruction through the integral reader and from the integral reader’s perspective. Since I have discussed the issue of the reader in Chapter 2, in this chapter I will propose the notion of the integral reader for the discussion of characterization. Smith elaborated on the engagement with characters on three levels. A reader’s engagement is the result of his or her own identification with the characters, and the identification is textually constructed at the first level of recognition, when the reader recognizes a certain character as his or her own reflected image to a certain extent. However, this level of perceptual resemblance is general and superficial, whereas the second level of alignment is more specific. With imagination at this level, the reader specifies the recognition by placing him or herself in a situation similar to that of the character. The third level of allegiance is for the reader to establish a sympathetic or unsympathetic connection with the character beyond the first two levels. Smith’s theory of the “structure of sympathy” helps me as a reader to explain the meandering path of my engagement with the characters in the portrait paintings by Zhang Xiaogang (1958–​). To study Zhang’s characters, I divide the development of his art into three broad phases: the non-​realist paintings of the early 1980s, the non-​modernist

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  175 paintings of the late 1980s, and the postmodern paintings of the 1990s. This periodization is somewhat different from that of other scholars, since my purpose differs from theirs. In my periodization, the last phase of the 1990s is the focus of my discussion, while the first two function as the pretext, demonstrating my meandering path to identifying Zhang’s characters in the postmodern period. Speaking of the first phase, I recognize Zhang as a third-​generation artist in the early 1980s. However, he is ten years younger than the other typical third-​generation artists, such as his fellow schoolmates and colleagues Luo Zhongli and He Duoling from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Art. While the third-​generation artists are mostly realists or photorealists in their depiction of characters, Zhang is not. In the early 1980s, he experimented with blending post-​impressionistic colouring and brushwork with early Modernist art in depicting his characters. For instance, he used heavy and strong black lines like Georges Rouault (1871–​1958), though his brush lines and strokes are less coarse and a little more graceful. This kind of non-​realist characteristic is demonstrated in his painting Coming Storm (1981), which depicts a Tibetan farmer couple working in a highland barley field. Zhang’s non-​realist characterization distances him from the other third-​generation artists and relates him to the later modernist artists of the avant-​garde movement. Nevertheless, reading Zhang’s paintings of the early 1980s, although I recognize the Post-​Impressionist and early modernist influences on his construction of characters, I am far from identifying myself with his characters. Instead, I identify Zhang’s characters, such as the Tibetan couple, with the peasants, male and female, in the paintings of Jean-​ François Millet, the Barbizon School realist painter. This identification is not due to a formal or a modernist consideration. Rather, it is a figural consideration, meaning that I see a figural resemblance between Zhang’s Tibetan farmers and Millet’s peasants, such as the postures of those characters in Millet’s paintings Going to Work (1851–​1853), The Gleaners (1857), and The Potato Planters (1861). This figural identification testifies to the meaning of my phrase “meandering path.” Namely, I recognize the characters in Zhang’s early paintings in relation to Millet rather than to myself, whereas in Smith’s theory, it is to the reader. Speaking of the second phase, I do not recognize Zhang as a typical modernist artist or avant-​gardist of the New Wave movement during the second half of the 1980s. Still, I place his paintings from this phase in the time frame of the 1985–​1989 modernist era due to their non-​realist nature. The biblical-​inspired triptych painting Forever Love (1988) is of this kind. In the 1980s, not many people in China had access to Christianity under the government ban on Western religion. Precisely because they were forbidden, biblical stories opened a new window for the artist to say something about his own utopian and dystopian visions with an unbound imagination. On the left panel of Forever Love, three figures are sitting on a small carpet in the foreground with their legs crossed. Among them, the woman reminds me of the nativity scene, as do the baby wrapped in a striped cloth, the goat or sheep, and the white lily. The rest of the picture reminds me of Chinese shamanist rituals and the modern myth of the wasteland of T. S. Eliot (1888–​1965). Although the three figures could be associated with, from right to left, Eve, Buddha, and Jesus, respectively, in terms of the artist’s image depictions, Eve looks like an Indigenous woman from North America, and Jesus resembles the characters of Georges Rouault. The small uprooted tree behind the three figures is dry and devoid of leaves, which could be associated with a post-​Eden scene, i.e.,

176  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization the scene of wasteland in modern times. As for the ideal of forever love, it can be found in the goat’s gaze towards the baby. On the central panel, the artist rearranged the figures. Buddha leaves the scene with a piece of cloth on his waist, accompanied by a modern woman in a silky summer dress. The baby has grown up, becoming a young girl. With the striped fabric tossed behind, she sits on the carpet with her legs crossed, taking over her parents’ place in the previous panel. In the foreground, the goat is gone, but its decapitated head remains on the ground. In the background, three graves are open with four figures lying inside, all facing up. Near the far horizon, the only tree seems to have regained vitality, echoing the grown-​up girl meditating in a Buddhist posture. However, the posture of the girl’s hands is not Buddhist but modern, resembling the pose of The Thinker (1879–​1889) in The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin (1840–​1917). The last panel looks more surrealistic, like the post-​apocalyptic world in paintings by Salvador Dalí (1904–​1989). The central figure in this picture, the grown-​up girl, is no longer sitting and contemplating but standing up on a floating carpet like Botticelli’s Venus on a shell. Behind her, on the top of the uprooted tree, is a bird nest with two lovers wrapped together in the same striped cloth from the first panel. Beside her, the lily branch, as a biblical symbol, has transformed into a blooming tree, though uprooted. In the background, another woman is about to sit down or stand up, and a similar striped cloth is taken off. Far back near the horizon, a long snake is curling and moving. Is this scene a repetition or retelling of the Eden story? If so, where can the forever-​love theme fit in this story, and what is forever love? I cannot answer these questions, and, as a reader, I cannot identify myself with the figures in this triptych. Being unable to answer these questions is a part of the meandering path of my engagement with Zhang’s characters. The artist made similar paintings around the same time, similar in subject matter, depiction of figures, composition, and colouring. He also used a similar technique to wipe the picture surface with oil. When I first saw Zhang’s paintings of this kind in a friend’s private collection in the late 1980s, I had no “sympathy” to recognize the characters or engage with the painting because I had no similar life experience to the one presented in the triptych. Then, the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident drastically changed Zhang’s art. Stopping his non-​realist romanticization of Tibetan rural life and non-​modernist sentimentalization of the biblical and shamanic fantasia, the artist turned to portraiture, a prelude to his creation of the postmodern characters in the next phase. His turn straightened my meandering path towards engaging with his characters. In this transitional period, Zhang painted the portrait Deep Abyss (1989), a partial appropriation of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937). In this painting, the artist placed the large head of a sole character in a dark room, like an object in a still life. The eyes of the character are wide open, seeing itself caged in a dungeon or bunker with a Chinese traditional-​style window on the wall. Although the eyes do not show the Picassoesque shock and fear, they look concerned and worried. A beam of Rembrandtesque light is shed into this dark room from the Chinese window, brightening up a hand pointing at the head like a pistol, not at the temple but at the neck. In my reading, this image refers to the suppressed situation of the post-​1989 era. For one thing, I identify this big-​eyed character with Picasso’s fragmented anti-​war figures or war victims. For another, I see something of that character related to myself. The importance of this portrait in the development of Zhang’s art can be found in its transitional duality. In terms of its conceptualization, it appropriates Picasso’s Guernica.

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  177 In terms of its formalization, it adapts Rembrandt’s dramatic lighting, stylizing flatness and monochrome for his portrait paintings throughout the 1990s. Searching for a new language during this transitional time, Zhang made some paintings that directly represented the massive military tanks in front of Tiananmen and some that indirectly reflected this incident, such as Melancholia (1990). Gradually, with his search and experimentation, the artist found a new language to depict his personalized characters, the form of old family photos. These photo-​like paintings are monochrome images of family members –​parents, siblings, and the artist himself. The new language is also a simplified abstraction in the lighting that puts his characters on a theatrical stage. Zhang’s characters in the paintings of this new phase changed my view and straightened the path of my engagement with them, making me identify myself with his characters. In the 1990s, Zhang Xiaogang gradually gained international recognition as one of China’s most important contemporary artists for his group portrait series Bloodline: Big Family. As mentioned earlier, Zhang does not belong to the realist age of the early 1980s or the modernist age of the late 1980s but to the postmodern age throughout the 1990s. Within this timeframe of Chinese postmodern art, I use the word “recognition” in Smith’s sense of the “structure of sympathy” and align my path of recognition and identification with Zhang’s characters. While I am a reader of Zhang’s art, I am also a writer on his characters. In such a dual process, I am aware that I am not myself per se but an implied reader. The implication

Figure 5.3 Zhang Xiaogang: Bloodline: Big Family 12 (1995, private collection, courtesy of the artist) 张晓刚《血缘：大家庭12号》

178  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization of such an identity is practical: I can assume the role of the artist/​author in the process of identifying his characters. In the meantime, I can also modify and thus reconstruct the reader’s identity for character identification. The question is how to reconstruct this identity in relation to the characters. The answer can be found in the process of reading Zhang’s characters, and the starting point of this process is the “recognition” in Smith’s terminology: “Recognition describes the spectator’s construction of character: the perception of a set of textual elements, in film typically cohering around the image of a body, as an individuated and continuous human agent” (1995, 82). In my reading practice, Smith’s “film” corresponds to the portraiture of Zhang, and “body” to the figures in his portrait paintings. When I read Zhang’s paintings of his first and second phases before I reconstructed the new identity of the reader, the reader was me, and I was the reader. Then, when I read Zhang’s transitional painting Deep Abyss, I realized a difference. Although I was still a reader, I started to identify myself with the character in the painting due to my understanding of the character’s existential condition. Now I am reading another of Zhang’s transitional paintings, which leads me to his paintings of the next phase. With a descriptive reading of this diptych titled Genesis (1992), I am trying to recognize the character in each panel of the diptych painting. The subject matters are the same: male babies, functioning respectively as Smith’s “the image of a body, as an individuated and continuous human agent.” In addition to the babies, the rest corresponds to Smith’s “a set of textual elements,” which connects the two paintings with Zhang’s previous works. In the first painting of the two, the baby reclines in a big wooden chair with a striped cloth underneath, which can be seen in the triptych Forever Love. In front of the baby, a worn-​out old book is open, and a hand points at a certain passage on the right page with its index finger, which is also seen in the earlier transitional painting Deep Abyss, though here the finger no longer signifies a handgun. Once again, a beam of Rembrandtesque light plays a miracle in this painting, shedding a mysterious light spot on the open book and the index finger. I suppose the light comes in from a window on the wall, like the light in Deep Abyss. However, looking at the wall, I do not see a window but framed old black-​and-​white photos of individual and group portraits, mostly family photos. The figures in these photos could be the baby’s parents or grandparents. In this painting, the baby turns his head towards the open book, which looks like the Bible, reminding me of the biblical reference of the triptych Forever Love. The baby’s gaze is directed at the light spot on the page where the finger points. With these connections and references to Zhang’s earlier paintings, and with the suggestion of the title Genesis, I can regard the baby as a character who is the offspring of the people in the photos on the wall. Although these photos are blurred, some are still readable, and I can discern some people in white shirts and the Mao tunic suits worn by the Communist cadres of the 1950s. With this reading, I identify the baby with the artist, who was born into a revolutionary family in the 1950s. This identification puts me, the reader, in a difficult position: I identify the character with the artist, not with me, and I cannot identify myself with the character. This difficulty is the first reason I must reshape the reader’s identity. For this purpose, I quote Smith again: “Recognition does not deny the possibility of development and change, since it is based on the concept of continuity, not unity or identity” (1995, 82). Although Smith deals with the character, I switch his “development and change” to the reader in

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  179 the continuous process of image reading. In addition, I do not paraphrase Smith and adopt his approach mechanically. Instead, I adapt his approach to my reading practice. The subject of the second painting of this diptych is essentially the same, though with some crucial changes. First, the baby is no longer reclining but half-​rising, looking at someone in front of him rather than at the book. Second, the baby is no longer placed in the chair but on top of an old-​fashioned travel suitcase, resembling a big treasure box. Third, the photos on the wall are no longer solely family photos but include others –​the figures in these photos are the early revolutionary leaders in modern China, including Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-​sen, 1866–​1925) of the Nationalist Party and Mao Zedong of the Communist Party. As for the family photos in the second painting, the artist’s parents are in Communist military uniforms just like the other revolutionary comrades in the photos. In my reading of the character, the rising baby indicates the artist’s awakening and the awakening of the Chinese intellectuals of his generation. Meanwhile, the artist and his fellow intellectuals understand that they have the same Communist family background and are brought up as treasures of the revolutionary force. This case is similar to those of the Western-​based artists from the former Soviet Bloc –​well received in the West for their Communist origin and non-​Communist art. As I learned, the artist’s parents once held high-​ranking administrative positions in the Communist government in China. However, they experienced the hardship of political downfall during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Although the artist is from the Communist treasure box, the box could not protect him when his parents lost their social privileges. Realizing this, the artist appeals for political change in his art in the spring of 1989. The appeal is another reason I must reshape the reader, change the reader’s identity, and incorporate it into the artist’s identity. With this change, I can comprehend and interpret the significance of Zhang’s characters in the two paintings by identifying the reader with the characters. Relevant to this change, while Smith offers further discussion of the change of the characters, I consider it applies to the change of the reader, since the reader is “analogical” like the character: “If the characters are really such fragmentary bundles of relations, then some significant mental activity must give rise to our experience of them as continuous wholes” (1995, 83). My experience of reading the characters in the two baby portraits is an uneasy mental activity because I have difficulty assuming the artist’s position in creating the characters while staying within the loop of the two paintings. However, once I integrate the identity of the author/​artist with that of the reader, I find it easier to recognize the characters and interpret the personal and political message encoded in them. The Integral Reader and the Characters in Zhang Xiaogang’s Third-​Phase Art Thus, I reconstruct the integral reader, an integration of myself as a reader who offers a tertiary narrativization, the author/​artist who provides the first-​hand fabula, and the other scholars of art, mainly art historians and critics, who give secondary narrations. Assuming this identity of the integral reader, I can now identify myself with Zhang Xiaogang’s characters from the third phase in his artistic development. This identification occurred at Smith’s alignment level. According to Smith, alignment is a “process by which spectators are placed in relation to characters in terms of access to their actions, and to what they know and feel” (1995, 83). Only in this sense can I identify the character of the young man in Zhang’s painting Mother and Son (1993) from the Bloodline

180  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization series with the artist himself and align the integral reader with the character. Why do I first identify the character with the artist? I met the artist in person in the late 1980s when we lived in the same city of Chengdu, China, and know that the young man in the painting looks like him. While the artist represents himself as an individual in his painting, he also represents the same type of artists of his generation. This identification is supported by the recognition of the mother character who appeared in the photos on the walls of the previous diptych Genesis. With the recognition of the mother, I can see that the baby has grown up and become the artist of these paintings. Then, as the integral reader, I further identify with the character of the young man in the painting Mother and Son, since the integral reader has some traits of the artist. In the above recognition and identification process, the integral reader is “placed in relation to characters” due to the reader’s access to “their actions, and to what they know and feel.” What the integral reader knew is the artist’s revolutionary origin and the challenge he encountered in handling the blood relation with his Communist mother after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Besides, the integral reader also knew that the artist’s mother was aware of the fall of the Garden of Eden and that she was expelled from the Communist garden. The expulsion adds another difficulty for the artist in handling the mother-​and-​son relationship. Referring to Smith, this is the meaning and significance of the term “alignment,” which applies to my integral reader’s identification with the characters in Zhang’s third-​phase paintings. Moreover, I believe that the artist is aware of the possible ideological difficulty with the generation gap between his parents and readers. Thus, in a painting of the same year, Comrades and the Red Baby (1993) from the same series, Bloodline, the artist reminds his readers, including the integral reader, of the red baby from the second painting of Genesis. In the first painting of Genesis, the reclining baby is yellow, and in the second, the rising baby is red, which refers to the red bloodline from the revolutionary leaders in the photos on the dark wall. Then, in the painting Mother and Son, this young man’s face is yellow, and the baby in Comrades and the Red Baby is red, echoing the colour switch of the two babies in Genesis. In a way, the use of such corresponding colours is the artist’s alignment of himself with his characters; in another, this is the artist’s alignment with his readers. In the terminology of Smith’s alignment, the integral reader is identified with the character, and vice versa. At this point, it is crucial to note that the photos on the walls of the two Genesis paintings are black-​and-​white with bleak dark backgrounds. The mother’s image in Mother and Son is gloomy, and the two images of the artist’s father behind the red baby in Comrades and the Red Baby are also depressing. The artist’s conscious use of corresponding colours in depicting his characters is not due to a simple formal consideration alone. In this respect, the colours of yellow, red, and bleak darkness have helped me to recognize the characters and align myself as the integral reader with the characters. In addition, lighting is another formal consideration. With the earlier paintings such as Deep Abyss and Genesis, the artist formalized and stylized the Rembrandtesque lighting with a bright spot. In that way, Zhang makes the spot on his character’s face a signature of his art and a sign of the extension from formal consideration to conceptual consideration, demonstrating the ideological significance of his art. This extended consideration reflects Smith’s third identification of the character: allegiance. Although Smith uses the word “moral,” I will use “conceptual” and “ideological,”

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  181 since Smith’s allegiance is more concerned with class, nationality, age, ethnicity, and gender. In this regard, Smith writes: Allegiance pertains to the moral evaluation of character by the spectator. … Allegiance depends upon the spectator having what she takes to be reliable access to the character’s state of mind, on understanding the context of the character’s action, and having morally evaluated the character on the basis of this knowledge. (Smith 1995, 84) Considering such a moral, conceptual, and ideological extension, and considering the significance of the artist’s formalization and stylization of colouring and lighting, I, as the integral reader, can identify myself with the characters in the paintings of Zhang’s Bloodline and Big Family series. In the meantime, I observe that Zhang’s characters in the two series are alienated, estranged, and surreal, with less or no live personality. In Forster’s terms, they are flat. However, Forster is an early modern theorist, and his theory was based on the characters in premodern realist literature. Conversely, Zhang is non-​ realist and non-​modernist but postmodern. Thus, being flat or round is not an issue for his characters. What he needs is a type, and this type represents not only the artist himself but the intellectuals of his generation. Such typical characters can be seen in the photo-​like painting Brother and Sister (1996) from the Big Family series. In this painting, a teenage brother and sister are photographed side by side, and the portraits of the two are placed diagonally across the picture surface from the lower right to the upper left. The background is a bluish-​grey sky with some thin white clouds floating above. Against this sheer background, the two teens are depicted with bluish-​grey monochrome, except for the pinkish-​grey face of the sister. In terms of modelling and rendering the portraits, this grey monochrome is flattened, and the contrast between dark shadow and bright light is reduced. Such a depiction of the pale image makes the two teenagers’ red ties seem protuberant, emphasizing the Communist red bloodline from their revolutionary parents. Furthermore, the pale pink face of the sister reminds me of the red baby in the artist’s earlier paintings. Needless to say, this bloodline is carried on in the Big Family series. In this series, the artist’s unique signature patch is the continuous use of the same stylized Rembrandtesque light spot on the faces of the characters. However, the contrast between the spot and the pale monochrome face is reduced to a minimum, making the spot almost invisible. The weak light spot on the brother’s face is shed on his cheek near the left corner of the mouth, whereas it is higher on the sister’s face, near the temple, between the left ear and left eye. Is there a significance in the placement of the light spots? My answer is affirmative, and the significance is both conceptual and formalistic. Similarly, in another double portrait of two brothers, Big Family No. 2 (1996) from the same series, the artist paints a black-​and-​white photograph of two identical young brothers in their early twenties. Although they wear Mao tunic suits, their hairstyles are different. One is urban, and the other is rural. The urban brother wears eyeglasses, whereas the rural brother does not. Judging by their formal dress, I see that they are educated revolutionary intellectuals of the 1950s –​the same generation as the artist’s parents. This reading identifies them as the artist’s father and uncle. All the same, there is a pale light spot on the face of each brother, one on the temple and the other on the cheek,

182  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization the same places as the previous brother and sister. However, the two spots are coloured this time, both are pale yellow without a tonal difference. The same yellow spot can also be found in a later photographic painting of four identical sisters, The Educated Youth (1999) from the Big Family series. This is a group portrait of girls who share an exact facial likeness, with the same expression or no expression on their faces. They are photographed in front of a painted landscape in a studio. Judging by the style of their identical white shirts and the painted landscape background, I identify them as mid-​teen schoolgirls of the 1960s, namely, the generation of the Cultural Revolution to which the artist belongs. In this painting, the girls play the role of the same character as the artist’s siblings and may share the same generation gap from their parents. In addition, the essential commonality of the four sisters is marked by the same yellow spots on their faces, which have no lighting source, thus making the picture surreal and ghostlike. At the conceptual level, the spot is the artist’s emphatic sign of enlightenment, indicating his red bloodline from a revolutionary family and that of his artist and intellectual friends. A further signification of this sign is the artist’s understanding of the dividing relation and generation gap between his generation and that of his parents. This dividing gap is caused by the ideological differences between the totalitarian and authoritarian parents and the more Westernized mind of the younger generation who promoted the value of democracy and equality during the Tiananmen crackdown. Meanwhile, the light spot on everyone’s face, both the parents and the children, also indicates their connection, affinity, and love for one another. Lu Peng, an art historian and critic, is a close friend of Zhang Xiaogang. In his book A History of Art in Twentieth-​Century China (2006), Lu considers that, since the artist read a good deal of Western philosophy, such as Jean-​Paul Sartre’s existentialism, what the artist cares about is the thought of eternal life and death (Lu 2006, 924–​925). Lu’s idea could be suggestive, but placing the artist’s light spot in the post-​1989 intellectual context and contemplating the relationship of love and hate between the two generations, I do not think the spot and the generational conflict are irrelevant. The spot is a sign of awareness, and the generational conflict is ideological, caused by the Tiananmen Square incident. In this regard, the spot signifies the relationship between the parents as the oppressors and the children as the oppressed. At the formal level, the use of the spot emphasizes the stylistic uniqueness, which, in my opinion, is developed gradually from the inspiration of Rembrandt. Curiously, no scholars of Chinese art have mentioned Rembrandt, not even the artist himself. According to the artist, the photographic portrait paintings are inspired by his interest in old family photographs. To acquire the photographic lookalike, the artist experimented with different techniques in the early and mid-​1990s and eventually gained what he wanted for the visual effect on the picture surface. Discussing Zhang’s techniques, another art historian and critic, Lu Hong, stresses the influence of the photographic realist paintings of Gerhart Richter (1932–​) (2014, 161). A German Neo-​Expressionist painter, Richter was one of the most celebrated and most imitated Western artists in China in the late 1990s and early twenty-​first century. His immense influence can be seen in the stylistic and technical aspects. Unlike Lu Hong and other scholars, since I assume the identity of the integral reader, I read Zhang’s paintings of family photos from a historical point of view, both the history of Western art and the history of the artist’s personal development in artmaking. From this point of view, I identify the use of light/​colour spots on the faces of the characters with Rembrandt. In my earlier discussion of Zhang’s 1989 painting

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  183 Deep Abyss, I pointed out the connection between the strange lighting on the character’s face and Rembrandt’s use of focused lighting. While Rembrandt stylized his lighting in a realist manner, Zhang made it more abstract and surreal. The above discussion of Zhang Xiaogang’s third-​phase characters at conceptual and formal levels is from the perspective of the integral reader, which is different from the perspective of an ordinary reader. On this topic, Smith remarks, Neither recognition nor alignment nor allegiance entails that the spectator replicate the traits, or experience the thoughts or emotions of a character. Recognition and alignment require only that the spectator understand that these traits and mental states make up the character. With allegiance we go beyond understanding, by evaluating and responding emotionally to the traits and emotions of the characters, in the context of the narrative situation. (Smith 1995, 85) Smith makes a necessary point for the reader’s identification of the character. However, a reader’s empathy is not enough, and a response to the character is a must. For this reason, I reconstruct the integral reader in the process of reading Zhang Xiaogang’s characters. As previously mentioned, the identity of this integral reader is an integration of the identities of the reader, author/​artist, and other scholars of art. In narratological terms, the above interpretations of Zhang’s characters are formed in the tertiary narrativization, based on the first-​hand fabula and with reference to the secondary narration. In this case, Zhang’s paintings play the part of the first-​hand fabula, as do what he has said and written about his art. From the perspective of the integral reader, I see that Zhang continued his photographic paintings of family portraiture throughout the 1990s and after. In a group portrait with the same title, Big Family (2000), the artist depicts four family members, parents and two children. The size of the parents is larger than that of the children, echoing the scale difference in the medieval representation of the holy family. Looking closely, I can see that the image of the son is a repetition of the image of the father, and the only difference is the size. The sameness and difference are seen again in the images of the mother and daughter. In addition, since they are all wearing the same tunic suits, I am sure this photo was taken in the 1960s or early 1970s during the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, the crucial light/​colour spot should not be neglected. In this painting, the spot is no longer yellow but red, no longer invisibly pale but protruding. Why is this so? As I pointed out earlier, although Zhang Xiaogang is a third-​generation artist and was active in the late 1980s, he is neither a realist nor a modernist painter. He belongs to the next generation of postmodern art. However, within the postmodern framework, he does not belong to any specific group. He cannot be grouped. Again, why is this so? In my opinion, the reason he stood out in the 1990s is due to the uniqueness of his characterization, including the use of light/​colour spots. When the other postmodern artists were indulging in cynical realist portraiture or flat caricature, Zhang hid his playfulness and pretended to be seriously cold and dull. This purposeful pretentiousness placed him above his contemporaries. In this way, Zhang turned himself into an absent character in his own art. As a result, when his characters are flat, the absent character is not. Unexpected or not, this kind of out-​of-​place appearance makes his characters profound.

184  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization Conclusion: The Integral Reader and Character Theories The above discussions on the issue of character mostly started with a facial description. So, what is the significance of facial depiction to characterization in art? According to Carl Gustav Jung (1875–​1961), one’s facial features, or countenance, can explain what one does and thinks (1965, 248). Accordingly, an artist’s depiction of an individual’s face can help interpret that individual’s action and expose his or her mind and psyche. At the beginning of this chapter, I mentioned a conventional perception that Chinese cultural mentality is more figural and less abstract. This is probably why figurative painting takes the central place in twentieth-​century Chinese art, not only in premodern realist art and modernist art but also in postmodern and contemporary art. However, since postmodern art is generally considered a lack of originality, I wish to make a point based on the above discussions of postmodern figure paintings. It is about the formalization and stylization in depicting characters that embody originality by way of their abstract inclination. A convincing case supporting this point is Zhang Xiaogang’s use of surreal light/​colour spots on expressionless faces, although I understand that this point is not in accordance with the common ideas about Zhang and the artists of his generation. Banality is a crucial trait of the Chinese postmodern art of the 1990s, indicated by the shallowness of the flat characters. These characters can be found in Pop Art, such as the so-​called Political Pop with appropriated caricatural characters from the propaganda posters of the Cultural Revolution. If there is any significance in these types of pop art, it does not come from the characters but from the juxtaposition of old Chinese political images and new Western commercial images. There is no character in these types of Pop Art in a narratological sense. Another type of banality can be found in the so-​called hyper-​realist figurative paintings of the 1990s, which demonstrate the artists’ sophisticated skills and techniques in depicting human images with subtle details like the images in high-​resolution photographs. Although this kind of image looks real due to its visual virtuosity, it does not show character. The figures in these portrait paintings have no personality; they are objects. No personality, no character. Without character, a human model depicted in a figurative painting is just a piece of still life, the so-​called nature morte in French, literally lifeless. Still, another type of banality can be found in the so-​called Kitsch Art of the 1990s. Earlier in this chapter, I discussed Liu Wei’s portrait paintings and recognized the political, not aesthetic, value of his characters. Liu Wei’s art is worth discussing, but the other Kitsch Art is not. Ironically, although their characters are flat, these types of art are hailed in the international art market. These clever artists learned to monetize their works and please international art buyers. In this chapter, I have outlined the development of the character theories in the four periods of the twentieth century, i.e., premodern, modern, postmodern, and contemporary. In each period, the paradigm of the corresponding theory is built on the relation of the character to the context, author/​artist, text/​image, or the reader, respectively. In the premodern period, Engels’s notion of “typical” characters is a key part of Marxist reflection theory about the relationship between the character and the social context. This paradigmatic relationship was initiated in the late nineteenth century and developed throughout the twentieth century. Then comes the modern period since the early twentieth century. Early in this period, E. M. Forster developed his theory about flat and round characters, a crucial part of the modernist intrinsic theory. According to this

The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization  185 theory, a character is a production of the text. However, a text is a product of the author/​ artist, and so is the textual character. Thus, the paradigmatic relationship of Forster’s theory is twofold, both textually centred and between the character and its author/​artist. The twofold characteristic is true to late twentieth-​century Chinese character theory, developed from structuralism and system theory, with a revision by Marxist reflection theory. In the postmodern period, the development of character theory has shifted to the paradigmatic relationship between the character and the reader. Because of this point of view, postmodern narratologists care more about the fictionality and factuality of the characters and claim that a character is no longer, or not only, constructed by the authorial text but by the reader (Abbott 2008, 134–​135). The contemporary period is another story. In the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-​first century, there has hardly been a new paradigm developed in character theory. According to the three authors of Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies (2019), the contemporary paradigm is chiefly in line with the postmodern relationship between the character and the reader. Of course, some changes and revisions have occurred, but they are largely terminological. For instance, while Smith uses the term “engagement” to discuss the relationship between the reader and the character, Anderson, Moi, and Felski use “identification” to discuss the same (2019, 93, 122). In this chapter, I have used these two terms to discuss the reader-​character relationship, depending on which best fits the specific topic and context. In so doing, I make the two terms serve my purpose of developing a new type of reader, the integral reader. This new reader works with a new paradigm, integrating the relationships between the character and the context, author/​artist, and reader. References Abbott, H. Porter. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, Amanda, Toril Moi, and Rita Felski. 2019. Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Day, Aidan. 2012. Romanticism. London and New York: Routledge. Duan, Lian. 2019. Semiotics for Art History: Reinterpreting the Development of Chinese Landscape Painting. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Engels, Friedrich. 1972. “Letter to Margaret Harkness (April, 1888).” In Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism, edited by Berel Lang and Forrest Williams, 49. New York: David McKay Company Inc. Fang Ke 方柯. 1988. Lun Xingge Xitong 论性格系统 [On Character System]. Beijing: Culture and Arts Publishing House. Forster E.M. 2012. Aspects of the Novel. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. Herman, David, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Honour, Hugh. 1979. Romanticism. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers. Hutcheon, Linda. 1989. The Politics of Postmodernism. London and New York: Routledge. Jung, Carl Gustav. 1965. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books. Kristeva, Julia. 1980. Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. New York: Columbia University Press. Lang, Berel, and Forrest Williams, eds. 1972. Marxism and Art: Writings in Aesthetics and Criticism. New York: David McKay Company Inc.

186  The 1990s: Postmodern Characterization Liu Zaifu 刘再复. 1986. Xingge Zuhelun 性格组合论 [A Combinatorial Character Theory]. Shanghai: Literature and Arts Publishing House. Lu Hong 鲁虹. 2014. Zhongguo Dangdai Yishushi 中国当代艺术史 [Chinese Contemporary Art History 1978–​2008]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2000. Zhongguo Dangdai Yishushi 中国当代艺术史 [90s Art China 1990–​1999]. Changsha: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House. Lu Peng 吕澎. 2006. Ershishiji Zhongguo Yishushi 20世纪中国艺术史 [A History of Art in 20th-​ Century China]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Margolin, Uri. 2007. “Character.” In The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, edited by David Herman, 66–​79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, Murray. 1995. Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Solomon, Andrew. 1993. “Their Irony, Humor (and Art) Can Save China.” New York Times Magazine, December 19, 1993. www.nyti​mes.com/​1993/​12/​19/​magaz​ine/​their-​irony-​humor-​ and-​art-​can-​save-​china.html. Zhao Yanqiu 赵炎秋. 2004. Xingxiang Shixue 形象诗学 [Poetics of Characterization]. Beijing: China Social Science Publishing House. Zhou, Yan. 2020. A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1949–​Present. Singapore: Springer.

6 Towards a Conclusion Conceptual Art through to the 2020s

Concluding this rewriting of the development of Chinese art under Western influence in the twentieth century and responding to the critical notions brought up in the introduction, I will reiterate the issue of “who,” “how,” and “what” from a narratological point of view. Regarding “who” rewrites art history, at the end of the last chapter I proposed a new narrative identity for the writer of the tertiary narrativization and meta-​art history: an integral reader transforming into an integral author. In other words, a tertiary reader assumes the identities of the author of the secondary narration and the artist/​author of the first-​hand fabula. Regarding “how” to rewrite art history, I offered three views through three analogous camera lenses. The first is the wide-​angle lens for a broad view of the subject and the historical thesis of this book: The interaction between Western influence and Chinese response conditioned and shaped the development of Chinese art in the twentieth century. This influence stimulated the division of two mainstreams, Western-​style art and traditional-​style art. The second is the lens for mid-​range views, which further illustrate this thesis: Each of the two mainstreams divided into two sub-​splits, modernist art versus realist art in the first one and innovative art versus conservative art in the second one. These sub-​splits are demonstrated by the works of the four generations of artists in the twentieth century. The third is the telephoto lens for close-​up views in case analyses. In the introduction, I mentioned a four-​step process for reading art and my revision of the process from four to six steps: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, judgement, and theorization. This enriched procedure goes back and forth between close reading and “standing back” –​the method that Northrop Frye used in his Anatomy of Criticism (1968, 140). Going back and forth between the above lenses is my method for the fusion of horizons in a Gadamerian sense (Gadamer 1982, 397). By the same token, going back and forth from the first-​hand fabula to the secondary narration and tertiary narrativization is my method of rewriting art history. Regarding “what” to rewrite in this book, I have discussed the influence and response at four levels: formal, rhetorical, aesthetic, and conceptual. In other words, the influence and the response can be found at all four levels. However, some aspects of the influence and response weigh more at a certain level. As a result, I spent more time discussing the expressionistic brushwork and colouring in early modern Chinese painting at the formal level; abstract art in late modern Chinese painting at the rhetorical and aesthetic levels; and installation and performance art in the late 1980s at the conceptual level.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003381044-7

188  Towards a Conclusion Conceptual art prioritizes ideas and ideologies. In the 1990s, conceptual art dominated Chinese avant-​garde art. In the previous chapter, I discussed the postmodern painting of the 1990s. To conclude the subject and historical thesis of this book with elaborations at the four levels, specifically the conceptual level, I must present further readings of some key artworks by leading conceptual artists of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, mainly their works of installation and performance art. In turn, these further readings will strengthen the narratological thesis of this book. First-​Hand Fabula Speaking from the integral reader’s point of view, the notion of the first-​hand fabula is a relative one. When primary material is collected and used by an art historian, it is first-​hand to that user. However, if the user is not the data collector, then the first-​ hand material could become second-​hand to him or her. This was the case for the well-​ known British anthropologist James G. Frazer (1854–​1941). Frazer’s preliminary work should have been fieldwork, investigating and collecting first-​hand data for a secondary interpretation. Unfortunately, Frazer was not interested in fieldwork. Instead, he was an ardent reader of other field researchers, such as the German mythologist Wilhelm Mannhardt (1831–​1880). Frazer read and used the first-​hand fabula and the secondary narrations of others. He was aware of his narrative identity and had a clear opinion about his position within the three layers of narrative. In the preface to his magnum opus, The Golden Bough (1890), he made a sober statement: Mannhardt set himself systematically to collect, compare, and explain the living superstitions of the peasantry … . By oral inquiry, and by printed questions scattered broadcast over Europe, as well as by ransacking the literature of folklore, he collected a mass of evidence … . His manuscripts are now deposited in the University Library at Berlin, … they should be examined, and … should be given to the world. (Frazer 1981, xi) Frazer’s tertiary rewriting is a part of the “world.” To him, Mannhardt is the collector of the first-​hand fabula and the secondary narrator, whereas Frazer himself is the tertiary user of what Mannhardt left behind –​Frazer is not a field researcher or data collector. My rewriting of the development of Chinese art in the twentieth century is different from Frazer’s work. Although I am a reader of other scholars, I also collect primary data, compile first-​hand fabula, and then write secondary criticism that serves for my tertiary rewriting. At this point, I will elaborate on the definition of the first-​hand fabula once again: It is the narrative of, or a story told by, primary data, including original artworks, information collected directly from the artists and other people involved, and primary documents about artworks, artists, and art events alike. To solidify this notion of the first-​hand fabula, I present a case analysis of the art of Dai Guangyu. This artist is from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, which is also my hometown. Dai and I became friends in 1986 when I started teaching at Sichuan University, where his father was a professor of history. Due to this friendship, I became familiar with his artworks of the late 1980s. Although I left China at the end of 1990, I continued paying attention to his art and even curated an exhibition of his works in a Montreal gallery in 1993. Before that, in 1991, I mailed Dai a black-​and-​white photocopy of Salvador

Towards a Conclusion  189 Dalí’s collage Mao-​Marilyn, or Portrait of Marilyn Monroe as Chairman Mao (1967). It was a standard portrait photograph of Mao, with his face replaced by the face of the Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe. This Dalí work is humorous, intelligent, and telling. Upon receiving it, Dai was amazed by this funny yet serious image. To him, the seriousness is cultural, philosophical, and political. He was fascinated by Dalí’s Photoshop-​like method of collage and went on to make rhetorical and conceptual reuse of this image in his triptych painting-​collage Wall Landscape (1993). The backgrounds of Dai’s three canvases look similar: a red brick wall with graffiti in white. At the top of the first two canvases, the white graffiti reads like messages indicating direction. At the bottom of all three are official propaganda slogans opposing the so-​called “spiritual pollution,” or cultural invasion, from the West. Against this background, Dai painted blue night scenes on the three canvases, with a shadowy silhouette of a naked female raising an arm and waving to the bright moon on each canvas. What is the message of Dai’s triptych? Possible answers could be obtained from secondary narrations. A two-​volume art history book published by Taschen, Art of the 20th Century (2005), gives one answer. Towards the end of volume one, Dai is presented along with other leading postmodern artists in China. In this book, the secondary narration about Wall Landscape reads as follows: Dai Guangyu uses different means to break taboos, because the obscene, as he says, is not permitted despite the ancient and wonderfully beautiful erotic depictions of Chinese art. This is precisely why Dai makes it his theme. In his Wall Landscape –​the title itself is ambiguous –​the artist inserts several overpainted portraits of Chairman Mao into a series of Marilyn Monroe photos. “Two great figures in history merged on a Chinese wall for the purpose of making a public-​relations statement,” explains the artist. No further comments necessary. (Ruhrberg et al. 2005, 398) My reading of this secondary interpretive narration is critical rather than approving. First, the description of Dai’s work is incorrect. The artist did not insert the image of Mao “into a series of Marilyn Monroe photos.” Rather, it is the other way around. The artist inserted the image of Marilyn Monroe into the portrait photo of Mao, and the outline of the Mao portrait frames the image of Monroe. This incorrect description makes me doubt whether the authors of this book read Dai’s work attentively enough. Second, although the Taschen authors quoted the artist on his motivation for making this triptych, they missed a crucial point: the intertextual appropriation. Did the artist tell them about his reuse of Dalí? To answer this question, I need first-​ hand information from the artist directly. On April 2, 2022, I talked with Dai online about this matter. Dai said that when Wall Landscape and another work of his were on display at the Bonn Museum of Modern Art in the 1996 exhibition China, he was not there with his artworks. He was not interviewed by the museum or local media, let alone the authors of the Taschen book. Third, although Dai mentioned the beautiful erotic art in ancient China in his “Artist Statement,” this work is hardly solely erotic, and the artist was not entirely sexually driven in making this work. The image of Mao might be somewhat feminine and thus compatible with the sexy image of Monroe. However, I do not see the obscenity in this picture, not even with the naked

190  Towards a Conclusion silhouette. Rather, I regard the dark shadow of the naked silhouette as a subversive allegory of the spiritual and cultural danger hinted at in the political slogan on the red walls. I consider the intertextual allusion to Dalí in Dai’s Wall Landscape crucial. In the 1990s, due to the influence of Western Pop Art, the power of the images of the cultural and political idols was widely acknowledged by Chinese artists. They understood the communicative and commercial importance of duplicating and multiplying images in artmaking. At that time, Andy Warhol (1928–​1987) was very popular in the Chinese art world. His method of repeating the portrait image of Marilyn Monroe with screen prints was zealously admired and appropriated by Chinese artists. Of course, the government and official media regarded such influence as a part of the “spiritual pollution” from the West. In this context, Dalí and Warhol provide intertextual references to my tertiary narrativization and political interpretation of Dai and his Wall Landscape. “No further comments necessary”? On the contrary, they are necessary. Indeed, image duplication is the subject and event of some of Dai’s performance works, such as Manufacturing the Corporal Print (1997). I first saw photos of this performance, showing the artist lying face up in a deep grave, with a large sheet of white paper beneath him. In my reading, the paper is for painting, and the artist’s body on top of the paper functions as the tools and media, such as brush and ink. Amazed, I then talked to Dai about this performance. According to Dai, he conceptualized this evental performance in

Figure 6.1 Dai Guangyu: Manufacturing the Corporal Print (1997, courtesy of the artist) 戴光郁《制造印痕的行为》

Towards a Conclusion  191 the mid-​1990s and realized it in the high summer of 1997 in a local graveyard near the Shuangliu International Airport, Chengdu. This performance consists of three procedural parts. The first part involves digging a deep grave, which is a tough, physical job. Performing this evental art in the hottest season of the year, above 35˚C in Chengdu, the artist was completely soaked in sweat. The air was humid, the newly exposed earth in the grave was wet, and the artist’s skin was sweaty. All these natural and corporal conditions were in accord with the artist’s plan. Then, the artist placed two layers of large rice paper sheets at the bottom of the grave. Raw rice paper is absorbent and good for obtaining a wet body print. The second part of the procedure is to descend into the grave and lie down on the rice papers at the bottom. Looking at the blurred photos of the artist lying face up in the open grave, I wondered: Were his eyes closed or open? If closed, the performance would be logical, looking like a dead man in the grave. However, with eyes wide open, the performance would be different. Personally, I would prefer that the artist kept his eyes wide open, looking up at the sky from the deep grave. I asked the artist if he had thought about this matter. Dai said that, as planned, he kept his eyes open, pretending to be not a dead man but a living man falling into contemplation about the meaning of life in the underworld. The subversiveness of this work is clear: The usual scenario is that the living contemplate life and death in front of or above the dead. Reading this work, I assumed the two roles of Glaucon and Socrates in Plato’s allegory of the cave. In an imagined scene, I asked the artist questions and obtained answers. Question: Is your shadowy world in the grave representational and thus a false one like the world in the Platonian allegory of the cave? Answer: Not specifically the Platonian world, but the world above the ground without bright sunlight. Question: What about the image of your body print on the absorbent papers? Answer: That was inspired by the Shroud of Turin. This second answer is significant, and it is why the performance was named Manufacturing the Corporal Print. I know that Dai is neither Christian nor a believer in God. Therefore, with this performance, he could question the truth of the representational image on the Turin Shroud. Is there a connection between the corporal print and the painting of the bed in another allegory of Plato? Dai did not go in that direction, and the reference to Plato is mine, not his. However, when I asked him about the connection between his performance and Plato, the artist did not deny it. What about Andy Goldsworthy (1956–​), the British land artist inspired by the Zen spirit? I first learned about the art of Goldsworthy in the early 1990s from the British art journal Modern Painters, and I introduced his work to the Chinese art world through writing reviews for Chinese magazines in the mid-​and late 1990s. Dai read my reviews and certainly knew about Goldsworthy’s art. One of Goldsworthy’s works, the Shadow series (1986), is a performance that involves leaving body prints on land by lying down on snow-​covered ground or lying on the ground in the rain. Dai is very fond of Goldsworthy’s art and Chinese Zen art. However, when I brought up the subject of Goldsworthy, he denied it, saying that he did not know of Goldsworthy’s body print work. In fact, I had not written about that piece of work, which was not well-​known in China in the 1990s, and Dai had no other way of learning about Goldsworthy’s body print. The third part of Dai’s procedure is to backfill the grave. What about the sheets of rice paper with his body print? As an important performance artist of the 1990s, Dai was aware of the importance of the traces left by his performance. Documentary photographs

192  Towards a Conclusion and videos were not enough for him; he also kept the material remains of his works. As for this graveyard performance, the sheets of rice paper were perfect remains, functioning as a vehicle for his body print or shroud. Yet there is no way to keep the trace of his body print, since the printed image on the paper is made with moisture, not ink or colour. Not surprisingly, the last step of his performance involved Dai burying the paper with his body print at the bottom of the grave, not wanting to keep a material trace of his shroud. Is this to bury the Platonic untruthful image of representation? As Plato said, the representational image is thrice removed from the truth (2000, 255). In my interpretation, Dai’s backfilling of the grave with the paper still in it, thus burying the image of his body print, was to send Plato back to history and make the message purposefully ambiguous and ironic. In this sense, the work is critically and theoretically thoughtful. With the first-​hand fabula collected directly from the artist and in opposition to the Taschen secondary narration, I connected Dai’s triptych painting and graveyard performance by intertextually referring to Plato. Thus, my interpretive reading of the two works becomes a tertiary narrativization. Since propaganda is politically representative and representational, like the shadow image on Plato’s cave wall, both Wall Landscape and Manufacturing the Corporal Print are the artist’s evental response to Plato. Purposefully or not, the erotic denotation in the first work and the biblical connotation in the second are respective disguises at the levels of visual form and conceptual reference. With an intertextual reading of the two works, I would say that the artist responded to the Platonic notion of representation. Is the above reading far-​fetched? No, it is not; it is logical and well-​supported. In the art of Dai Guangyu, sex and death are just visual signifiers, whereas politics and aesthetics are the signified. Based on the first-​hand data I collected from the artist, I have written critical reviews for art journals and the catalogues of his exhibitions. These first-​hand fabula and secondary narrations constitute the base in support of my tertiary narrativization. Integrating these three layers, I rewrote Taschen’s story about this artist and his art. Secondary Narration The notion of secondary narration refers to the stories told by art historians, art critics, scholars of art, and other relevant writers on art. These secondary stories are based on or about the first-​hand fabula. Most secondary narrations about 1990s Chinese art stress the importance of performance art. In addition to general surveys, two books that focus exclusively on performance art are worth discussing due to their opposing opinions and different views: Duan Jun’s (1982–​) Performance Art in Beijing East Village in the 1990s (2016), and Chen Lusheng’s (1956–​) In the Name of “Art” (2002). Duan’s monograph is an approval of 1990s performance art. According to the author, the significance of East Village performance art is that the artists formed one of the decade’s two major avant-​garde forces in China. The other was the Cynical Realist painters gathered in the Yuanmingyuan village in northwest Beijing, which I discussed in the previous chapter. In the early 1990s, as described by the author, East Village was an underdeveloped, dirty, shabby rural village called Dashanzhuang (Big Mountain Villa), located in northeast Beijing, on the present-​day Third Ring Road. The villagers were poor peasants. Due to the low cost of living in the village and its short distance to the centre of a modern cultural metropolis, some avant-​garde artists moved there at the end

Towards a Conclusion  193 of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, mostly rebellious performance artists. They had heard about an artist colony in New York City called the East Village. Encouraged, they changed the name of their colony to Beijing East Village, despite strong resistance from the local villagers. Duan is one of the few pioneer scholars working on Beijing East Village performance art. His secondary narration is based on his collection of first-​hand information directly from the village artists. In the postscript to his book, the author stresses his objectivity in describing the East Village environment and interpreting the works of performance art. As a reader of Duan’s secondary narration, I agree with his self-​conscious objectivity in writing the book. At the same time, I also see his repetitiveness in telling the East Village story and his over-​ objectiveness in interpreting the artists’ performance works. With regard to Duan’s repetitiveness, the author tells the story of artist Ma Liuming in almost every chapter. I would speculate that such repetition might be a narrative technique of putting all the stories in line. Someone else who appears in every chapter is the photographer Rong Rong (1968–​), a documentary artist of the performance art in the village. Throughout Duan’s book, Rong is not only a long-​term eyewitness of the rise and fall of the East Village art but also a participant in the performances, linking all the artists to his photographic documentary. As for the over-​objectivity, although the author states that subjectivity is unavoidable in interpreting art, he tries his best to be objective. However, while objective description is necessary, objective interpretation is not. In my opinion, interpretation is mostly subjective, since reading art is primarily a personal act. A telling case in this regard is the author’s interpretation of the group performance To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain. In the first chapter, Duan gives an objective description of this work, including basic information on the five or six Ws. Who: the names of the ten artists, including two females; what: the ten artists, all naked, made a human pyramid; when: May 11, 1995; where: an unnamed hilltop on the outskirts of Beijing; how: with their naked bodies stacked on top of one another; why: to be interpreted. To maintain his objectivity in interpretation, the author quotes from a journalist’s interview with the artists involved in the performance. In this interview, artist Zhang Huan said that the “why” was to declare the unity of the village artists and the harmony between humans and nature. Another artist, Cang Xin, disagreed, saying that the work was meaningless and dull. Artist Zuoxiao Zuzhou said it was meaningful, though he did not specify the meaning (Duan 2016, 42). In Chapter Three, Duan presents two kinds of objective interpretation, one general and the other specific, involving the artists’ individual opinions. The general interpretation is a consensus that the work embodied ancient Chinese philosophy about the conflict and harmony between humans and nature and conveyed inter-​human relations. Then, in Chapter Four, the author avoids revealing his own interpretation but unexpectedly gives a refrained judgement that is half objective and half subjective: “This performance is truly a massive collective work, it is generally considered the peak of the East Village art” (Duan 2016, 129). Nonetheless, the final chapter is relatively subjective. It is not only about the work of the human pyramid but also includes the author’s interpretive evaluation of the East Village art in general. Although the author tried his best to be objective, he praised the dissident performance art; thus, his book could not be published in China because of his political leanings. Instead, the book was published in Hong Kong, which Beijing could not directly control.

194  Towards a Conclusion Duan’s over-​objectivity is not only a rhetorical device but also a critical strategy aimed at underlining the heroism of performance art without disclosing his political stance. In my opinion, this strategy is thoughtful and workable. While Duan’s presentation of East Village performance art is over-​objective, Chen Lusheng’s In the Name of “Art” is the opposite; it is a subjective disapproval of performance art. Chen’s book is a collection of seven critical reviews written between 2000 and 2002. It is not a standard collection but a unique secondary narration with supporting appendices of massive quantities of first-​hand materials and selected secondary critical writings by other art critics, journalists, and artists. Of the seven essays, the first is the most important, which takes up more than one-​third of the entire book and gives the book its title. Meanwhile, Chen’s subjectivity is revealed by the subtitle of this first essay, The End of Chinese Performance Art, which can be read as “Chinese performance art has nowhere to go.” Chen’s subjective judgement is moral and aimed at opposing extreme performance art, which he describes as “alerting the killing of animals by performing animal killing, calling for protecting the environment by performing environment pollution, and protesting against violence by performing violence” (2002, 9). Chen considers such extreme performances illogical and reduces them to a rhetorical absurdity: “Following such an ill-​logic, one can open fire for the purpose of anti-​war, can make a human-​bomb for the purpose of anti-​terrorism, and kill people for the purpose of anti-​murdering. If this is the logic, then 9–​11 could be a shocking work of performance art.” He concludes, “This logic is terrible” (2002, 9). Excluding extreme performance from art, Chen questions the new concept of art and the definition of performance art: How can “performance” be “art”? What is the basic requirement for performance to be “art”? Whose performance can be “art”? If any act (performance) in daily life can be “art,” then what is the meaning of art and what is the value of the existence of “art” (2002, 13)? Although Chen’s moral judgement reveals his personal opinion, in a way it also represents the official opinion of the Chinese government. A versatile personality, Chen is an artist of traditional Chinese painting, an art historian of classical Chinese art, an art critic of contemporary art, and a pioneer advocating art online. As for his professional job, Chen worked as a senior editor for the government-​run People’s Fine Art Publishing House from the mid-​1980s throughout the 1990s and as a senior researcher at the National Art Gallery of China in the early 2000s. Then, Chen was appointed vice-​director of the National Museum of China from 2010 to 2016. Due to his official ideology, when he heard that the municipal government of the city of Xi’an had issued an order forbidding bodypainting, a certain type of performance art, he breathed a sigh of relief and hailed in response: “Watching and criticizing the falsity, evildoing, and ugliness in art demonstrate the moral benevolence of the intellectuals, which is a part of the literati tradition of Chinese culture” (Chen 2016, 14). In the West, body theories from Descartes to Freud paid attention to the division of body and mind and stressed the importance of self or ego in relation to the body. However, postmodern body theories from Foucault to Judith Butler (1956–​) shifted the attention to the body as a discourse vehicle for power struggle and gender politics. For the 1990s Chinese performance artists, the Western body theories were just theories, not practically relevant. For instance, although Butler’s body theory is both feminist and LGBTQ-​positive and Ma Liuming’s works are cross-​dressed, Ma himself is

Towards a Conclusion  195 not gay. Cross-​dressing is Ma’s figure of speech at the rhetorical level, not his political or ideological advocacy at a conceptual level. Although Ma is the most-​discussed artist throughout Duan’s book, Duan did not refer to or even mention Butler, and neither did Ma himself. Instead, the Buddhist body theory about contemplation and meditation is relevant, as some of Ma’s works are meditative and body related, connecting the internal self and the external world. Although Duan Jun did not outline his theory, he elaborated his method of being objective. Similarly, although Chen Lusheng did not outline his theory, he emphasized his subjective moral value in judging performance art. Tertiary Narrativization Tertiary narrativization is the story told by the reader of the first-​hand fabula and the secondary narration; it is based on, and about, the first-​hand fabula and is a response to, and revision of, the secondary narration; thus, it is a rewritten art history. Telling the tertiary story of art, the reader turns him or herself into an author. Not every reader can become an author, only a few professionals, such as art historians, critics, and scholars. This is the case with my tertiary narrativization and the writing of this book. Still, how to tell the tertiary story? There are no absolute rules or methods. Although this entire book is tertiary, I will present three succinct case analyses of the artworks of the Gao Brothers (Gao Zhen [1956–​] and Gao Qiang [1962–​]), Cai Guo-​Qiang (1957–​), and Ai Weiwei (1957–​) to illustrate this notion. The Gao Brothers became known for their avant-​garde artworks in the late 1980s. They participated in the 1989 grand exhibition “Avant-​Garde/​China” in the national gallery in Beijing with a soft sculpture installation, Midnight Mass (1989), exposing sexual organs in a surrealist manner. Then, the brothers became well known in China throughout the 1990s for their politically provocative and critically controversial works. The two continued to challenge the Chinese cultural authorities with their artworks in the first two decades of the twenty-​first century. Among these works, the performance art series Hugs (2000–​) is telling. The work from this series that first impressed me is The Paid Hugs (2002), an appropriation of Leonardo’s The Last Supper (1495–​1498). For this performance, the brothers paid a score of migration workers, male and female, to hug each other, dressed or undressed, for ten or twenty minutes. While the performers stand at the table hugging each other, a beautiful young lady in bright red sits in the middle at the table’s front edge, looking up to the sky. The two brothers sit on stools on each end of the table, looking up at the performers and the sky, echoing the red lady. In Leonardo’s fresco, Jesus sits behind the table, whereas the lady in red sits on the front edge of the table. Why are there such differences from the old master? What is the significance of the biblical reference? For the first-​hand fabula, I called one of the brothers in New York City, Gao Qiang, and asked him some questions. The brother said that this work was to promote the idea of reconciliation, equality, trust, and love. In the next few days and weeks, Gao Qiang sent me emails with first-​hand materials, such as images, texts, and website links, about this work and others. Although the brothers mentioned Leonardo’s fresco in a text, they took it as a reference for the scene arrangement at the formal level and did not stress any conceptual significance. Nevertheless, my reading of this work is biblical, highlighting the opposition between betrayal and trust. Due to such betrayal, the payment for hugging

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Figure 6.2 The Gao Brothers: The Paid Hugs (2002, courtesy of the artist) 高氏兄弟《一次雇佣的拥抱行为》

ridicules the artists’ idea about reconciliation and love. Thus, this work betrays the authorial intention. Interestingly, before The Paid Hugs, the brothers had another performance in the same series, The Voluntary Hugs (2000), with no payment involved. As for the secondary narration about the hugs, a critical essay in Chen Lusheng’s In the Name of “Art” entitled “Do Not Make Fun of the Poor” can serve as a sampler. Chen described The Paid Hugs based on the first-​hand materials he had collected and then made a moral judgement: The issue at stake is not the nudes or first kiss, but notably, the spiritual [emotional] injury to the people from the vulnerable groups. With this kind of performance, the so-​called artists made fun of the poor in the name of art. They were just like the devil scoundrels of the old times. (Chen 2016, 211) According to Chen, although this performance has nothing to do with art, it provides an opportunity for people to think about the connection between art and the weak –​their survival is a social problem for everyone to think about. My reading of the Hug series is related to and different from the first-​hand fabula and the secondary criticism. This difference validates my tertiary narrativization and makes my writing of the tertiary story worthwhile. Reading the Gao Brothers’ works,

Towards a Conclusion  197 I value the interpretive significance of intertextuality. Interpreting The Paid Hugs in relation to the earlier The Voluntary Hugs, I do not think Jesus paid his disciples for loyalty, but the Romans paid Judas for his betrayal. If the paid betrayal is still a betrayal, are the paid hugs still hugs? While Jesus may know everything of human nature, the artists explore the limit and the weakness of human nature as it is primarily defined by social conditions, revealed by the performers’ responses to the payment. According to the first-​hand materials received from Gao Qiang, although the hired performers needed the money, a young girl did not want to give her first kiss to a stranger for a small sum, and a young man did not want to strip in front of the strange lady in red. In my opinion, the lady in red plays the role of Jesus, asking the eternal, ultimate, and universal question: Why? The two brothers on the opposite ends of the table stand for the two sides of human nature, if it has two sides. When a kisser on the table loses the balance between the two sides, he or she will fall. In this hypocritical world, humans must take responsibility for their own suffering. In the previous chapter, I took a Goya painting as the artistic source of Manet, Picasso, and Yue Minjun. This source is firstly visual, involving compositional arrangement and figural posture at the formal level. In the Goya painting, the Christ-​like posture of the central figure in a white shirt functions as a special figure of speech at the rhetorical level, the visual simile. Then, at the aesthetic level, Goya continued his nightmarish aesthetic of violence, denouncing the atrocity of the Napoleonic invasion. At the conceptual level, I have a question: What inspiration has Goya given to the later artists? While Manet cared more about the formal effect in his appropriation, Picasso cared less. For Picasso, his Cubist appropriation served his anti-​war purpose. Similarly, Yue Minjun ridiculed the execution with his kitsch aesthetics of cynical characterization. Radical conceptual artists the Gao Brothers also appropriated Goya’s execution, turning it from a painting into a sculpture and installation with a political twist, The Execution of Christ (2009). A work of sculpture first, this appropriation consists of two figures, Mao and Jesus, in a very traditional manner of realist art. The figure of Mao is an appropriation of a 1964 photograph showing Mao inspecting a military drill and testing the aim of a rifle. The figure of Jesus naked with a piece of cloth wrapped around his middle is a common one. However, the gesture of Jesus is telling. He shrugs his shoulders, slightly bends his head towards Mao, and raises his forearms to his waistline with two hands open, seemingly asking: What? Why shoot me? Such correspondence between the two figures extends to an installation with seven figures of Mao standing in a row like Goya’s firing squad in front of Jesus. One of the seven Mao figures takes one step back from the firing line to reload his rifle. This figure is absorbed in the mechanics of his weapon with an admiring expression on his face as he enjoys and plays with his weapon. Since I have a personal preference for intertextual works, I made a phone call to Gao Qiang and told him my idea about the allusion in this sculpture installation. Amazed, he told me that this work had inspired a Dutch art collector and writer on art, Adrian David, to write a thriller novel about Chinese dissident artists and intellectuals in the West titled The Execution of Christ (2015). Then, Gao Qiang mailed me a copy of this novel. Unsurprisingly, the Gao Brothers’ work of sculpture installation with the same title is used for the front and back covers of the novel. Talking to Gao Qiang, I wanted to ask: Why didn’t you make the crown of thorns for Jesus? Then I dropped the question. If Mao shot Jesus, the Lord would not have a crown, since he had already died two millennia ago, and the crown was long gone. The New

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Figure 6.3 The Gao Brothers: The Execution of Christ (2009, collection of Adrian David, Belgium, courtesy of the artist) 高氏兄弟《处决耶稣基督》

Testament does not say whether Jesus had the crown on his head when he resurrected. In European paintings on this subject, such as Piero Della Francesca’s (c.1415–​1492) The Resurrection (c.1460) and Caravaggio’s (1571–​1610) Doubting Thomas (1599), there is no crown depicted either. Mao was an absolute overlord. In his eyes, there was no other lord in the world or in history. If there was one, he would execute him. Thus, without a crown, Jesus could converse with Mao in a questioning manner: What? Why shoot me? This work returns to the old realist tradition at the formal level due to its representational configuration. However, the realist return is the brothers’ purposeful rhetorical strategy: a reduction to absurdity. Indeed, absurdity is the aesthetic of this work, serving the artists’ radical goal of political criticism at the conceptual level. The second case is the art of Cai Guo-​Qiang, which can demonstrate the other aspect of my tertiary reading: the intertextuality in his own works. In my reading, these works are associated with his archetypal installation Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows (1998). I heard about this installation and saw photos of it many years ago. It is a small fishing boat with countless arrows densely burrowed into the ship’s wood, making it look like a porcupine. My visual impression of the porcupine boat was that, although the arrows were buried deep inside the wood, they also went outwards like radiating sunlight. The work and its name refer to a famous ancient war story about a military stratagem. It is so popular in China that even a schoolchild can recite it easily.

Towards a Conclusion  199 In the story, statesman Zhuge Liang (181–​234) schemed a plot to acquire arrows from the enemy. He sailed a straw fleet towards the enemy’s naval base under heavy fog, faking an assault. Of course, the assault was defeated by the enemy with massive numbers of arrows. When the fog faded, the straw fleet returned safely with a 100,000 arrows shot by the enemy. This story has been widely told in China from generation to generation. Then, 1,000 years later, it was integrated into the classic fourteenth-​century Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Later, I saw some related works of Cai on the internet and in art journals, such as Inopportune: Stage Two (2004), a life-​size stuffed tiger with arrows all over its body. I immediately recognized that the tiger is a variation of the archetypal straw boat. Although the boat is purposely built to provoke the enemy and invoke their arrows, the tiger is the victim of the arrows. There is always a meaningful twist with Cai’s variations. The first work of Cai that I directly experienced as a first-​hand fabula was Inopportune: Stage One (2004), an installation of cars hanging in mid-​air in a high-​ceilinged gallery, with neon sticks coming out of the bodies of the cars. The neon sticks look like sunbeams shooting out from the cars, similar to my earlier impression of sunlight radiating from the porcupine boat. The installation was part of a big show of the artist’s work at Mass MoCA in the United States in 2004. At that time, I lived in North Adams, Massachusetts, and my apartment building

Figure 6.4 Cai Guo-​Qiang: Inopportune: Stage One (2004–​ 2011, courtesy of the artist) 蔡国强《不合时宜：舞台一》

200  Towards a Conclusion was only a stone’s throw away from the massive building complex of Mass MoCA. I strolled around Cai’s works many times and smiled at his cars every time: another variation of the boat with arrows. Then, in 2011, I saw the same installation of hanging cars in the Seattle Art Museum and thought about the variation again: Why neon sticks and not arrows? Cai Guo-​Qiang is also celebrated for his fireworks, shooting coloured lights into the sky with heavy smoke. Although different from the installations of boats, tigers, and cars, the fireworks of shooting lights are still a variation on a theme –​the boat with arrows in heavy fog. Similarly, his gunpowder explosion works are also variations of the same archetype. One created gigantic footprints in the sky above the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In my intertextual reading of Cai Guo-​Qiang’s works, the repeated “variation” is a critical notion associated with archetype, a notion of Frazer’s cultural anthropology and Jung’s analytical psychology. In literary study and art history, archetype refers to a recurring image originating from mythology or the collective unconscious. According to Eric Neumann (1905–​1960), a student of Carl Jung, the recurring image of mother and child is the archetype of the works of Henry Moore (1898–​1986). Archetypal critics regard artworks as variations of the same motif when the archetypal image appears in those works with varied disguises. Reading Cai Guo-​Qiang’s works, it is not difficult to see the recurring image of the boat with arrows. Teaching Chinese art, I usually present my tertiary narrativization of Cai’s works from an archetypal point of view, in a reversed temporal order. I first show Cai’s fireworks and gunpowder works to my students, then his cars with neon sticks, the tigers with arrows, and finally the straw boat. At the beginning of my PowerPoint presentation, students have no idea about these works, then they gradually see the recurring image of the arrows in the ship’s wood, beasts, and cars. Exploring the origin of the archetypal image, I show a video clip of the straw-​boat story from the Chinese movie Red Cliff (2008), which is about a famous naval battle in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Once the students understand the notion of archetype and its variations, I then ask them a question: If the boat with arrows signifies the archetype, what does the archetype signify? This question is about the extended process of semiosis. The exploration of possible answers leads to the subject of this book: Western influence and Chinese response. On the one hand, the West diffuses its influence worldwide like arrows shooting out at other cultures. On the other hand, some cultures purposefully request Western arrows using well-​planned disguises just like the straw fleet. At this point, I recommend three historical studies of civilization and international politics to my students: A Study of History (1946) by Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–​1975), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) by Samuel P. Huntington (1927–​2008), and Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017) by Graham Allison (1940–​). Thinking about the archetypal motif of the straw boat, I believe that these three books could be helpful to the students in reading Cai’s art in the context of geopolitics. The third case of Ai Weiwei (1957–​) is complicated and confusing. Ai is from a Communist family, but his art is banned in China due to his anti-​Communist ideology and sentiment. Ai’s late father, Ai Qing (1910–​1996), was a famous Communist poet and top-​ranking cultural official in the Chinese central government. Like other Communist officials, Ai Qing experienced political difficulty during the Cultural Revolution. As

Towards a Conclusion  201 Ai Weiwei once said, his father taught him how to struggle against suppression and fight for freedom (Ai 2019). Whether this is the case, an anti-​authority personality had been fostered since his teenage years, which later evolved into an anti-​society and anti-​ government mentality. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Ai Qing regained his political and social privilege, which was beneficial to his rebellious son. Ai Weiwei is smart. He knows how to play the game of cultural politics and international relations with art. Although his art is banned in China, he is celebrated in the West. Ironically, however, in his series of photographic works Study of Perspective (1995–​2017), he gives the middle finger to many symbolic political and cultural landmarks across the world, including Tiananmen, the White House, Trump Tower, and the Eiffel Tower, as well as some masterpieces of Western art and popular commercial brands of Western luxury products. An art dealer and former Swiss ambassador to China, Uli Sigg, titled his catalogue article with the non-​existent word “Confusionism” to describe Ai’s collection of artworks. In the article, Sigg points out that Ai confuses the viewers of his works and, in the meantime, also confuses himself: “While WW [Weiwei] will delight in leaving us confused, this artist’s mind is anything but confused. It cuts razor-​sharp through the many sediments the art world has layered over the past hundred years of Modernism and Postmodernism” (Sigg 2009, 12). Nonetheless, a sharp eye can see through this intentional confusion: Seen with a Western eye, it is a gesture to produce ambiguity, a tangible ambiguity: there is hardware there, and software can be assumed. We can sense a person who has a very distinct view of what art is and what it is not, and what it takes to compose and move a thing from one sphere to the other. (Sigg 2009, 12) In my reading of this secondary narration, as well as the first-​hand artworks, “from one sphere to the other” is a move from a national level to a personal level, and vice versa. On the personal level, Ai Weiwei is either an anti-​Chinese government political activist disguised as an artist or the other way around. To him, conceptual art does not have to be art but a work of resistance and a response to suppression. On the national level, the three books I recommended to my students could help us better understand a nation’s international identity, especially when that identity is in crisis. Referring to these three books, I consider that the subject of Western influence and Chinese response can be extended to the postmodern issue of globalization and localization. The Chinese response is essentially to localize Western art and its theory, making them Chinese. This is the stratagem of borrowing arrows. However, since the dawn of the twenty-​first century, the Western-​dominated and Chinese-​benefited globalization trend has been globally criticized as a contemporary variation of high capitalism, and the call for de-​globalization has been widely heard in the last decade. For one thing, both left-​ wing Marxist intellectuals and right-​wing extremists in the West have questioned the results of globalization. For another, China has gradually lost the opportunity to continue benefiting from globalization since Donald Trump became president of the United States. Under this circumstance, the Chinese anxiety is not about cultural identity alone but also economic identity, conditioned by globalization and de-​globalization. Due to the conflict of national interest, the Western influence has evolved into a Western challenge in the twenty-​first century, whereas the Chinese response has been viewed as a Chinese threat.

202  Towards a Conclusion Reading Toynbee, one sees two types of challenges, the human and the natural, and two sub-​types within the human challenge, the external and the internal. Before the twenty-​first century, Western influence was external, and the Chinese response was to embrace it. However, since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and China no longer have a common enemy. According to Allison, China became the new enemy due to its economic and political rise in the post-​Cold War era. The rise of China has posed a threat to the United States. According to Huntington, the conflict between the United States and China is historically and culturally rooted; it is a clash between different civilizations. With this understanding, one can see why the dissident art of Ai Weiwei poses an internal challenge to Chinese authority. No wonder some Chinese hardliners on the internet call him the fifth column. Although Trump made China enemy number one, and Xi did the same to the United States, ordinary Chinese people, especially the educated, still embrace Western values. They do not want to go back to the age of the Red Cultural Revolution and Communism, or join the Russian bloc, or lose what they have acquired and enjoyed from the West in both their cultural and material life. But what about ordinary people in the West, particularly in the United States? The common people take part in massive votes in the democratic world. Unfortunately, they can be influenced and manipulated by the politicians through mass media with misinformation, disinformation, and disguised propaganda, just as the Chinese people are manipulated by their government’s propaganda machine. Since the turn of the century, anti-​Western sentiment in China has become stronger among the old conservatives and new Maoists. In a way, the current Covid-​19 pandemic symbolizes the end of the century-​long Westernization movement. Now, China under Xi is on track to return to the Mao era. This return is the “original mind” of Xi, declared ten years ago at the beginning of his presidential term. Although Xi did not say what his original mind exactly was, many social symptoms signify the restoration of Maoism. This is a political pandemic. In recent years, the Mao-​style jacket has become fashionable among Chinese officials and some young people born in the twenty-​first century. In the art world, opportunistic artists seek state-​funded commissions to glorify Communist achievements –​one million yuan per piece. Under Xi, shrewd scholars, including some Western-​educated ones, have turned their research direction to promoting Marxism, such as Marxist narratology or the Xi Thought on art resembling Mao Zedong Thought. Corrupted brains are no longer interested in scholarly research and teaching but in pursuing officialdom and profit. In these circumstances, it is hard to imagine the future development of Chinese art in the coming decades. Reconsidering the end of the century-​long Westernization movement, I ask myself a crucial question: To twentieth-​century China, does Westernization equal modernization? I claimed in Chapter 1 that, to a large extent, the modernization process in the development of Chinese art throughout the twentieth century is a process of Westernization. Speaking beyond the realm of art, now that the Westernization process is allegedly over, how can modernization continue? What is more, when some chapters from my Semiotics for Art History were translated into Chinese and published as scholarly papers in China, some readers, including young scholars, commented that Western theory should not be applied to the study of Chinese art. My response to such a comment is simple: Why not?

Towards a Conclusion  203 Coda: The Spectacle Continues At the end of this book, I wish to use Guy Debord’s (1931–​1994) notion of “spectacle” to describe twentieth-​century Chinese art, not only the performance art at the turn of the century but the avant-​garde events in the past 100 years. This spectacle is not only artistic but also cultural, social, and political. As such, history continues, and there is no end to the writing and rewriting of art history. In the more than 30 years of my teaching career, whether teaching literature or art history and visual culture, I always encourage my students to ask two fundamental questions about the subject and method of their study: what and how. At the beginning of this conclusion, I asked and answered three questions: who, how, and what. However, the question “why” has been left out. When students ask me why study Chinese art and literature, I usually give a default answer: Ask your parents why they spend money on your education. This blunt yet candid answer is always embraced with laughter, but the question remains unanswered. On the one hand, I deliberately want to leave the question unanswered so that the students have a chance to explore answers beyond the course subject. On the other hand, I also need to explore the answers. A Chinese-​born American humanist geographer, Yi-​Fu Tuan (1930–​2022), answered this question with a question in his well-​received 2012 book Humanist Geography: A practical course in college can be of use to us in the working life but impractical for the rest. Humanist geography, by contrast, is impractical for the working life but practical for the days, hours, and half-​hours that are our own, when we are free. How so? It empowers us to be engaged productively with certain questions that are incumbent upon us as thinking men and women to raise …, for our time on Earth is the briefest. The questions are: “What is it –​what does it mean –​to be human? More specifically, what does being human mean for me?” (Tuan 2012, 3) Tuan’s answer may be somewhat general. For me, a more specific answer is related to a more personal question: Why do I write this meta-​art history? Before writing this book, I had a chance to teach a course on modern Chinese literature at the University of Vienna during my sabbatical and to travel around Europe. In late December 2017, towards the end of my European tour, I visited Heidelberg in Germany. Like every intellectual traveller who visits that university town, I strolled around the biggest castle ruin in Europe, Schloss Heidelberg. It was a historical stroll through the ages of Homo Heidelbergensis, Germanic barbarians, the Napoleonic Wars, the Second World War, and modern philosophy. Walking down the castle mountain and across the Neckar River, I continued my historical stroll from the ancient bridge to Philosophers’ Walk. Speculating on what the German philosophers had thought about on this walk, I sensed a connection between my writing and the meaning of an intellectual life. Then, during the two years of Covid lockdown from early 2020 to mid-​2022, I strolled alone about a 100 times in the woods on the top of Mount Royal in Montreal, throughout the snowy winters and humid summers. My mind was blank most of the time when I walked in these woods. Expected or not, this blankness always gave me a chance to think about what to write and how to write it. Indeed, writing gives meaning to my life.

204  Towards a Conclusion Writing is a form of Zen meditation to me, a way of consolation and therapy. It is a personal spectacle without fanfare. Life is short, and writing enriches my life from the outside in and the inside out. Reading art and writing about art make me happy, just as painting made Van Gogh happy. References Ai Weiwei艾未未. 2019. Fuqin Gaosu Wo: Yaozuo Yige Ziyou de Ren 父亲告诉我：要做一个自由的人 [Father Told Me: Be a Free Man]. Accessed April 20, 2022. https://​ish​are.ifeng.com/​c/​s/​7m8X​ gk5o​aY5. Allison, Graham. 2017. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Chen Lusheng 陈履生. 2002. Yi Yishu de Mingyi 以艺术的名义 [In the Name of “Art”]. Beijing: People’s Fine Art Publishing House. Duan Jun 段君. 2016. Ershi Shiji Jiushi Niandai Beijing Dongcun Xingwei Yishu 20世纪90 年代北京东村行为艺术 [Performance Art in Beijing East Village in the 1990s]. Hong Kong: Four Seasons Publishing House. Foster, Elena Ochoa, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds. 2009. Ai Weiwei: Ways Beyond Art. London and Madrid: Ivory Press. Frazer, James G. 1981. The Golden Bough. Avenel, New Jersey: Gramercy Books. Frye, Northrop. 1968. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. New York: Atheneum. Gadamer, Hans-​Georg. 1982. Truth and Method. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company. Huntingdon, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Plato. 2000. The Republic. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. Ruhrberg, Karl, Christiane Fricke, Manfred Schneckenburger, and Klaus Honnef, eds. 2005. Art of the 20th Century. Vol. 1. Koln: Taschen. Sigg, Uli. 2009. “Confusionism.” In Ways Beyond Art: Ai Weiwei, edited by Elena Ochoa Foster and Hans Ulrich Obrist, 12–​13. London and Madrid: Ivory Press. Toynbee, Arnold J. 1946. A Study of History. New York: Oxford University Press. Tuan, Yi-​ Fu. 2012. Humanist Geography: An Individual’s Search for Meaning. Staunton, Virginia: George F. Thompson Publishing, L.L.C.

Glossary: A List of Chinese Names and Terms

Ai Qing Ai Weiwei Bada Shanren Bimo Boxer Rebellion CAA CACA CAFA Cai Guo-​Qiang Cai Yuanpei Caiqing Cang Xin Chen Danqing Chen Duxiu Chen Hengque Chen Lusheng Chen Shuren Chen Yifei Chen Yiming Cheng Baoyi Cheng Shifa Chinese Art Institute Clan-​Clan Communist Party Contemporary Artists   Society Cultural Revolution Cynical Realism Dai Guangyu Deng Xiaoping Duan Jun Empress Dowager Fan Di’an Fang Junbi Fang Ke Fang Lijun

艾青 艾未未 八大山人 笔墨 义和团运动 中国美术家协会 中央工艺美术学院 中央美术学院 蔡国强 蔡元培 才情 苍鑫 陈丹青 陈独秀 陈衡恪（陈师曾） 陈履生 陈树人 陈逸飞 陈宜明 程抱一 程十发 中华艺术大学 部落部落 共产党 同代人画会 文化大革命 玩世现实主义 戴光郁 邓小平 段君 慈禧太后 范迪安 方君璧 方柯 方力钧

206 Glossary Feng Guodong Fu Baoshi Gao Brothers, the Gao Minglu Gao Jianfu Gao Qifeng Gong Xian Gu Wenda Guan Liang Guan Zilan Guangxu Emperor Gufa yongbi He Duoling He Kongde Hou Hanru Hou Yimin Hu Shi Hu Zhaoyang Hua Guofeng Huang Yongping Huang Zhou Hundred-​Day Reform Jiang Feng Jiang Qing Jiang Zhaohe Jin Lili Kitsch art Lake Tai Li Bin Li Hu Li Keran Li Kuchan Li Puyuan Li Shan Li Shutong Li Songsong Li Tiefu Li Xianting Li Xiaoshan Li Yu Li Zehou Lin Fengmian Lin Xingyu Lin Yutang Literary Revolution Liu Chunhua Liu Haisu

冯国栋 傅抱石 高氏兄弟 高名潞 高剑父 高其峰 龚贤 谷文达 关良 关紫兰 光绪皇帝 骨法用笔 何多苓 何孔德 侯瀚如 侯一民 胡适 胡照阳 华国锋 黄永砯 黄胄 百日维新 江丰 江青 蒋兆和 金莉莉 媚俗艺术 太湖 李斌 李斛 李可染 李苦禅 李朴园 李山 李叔同 李松松 李铁夫 栗宪庭 李小山 李浴 李泽厚 林风眠 林惺嶽 林语堂 文学革命 刘春华 刘海粟

Glossary  207 Liu Shaoqi Liu Wei Liu Xiaodong Liu Xun Liu Yan Liu Yulian Liu Zaifu Lu Hong Lu Peng Lu Sibai Lu Xun Luo Gongliu Luo Guanzhong Luo Zhongli Ma Desheng Ma Liuming Mao Xuhui Mao Zedong Thought May Fourth Movement Mu Heng Nationalist Party Neo Figura New Culture Movement New Generation New Space New Wave Art New Youth Ni Yide Northern Art Group Oil Painting Research Society Open Policy Opium Wars Pan Dehai Pan Derong Pan Tianshou Pan Yuliang Pang Xunqin Political Pop Pool Society Qiyun Ren Jian Renpin Scar art Shang Yang Situ Qiao Sino-​Japanese war Shen Jiawei

刘少奇 刘炜 刘小东 刘迅 刘岩 刘宇廉 刘再复 鲁虹 吕澎 吕斯百 鲁迅 罗工柳 罗贯中 罗中立 马德升 马六明 毛旭辉 毛泽东思想 五四运动 牟恒 国民党 新具象 新文化运动 新生代 新空间 新潮美术 《新青年》 倪怡德 北方艺术群体 油画研究会 开放政策 鸦片战争 潘德海 潘德荣 潘天寿 潘玉良 庞薰琴 政治波普 池社 气韵 任戬 人品 伤痕艺术 尚扬 司徒乔 甲午战争 沈嘉蔚

208 Glossary Shen, Kuiyi 沈揆一 Shi Lu 石鲁 Sixiang 思想 Socialist Realism 社会主义现实主义 Southwestern Art Study Group 西南艺术研究群体 Southern Song Dynasty 南宋 Shu Qun 舒群 Song Yonghong 宋永红 Song Yongping 宋永平 Stars Group 星星画派 Stones and Rocks 垒石画派 Su Dongpo 苏东坡 Su Shi 苏轼 Sun Duoci 孙多慈 Sun Yat-​sen 孙逸仙 Sun Zhongshan 孙中山 Super Realist Painting 超写实绘画 Tang Muli 汤沐黎 Tang Song 唐宋 Traditional-​style art 传统艺术 Unity of the Two 两结合 Wang Baijiao 王百娇 Wang Bomin 王伯敏 Wang Guangyi 王广义 Wang Guowei 王国维 Wang Huaiqing 王怀庆 Wang Keping 王克平 Wang Xiangming 王向明 Wei Jingshan 魏景山 Wei Qimei 韦启美 Wen Pulin 温普林 Westernization Movement 洋务运动 Western-​style art 西式艺术 Wholesale Westernization 全盘西化 Wu Guanzhong 吴冠中 Wu Shanzhuan 吴山专 Wu Shaoxiang 吴绍雄 Wu Zuoren 吴作人 Xiamen Dada 厦门达达 Xia Xiaowan 夏小万 Xiao Lu 肖鲁 Xie He 谢赫 Xinhai Revolution 辛亥革命 Xingshi 形式 Xu Beihong 徐悲鸿 Xu Bing 徐冰 Xuewen 学问

Glossary  209 Yao Zhonghua Ye Yongqing Yi Dan Yi Ying Yin Jinan Yu Hong Yuanmingyuan Yuan Yunsheng Yue Minjun Zhang Hongtu Zhang Huan Zhang Nian Zhang Shaoxia Zhang Songnan Zhang Ting Zhang Xiaogang Zhang Yanyuan Zhang Zhidong Zhao Yanqiu Zhao Yiheng Zhong Acheng Zhonghua Yishu Daxue Zhou Yan Zhu Ming Zhu Qizhan Zuoxiao Zuzhou

姚钟华 叶永青 易丹 易英 尹吉男 喻红 圆明园 袁运生 岳敏君 张宏图 张洹 张念 张少侠 张颂南 张汀 张晓刚 张彦远 张之洞 赵炎秋 赵毅衡 钟阿城 中华艺术大学 周彦 朱冥 朱屺瞻 左小诅咒

Index

Note: In this index illustrations are indicated by italicised page numbers. 1985 New Wave 118, 136, 141, 144–​145 Abandoned Dream 129 absolute abstraction 102 abstract beauty 98, 101, 102–​103, 104 abstraction 94, 100, 102, 177; absolute 102; formalist 102; modernist 149; pure 98, 99, 102; semi-​ 94, 98, 99, 124 absurdity 111, 122, 137, 148, 167, 194, 198 actor’s paradox, Deleuzian concept of 127 Acupuncture Anesthesia 67, 68 Ai Qing 200–​201 Ai Weiwei 114, 195, 200–​201, 202 album leaf analogy 128–​129, 130 Altman, Rick 15–​16 amnesty 109 analysis 2, 9, 16, 86, 91, 92, 101, 105, 187 Anatomy of Criticism 187 Andrews, Julia F. 42, 54–​55, 65–​67, 68, 69, 71 Anglo-​Chinese wars 18 anxiety of cultural identity 6–​8 apolitical beauty 100 Apollo 33 appropriation 22, 101, 126, 189, 195, 197; possible author and realist art 52, 77, 80, 80–​81, 82; postmodern characterization 159, 169, 170, 171, 176 archetypes 60, 77, 200 Aristotle 1, 3, 135 “art” and “arts”, no grammatical difference between 23 art criticism 2, 5–​6, 52, 129, 142, 143 art education 21, 24, 32, 33, 34, 36, 75, 102, 106 art historians, from empirical authors to model authors 53–​56 art historical narrative 1, 3, 6, 10, 56–​57, 59, 60, 83, 88, 116, 119, 139, 152, 154 art history narrator, narrative identity of the 50

art theory: Chinese 101, 137, 142; Communist 61; Marxist 157; Western 2, 6, 18, 38, 52, 64, 124, 137, 145; of Wu Guanzhong 100 artist’s time 10 authors, from empirical to model 53–​56 “author-​text-​reader” relationship, theorizing the 51–​53 avant-​garde movement 5, 88, 91, 103, 118–​152, 138, 148, 149, 151, 155, 160, 165, 175 avant-​garde painting, the Deleuzian event and change in 122–​127 avant-​garde transition 131 backwardness 18, 19, 50, 146 Bacon, Francis 128 Bal, Mieke 8–​9, 14, 16, 36–​37, 41, 42, 45, 87, 119, 120 Balzac, Honoré de 75, 157, 158 Barthes, Roland 2–​3, 8, 42, 51, 52, 53, 152 Bastien-​Lepage, Jules 75, 80 beauty 23, 94, 97, 122; abstract 98, 101, 102–​103, 104; apolitical 100; feminine 44, 96; formal 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104; rhythmic 102 Before Attack 63 Beijing airport mural 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 115 Beijing School 26 Bell, Clive 101, 102 Benjamin, Walter 16 Bi Sheng 148 Big Family series 177, 177, 181, 182, 183 “bimo” 103, 144, 147, 190 binarism 107 binary oppositions 112, 131, 149–​150 Bloodline: Big Family 177, 177 Bloodline series 177, 177, 179–​180, 181, 182 Bloom, Harold 7–​8, 29, 46–​47 Boatmen of Yellow River 59, 59 body and mind division 194

Index  211 body without organs, Deleuzian concept of a 128 Book from the Sky, The 148, 149 book laundering 132, 133, 134 Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows 198 Bourdieu, Pierre 46, 47 bourgeoisie class 65, 158 Brother and Sister 181, 182 brush and ink 103, 144, 147, 190 brushwork 44, 62–​63, 76, 79, 93, 96, 97, 103–​104, 113, 144, 157; calligraphic 25; descriptive 80; emotional 58; expressionist 81, 159, 187; freehand 38, 97; personalized 96; post-​impressionistic 175; realist-​ expressionist 159; Soviet-​style 63, 64, 69; spiritual 26 CAA (Chinese Artists Association) 102, 106–​107, 108, 109, 110, 137 CACA (Central Academy of Craft Art) 97 CAFA see Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Cai Guo-​Qiang 195, 198, 199, 200 Cai Yuanpei 21 calligraphy 23, 25, 33, 38, 77, 128, 145, 146, 150 Cambridge Companion to Narrative, The 10, 154–​155 Case Study of Transference, A Central Academy of Craft Art (CACA) 97 Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) 57, 58, 62, 72, 73, 76, 97, 98, 121, 137, 156, 159, 161, 165 central text 11, 15, 22–​23, 28–​31, 36, 41, 57 Cézanne, Paul 24, 43–​44, 96–​97, 102 Chairman Mao see Mao Zedong Chairman Mao and the Anyuan Coal Miners 72, 73 Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan 66, 72 chaos, Deleuzian notion of 123 character, narrative notion of 154 character construction, Zhao’s four structural levels in 168 character system 164, 168, 173 character theories 154, 162, 164, 173, 174, 184–​185 characterization: combinatorial 164; of Fang Lijun 163–​168, 166; intertextual 168–​174, 170; Marxist theory about 155–​160; postmodern 154–​185, 166, 170, 177 Chen Danqing 75–​76, 82 Chen Duxiu 20, 21 Chen Hengque 26, 38–​40 Chen Lusheng 192, 194, 195, 196 chiaroscuro 23, 36, 37, 40, 57, 145, 147

China/​Avant-​Garde exhibition 55, 135–​141, 138, 148, 150, 165–​166 Chinese art: contemporary see contemporary Chinese art; from 1979 to 1985 86–​116, 94, 99, 112; of the 1990s 154–​185, 166, 170, 177; periodization of twentieth-​century 4–​6 Chinese art education system 24, 32 Chinese art theory 101, 137, 142 Chinese Artists Association (CAA) 102, 106–​107, 108, 109, 110, 137 Chinese avant-​garde movement 103, 118–​152, 138, 148, 149, 151, 160 Chinese literature 22, 203 Chinese media 28, 40, 98, 103–​104, 144, 145 Chinese painting 28, 35, 149; early modern 187; late modern 187; New 27, 54; Sovietness of 63–​64; traditional see traditional Chinese painting Chinese painting books 128–​129 Chinese realist art 50, 64, 65–​66, 80, 82, 100–​101, 104 Chinese “red art” 60–​61, 62 Chinese responses, to Western influence 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 187, 200, 201, 202; before 1949 14, 16, 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, 34, 38, 44, 45, 46, 47; since 1949 57, 75, 77, 80; from 1979 to 1985 86, 87, 90, 92, 104, 114; from 1985 to 1989 124, 128, 129, 133, 140, 142 Chinese Revolutionary Realism 92–​93 Clan-​Clan 122 classical literature 8, 38–​39 Close, Chuck 82 close reading 77, 187 Clothed Maja 73 Cobley, Paul 3–​4, 16 Cohen, Joan Lebold 54–​55 colouring 27, 37, 44, 76, 77, 81, 82, 96, 103, 169, 171, 175, 176, 181, 187 Colville, Alex 124–​125 Combinatorial Character Theory, A 164 combinatorial character theory 164, 168, 173 Communism 34, 62, 64, 72, 103, 110, 180, 181, 202 Communist art theory 61 Communist cultural policy 92–​93 Communist literature 93 Communist Party: since 1949 59, 61, 62, 65, 66, 71, 74, 82; from 1979 to 1985 107, 108, 110, 111; the 1990s 162, 172, 178, 179 Communist revolutionary cause 120 Comrades and the Red Baby 180 conceived world, as the third space 105–​109 conceptual art 32, 50, 60, 78, 87–​88, 129, 131; Dadaist 132; formalist 91, 114, 116; of performance 136; postmodern 134, 149; to the 2020s 187–​204, 190, 196, 198, 199

212 Index conceptuality, in formalist art 109–​115, 112 Confucianism 19, 20, 21, 22, 24–​25, 43, 45, 95 connections: external 126; internal 128, 129 contemporary art 2, 4, 5–​6, 6–​7, 16, 32, 36, 100, 136, 177, 184, 194 contemporary Chinese art 6, 32, 46, 54, 55, 100, 114, 129, 130, 133, 139, 141 “content decides form” 103 context: external 10, 11, 15, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 114; internal 10, 11, 15, 22–​25, 25, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 114; and modern art 14–​47, 25, 43; textual 11, 15, 20, 22–​23, 25, 28, 31 contrast, colour and tonal 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 126, 181 Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte, The 66 counter-​actualization, Deleuzian concept of 127 Critical Realism 75 critical theory 3, 5, 8, 12, 61, 75, 88, 89, 90, 108, 109, 131, 154, 163 Cubism 39, 96, 99, 102, 111, 124, 126, 197 Cultural Animal 150, 151 cultural blending 134 cultural con-​text 11, 15, 16, 25; and New Culture Movement 20–​22 cultural identity 2, 47, 50, 134, 201; anxiety of 6–​8 cultural politics 108, 109, 142, 201 Cultural Revolution 5, 44, 123, 124, 200–​201, 202; since 1949 65–​66, 67, 68–​69, 71, 72, 73–​74, 75–​76, 80, 82; from 1979 to 1985 93, 98, 100, 107, 110, 111, 113; the 1990s 158, 179, 182, 183, 184 Cynical Realism 155, 160, 169 Dad and Mom 161 Dad in Front of TV 161 Dai Guangyu 188, 189, 190, 192 Dalí, Salvador 121, 145, 147, 176, 189, 190 Danto, Arthur 11, 78, 79 David, Jacques-​Louis 66, 71, 72, 126 Death of Marat, The 71 Death of the Author, The 51 Debord, Guy 203 deconstruction 3, 8, 29, 52, 105–​106, 107, 111, 134, 147, 148, 150, 160 decorative approaches 93, 94–​95 Deep Abyss 176, 178, 180, 183 defeats, in Anglo-​Chinese wars 18 Dejeuner sur l’herbe 60 Delacroix, Eugene 101, 169–​170, 173 Deleuze, Gilles 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135 Deleuzian event, and change in avant-​garde painting 122–​127

Deleuzian Many 123, 130 Deleuzian One 123, 130 Deng Xiaoping 74, 93, 155 Derrida, Jacques 8, 14, 29, 52, 123 description 2, 3, 62, 66–​67, 157–​158 descriptive brushwork 80 Dialogue 138, 138, 139, 140 Discipline and Punish 86 double structure, Deleuzian concept of 127 double transition 131–​134 dreams 28–​29, 75, 122, 173 Duan Jun 192, 195 early modern Chinese painting 187 East Village 192–​193, 194 Eco, Umberto 11, 53–​54, 55–​56, 57 Educated Youth, The 182 Eliot, George 54, 55, 56 emotional brushwork 58 empirical authors 53–​56 empirical readers 11, 53, 57 End of Chinese Performance Art, The 194 engagement 174–​175, 176, 177, 185 Engaging Characters 174 Engels, Friedrich 157, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164, 168, 184 English literature 47, 55, 56, 163 epistemology 91, 92, 104 evaluation 2, 187 Evans, Mary Ann 54, 55, 56 event 118; Deleuzian notion of 122–​127; fold of the 127–​131; narrative 119–​122; of unfolding 127–​131; sub-​ 118, 119, 122, 127, 151–​152 Event of the Stars exhibitions 86. 87, 91, 105–​109, 110, 111, 112, 113–​115, 115–​116, 124 evental fold 11–​12, 127; the great confluence as an 147–​152, 148, 149, 151 evental transition 129 evental writing 142–​147 Execution 171, 172 Execution of Christ, The 197, 198 Execution of Emperor Maximilian 121, 171 exhibition of Western art in China 2, 33, 124–​125 existentialism 164, 182 experimental paintings 142–​147 experimentation 12, 54, 82, 175, 177, 182; before 1949 25, 32, 34, 35–​36; from 1979 to 1985 90, 111, 114, 115; from 1985 to 1989 118, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 152 expressionism 156, 159 expressionist brushwork 81, 159, 187 extensions, Deleuzian sub-​notion of 125 external connections 126

Index  213 external context 10, 11, 15, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 114 extreme performance art 194 extrinsic study 8 fabula: first-​hand see first-​hand fabula; inanimate 72 family backgrounds 107, 109, 116, 140, 179 Fang Lijun 163, 169, 170, 173; political dimension in characterization of 163–​168, 166 Father 81–​82 father figure 161–​162, 163, 164 Fauvism 25, 42, 44, 45 Female Worker, A 58 feminine beauty 44, 96 Femmes d'Alger, Les 101 Feuerbach, Anselm 59–​60 fiction 3, 22, 56, 70, 154, 158, 162; non-​ 4, 54, 154 fictional characters 162, 164–​165, 174, 185 figure painting 97, 98, 154, 184; before 1949 38, 39, 40, 44, 45; and Marxist theory about characterization 155–​160; since 1949 58, 59, 60, 75, 77, 80 fine art 23, 24, 36, 127–​128, 160; Western 20, 23, 24; see also Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) first space 87, 104, 114, 115; lived real world as the 92–​95, 94 first-​generation artists 2, 34, 64 first-​hand fabula, of artworks and research materials 1, 11, 179, 183; before 1949 28, 29, 30–​31, 41, 43; conceptual art 187, 188–​192, 190, 195, 196–​197, 199; since 1949 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 83 first-​person voice 3–​4, 12, 42 Firstspace 91, 92, 105, 110, 115 flatness 37, 97, 177 fold, Deleuzian notion of 118 fold of the event 127–​131 Fold, The 123, 127, 128, 131 folding fan, analogical image of the 128 Forever Love 175–​176, 178 formal beauty 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104 Formal Beauty in Painting 101 formal elements 5, 93, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 113 formalism 91, 100, 113, 115; Russian 3; Western 86, 93, 96, 100, 115; of Wu Guanzhong 95, 96, 100, 102–​103, 104–​105 formalist abstraction 102 formalist art 87, 91, 93, 95, 98, 100–​101, 104, 113, 114, 124; of Wang Keping 113; Western 115, 122, 145

Forster, E. M. 162–​163, 164, 181, 184–​185 Foucault, Michel 51–​52, 86, 107, 128, 194 four avenues, of Western influence 32–​34 four generations, of Chinese responses 2, 34, 35, 187 fourth space 86, 87, 92, 115, 116 fourth-​generation artists 2, 34, 119 frame 10, 11, 14, 23, 36–​37, 88, 89, 91, 92 Frazer, James G. 188, 200 freehand brushwork 38, 97 Freud, Lucian 156, 159 Freud, Sigmund 8, 28–​29, 122, 124, 147, 162, 194 Friedrich, Caspar David 27, 59 From Work to Text 52, 152 Frye, Northrop 60, 187 Fung Yu-​Lan 1, 18 fusion of horizons 187 Gao Brothers 195, 196, 196–​197, 198 Gao Jianfu 27–​28, 37 Gao Minglu 55, 122, 133, 135–​136, 139, 140, 141 Gao Qiang 195, 197–​198 Gao Qifeng 27 Gao Zhen 195 gender difference, between Guan Zilan and Matisse 45 gender politics 194 general narratology 3, 151 General Narratology, A 28 generic transitions 129, 130, 131, 132, 134 globalization 150, 201 glocalization 150 Gogh, Vincent van 29, 96–​97, 101, 204 Goldsworthy, Andy 191 Gong Xian 37 Goya, Francisco 73, 171, 172–​173, 197 Grand Exhibition of “China/​Avant-​Garde 63, 135–​141, 138, 155, 165, 195 great confluence, of the two mainstreams 2, 118, 143, 144; as evental fold 147–​152, 148, 149, 151 great divergence, into two mainstreams 14, 16, 18, 23, 25, 45, 47; and two sub-​splits 34–​36 Grosz, George 39 group action 119, 120 Gu Wenda 122, 144, 145, 146–​147, 148, 149, 150–​151, 152 Guan Zilan 42, 43, 44–​45, 45–​46, 57, 58, 59, 63, 64–​65 Guernica 121, 176 Guggenheim Museum 39, 42, 43, 44, 63 gunshots, at China/​Avant-​Garde exhibition 135, 138, 139, 140–​141

214 Index Harrison, Charles 4, 11, 53 Harvey, David 90, 91, 116 Hatching 137 Hay Making 75, 80 He Duoling 80–​81, 81, 82, 175 He Kongde 63, 64–​65 Herman, David 3, 16, 88 hermeneutics 12, 52, 79 High Noon, Under the Sun 157 Himalaya Project 150 historical conditions 10, 16–​17, 18, 160 historical moments 17, 152 historical pre-​text 11, 15, 16, 25, 50, 57; and the Westernization Movement 18–​20 historical senses 9, 10, 17 historical theorization 2 historical transformation, and textual space 86–​116, 94, 99, 112 historicism 90 historicity 114–​115 History of Art in Twentieth-​Century China, A 42, 133, 182 History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1985–​1986, A 55 History of Western Hermeneutics, A 12 Hou Yimin 72, 73, 74 “how” to rewrite art history 1–​2, 9, 101, 187 Hu Shi, Dr 21 Hu Zhaoyang 129 Hua Guofeng 71, 74 Huang Rui 106, 107, 110, 111, 113 Huang Yongping 122, 132 Hug series 196–​197 Humanist Geography 203 Hutcheon, Linda 3, 56–​57, 170–​171 identification, of the reader 174–​179, 177, 180–​181, 183, 185 identity, cultural 2, 47, 50, 134, 201; anxiety of 6–​8 Idol 111, 112 imagined world, as the second space 100–​105, 116 imitation 45, 60, 65, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81–​82, 102, 149 implied author 11, 51, 52, 54 implied historical moment: of the artist/​author 11; of the reader 11 implied reader 11, 52–​53, 54, 57, 177–​178 implied time 10 In the Name of “Art” 192, 194, 196 inanimate fabula 72 inclusiveness 9, 89, 90, 116 individual effort 119, 120 Inopportune 199–​200, 199 installation art 128, 129, 132, 135, 136, 146

integral reader 174, 187, 188; and character theories 184–​185; and characters in third-​ phase art of Zhang Xiaogang 179–​183 intensities, Deleuzian sub-​notion of 125, 126 internal connections 128, 129 internal context 10, 11, 15, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 114; with two layers 22–​25, 25 internal intensities 126 international politics 200 interpretation 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11 intersubjectivity 79 intertextual characterization 168–​174, 170 intertextual narrative 60 intertextuality 15, 60, 77, 94; conceptual art 189, 190, 192, 197, 198, 200; the 1990s 169, 170, 172–​173, 173–​174 intrinsic study 8 intrinsic-​extrinsic opposition 8–​10 Iser, Wolfgang 52–​53 Jesus 136, 171, 175, 195, 197–​198 Jiang Feng 110, 111–​112 Jiang Zhaohe 40 Jin Lili 121 judgement 2, 137, 149, 157, 187, 193, 194, 196 Kitsch Art 160, 163, 184 Kollwitz, Kathe 22, 103, 110, 111, 113 Korea 171–​172 Korean war 63, 64, 171–​172 Korean War in the Eyes of an Artist, The 64 landscape painting 24, 27, 28, 33–​34, 39, 74, 77, 78, 97, 98, 100, 124 Last Supper, The 195 late modern Chinese painting 187 Lefebvre, Henri 86–​87, 90, 91, 92, 95, 115, 116 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 125, 128, 130 Lenin, Vladimir 32, 62 lenses: median-​distance 1, 15; telephoto 1, 15, 187; wide-​angle 1, 15, 187 Levi-​Strauss, Claude 164 Lhermitte, Léon-​Augustin 75 Li Hu 57–​58, 59, 61, 64–​65 Li Shutong 23–​24 Li Tiefu 23 Li Xiaoshan 42, 142–​143, 144, 147 Liberty Leading the People 169, 170, 172 lighting 62–​63, 74, 81, 102; before 1949 27–​28, 37, 39, 40; the 1990s 169, 177, 180, 181, 182, 183 Lin Xingyu 30, 136, 139 Lingnan School 26–​28, 37 literary narratology 3

Index  215 Literary Revolution 22 literati painting 20, 26, 27, 38–​39, 40, 96 literature 56, 60, 154, 155, 168; Chinese 22, 203; classical 8, 38–​39; Communist 93; English 47, 55, 56, 163; premodern realist 181; Western 22, 56 Liu Chunhua 66, 72 Liu Haisu 24, 25, 25, 32, 142, 143 Liu Shaoqi 66, 72 Liu Shaoqi and the Anyuan Coal Miners 72 Liu Wei 161, 163, 164, 165, 184 Liu Xiaodong 156, 158, 163 Liu Xun 107, 108 Liu Zaifu 163–​164, 167, 168 lived real world, as the first space 92–​95, 94 Logic of Sense, The 127, 128 Long Live 111 Longing for Peace 121 Lopate, Phillip 4 Lu Hong 119, 133, 136, 139, 141, 158, 182 Lu Peng 42, 55, 120, 133, 136, 139, 140, 141, 156, 182 Lu Xun 22, 101 Luo Zhongli 80, 81–​82, 175 Ma Desheng 106, 107, 108, 113 Manet, Edouard 60, 94–​95, 171, 172–​173, 197 Mannhardt, Wilhelm 188 Manufacturing the Corporal Print 190–​191, 190, 192 Many, Deleuzian notion of 123, 130 Mao Zedong 32, 189–​190, 197, 198, 202; since 1949 62, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 74, 75, 82; from 1979 to 1985 92–​93, 110, 111, 112, 113; the 1990s 162, 178, 179, 181 Mao Zedong Thought 6, 30, 202 Maoism 202 Mao-​Marilyn, or Portrait of Marilyn Monroe as Chairman Mao 189 Margolin, Uri 154–​155 Marlowe, Christopher 8 Marxism 32, 61, 75, 202 Marxist theory, about characterization 155–​160 Matisse, Henri 24, 42, 44–​45, 45–​46, 58, 63, 64, 97, 111, 113 May Fourth Movement 5, 20, 21–​22, 155 Medea 59–​60 median-​distance lens analogy, for “how” to rewrite art history 1, 15 Meiji Restoration 19 Meng Luding 121 meta-​art history 1, 2–​3, 8, 10, 70, 187, 203 methodology 1, 2–​3, 8–​9, 11, 12, 56, 69–​70 Middlemarch 55, 56

Millet, Jean-​Francois 24, 33, 75, 76, 77, 82, 175 misperceived world 104, 105, 115; as the second space 95–​100, 99 misperception 86, 95, 96, 99, 100, 104, 115 model author 11, 53–​56, 57, 83 model reader 11, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 83 modern art, and context 14–​47, 25, 43 modern narratology 3, 15, 28, 51 modernism 32, 36, 37, 45, 50, 68, 82, 93, 97, 100, 118, 160, 201; post-​ see postmodernism; Western 82, 95, 114, 120, 121, 126, 145 modernist abstraction 149 modernist art 1, 5, 71, 93, 160, 175, 184, 187; before 1949 14, 15, 42, 45; from 1985 to 1989 120, 129, 131, 132, 141, 145 Modernist art 14, 15, 24, 39, 44, 149, 175; from 1979 to 1985 91, 96, 97, 98, 115; Western 2, 26, 34, 40, 42, 43, 45, 58, 97, 111, 119, 121, 122, 126, 143, 145 modernity 90, 142 modes, Edward Soja’s concept of 106–​107 Mona Lisa 126, 165 Monroe, Marilyn 189–​190 “Montrouge”–​Rosa La Rouge, A 57–​58 mood 44, 75, 126, 172 morality 93, 94, 110, 136, 161, 180–​181, 194, 195, 196; Confucian 24–​25, 95; and literati art 38, 39 Mr D and Mr S 20, 21, 35 Munch, Edvard 80, 125, 126 mural project for Beijing airport 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 115 Narrative 16 narrative event, and causal context of avant-​ garde movement 119–​122 narrative identity, of the possible author 30, 50, 51, 53, 54–​55, 56, 57, 60–​61, 63, 65, 68, 69, 83; and propaganda art 69–​74; transformation of 74–​82, 81 narrative model, for rewriting art history 3, 14, 15–​16, 17, 20, 36, 41, 46, 70, 86, 118, 152; and narratological framework 10–​12 narrative study 10–​11, 12, 16, 28–​29, 46, 53, 155 narrative theory 10, 12, 16, 28, 60–​61, 88, 118, 135 narratological framework: for rewriting art history 3; and narrative model 10–​12; for rewriting development of Chinese art 14, 15, 16, 20, 22–​23, 36, 41, 46, 47; see also author-​text-​reader relationship; character; textual space

216 Index narratology: general 3, 151; literary 3; modern 3, 15, 28, 51 Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative 119 Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative 15 National Art Gallery 43, 107, 110, 111, 194; since 1949 55, 63, 64, 68, 74, 81; from 1985 to 1989 121, 135, 136, 137, 140, 148 New Art History 8, 9, 12 New Chinese painting 27, 54 New Chinese Painting: 1949–​1986, The 54 New Culture Movement 18; and cultural con-​text 20–​22 New English Calligraphy 150 New Era, the Inspiration from Adam and Eve 121 New Generation 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163 New Knowledge 19, 32, 35 New Space 122 New Wave Art 118, 136, 141, 144–​145 1985 New Wave 118, 136, 141, 144–​145 non-​fiction 4, 54, 154 non-​realism 92 non-​realist art 86, 92–​95, 94, 98, 100, 114, 115, 125 Northern Art Group 121–​122, 125 Nude Maja 73 Old Knowledge 19 old masters 8, 27, 29, 37, 39, 40, 57, 77, 101, 126, 132, 142, 159, 173 One, Deleuzian notion of 123, 130 Oneself as Another 70 ontology 78, 91, 114, 174 Open Door Policy 74 open policy 32, 90, 93, 102, 114, 151–​152, 155 openness 74, 89, 90, 116, 154 originality 60, 78, 149, 184 Paid Hugs, The 195–​196, 196, 197 Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949–​1979 65–​66 painting: avant-​garde 122–​127; Chinese see Chinese painting; experimental 142–​147; figure see figure painting; formal beauty in 101; landscape 24, 27, 28, 33–​34, 39, 74, 77, 78, 97, 98, 100, 124; literati 20, 26, 27, 38–​39, 40, 96; photographic 182, 183; plein-​air 27, 37, 101; still-​life 37, 45, 77, 78–​79, 80, 96; Super Realist 160 Pan Derong 12 Parsons, Bruce 140, 141 People’s Republic 32, 108

perception 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 154, 161, 166–​167, 178, 184; mis-​ 86, 95, 96, 99, 100, 104, 115 performance art 118, 128, 132; and conceptual art 187, 188, 191–​192, 192–​193, 193–​194, 194–​195, 203; and Grand Exhibition of “China/​Avant-​ Garde” 135–​141, 138 Performance Art in Beijing East Village in the 1990s 192 performance works 137, 190–​191, 193 periodization, of twentieth-​century Chinese art 4–​6 personality 7, 38, 39, 74, 146, 154, 162, 181, 184, 194, 201 personalized brushwork 96 photographic paintings 182, 183 photographic realism 182, 183 photography 30, 38, 40, 44, 54, 73, 77, 78–​79, 82, 181, 182, 184, 189, 191–​192, 193, 197, 201 Picasso, Pablo 24, 82, 101, 121, 122, 171–​172, 172–​173, 176, 197 pleasure of reading 52 Pleasure of the Text, The 52 plein-​air painting 27, 37, 101 Poetics 135 Political Pop 160, 163, 164, 184 political propaganda 5, 76, 110, 189, 192, 202 political propaganda art of 1966–​1976, reinterpretation of 65–​69, 68 politics: in art 68, 93, 95, 98, 100, 132, 141, 170; cultural 108, 109, 142, 201; gender 194; international 200; realist 98, 100; and representation 192; revolutionary 67; of spatiality 106 Pool Society 122 Popular Work-​Out Exercise, A 159 Portrait, A 25 Portrait of Miss L 42, 43, 44 portraiture 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 58, 82, 161, 162, 169, 173, 176, 178, 183 possible author, and realist art 50–​83, 59, 68, 81 possible space, between author and reader 79, 83, 86 Post-​Classic: After Mona Lisa 126 post-​impressionism 39, 64, 96, 97, 175 postmodern art 5, 39, 59, 68, 88, 189; from 1985 to 1989 125, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 134; the 1990s 155, 159, 160, 164, 165, 174, 177, 183, 184; and character types 160–​163 postmodern characterization 154–​185, 166, 170, 177 postmodernism 14, 32, 36, 68, 71, 100, 132, 152, 155, 156, 160, 170, 201

Index  217 postmodernity 69, 90 post-​structuralism 8, 14, 46, 52, 88, 89, 152 posture 44, 75, 80, 94, 173, 175, 176, 197 prehensions, Deleuzian sub-​notion of 125 premodern realism 156, 157, 159 premodern realist literature 181 pre-​text 18, 29–​30; see also historical pre-​text primitivism 82, 97, 122 Prince, Gerald 15, 119 printing 145–​146, 147–​148, 149, 150 privilege 116, 201 Progressive Young Artists Exhibition 120, 121 propaganda, political 5, 76, 110, 189, 192, 202 propaganda art 64, 65–​74, 68, 110, 184; reinterpretation of 65–​69, 68 protest 21, 24, 108, 155, 194 Puberty 80, 125 Pumpkin 37 pure abstraction 98, 99, 102 pyramid 132, 134, 160–​161, 193 Qing dynasty 19, 26, 27, 31, 32, 37 reader reinterpretation 61, 63 readers: empirical 11, 53, 57; identification of 174–​179, 177; implied 11, 52–​53, 54, 57, 177–​178; integral 174, 179–​183, 187, 184–​185, 188; model 11, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 83; possible author transformed from 56–​60, 59 reader’s time 10 reader’s time of referent 10 reading: Mieke Bal’s interpretive notion of 36–​37; pleasure of 52 Reading Art? 36 reading process 53, 78, 79, 89 realism: Chinese Revolutionary 92–​93; Critical 75; Cynical 155, 160, 169; non-​ 92; photographic 182, 183; premodern 156, 157, 159; Revolutionary 32, 92–​93, 137; since 1978 74–​82, 81; Socialist see Socialist Realism; Soviet Socialist 32, 62, 68, 76, 82, 91, 93, 114, 120, 159; Western 22, 40, 82, 159 realist art: Chinese 50, 64, 65–​66, 80, 82, 100–​101, 104, 160; non-​ 86, 92–​95, 94, 98, 100, 114, 115, 125; Socialist 4, 5, 32, 65, 67, 72, 86, 92; Western 2, 27–​28, 35, 37, 39, 45 realist politics 98, 100 realist-​expressionist brushwork 159 red art 5, 31, 32, 34; possible author rewriting of 60–​65 red book 111

reframing sub-​split of traditional-​style art 36–​41 Refugees 40 Rembrandt 45, 76, 126, 173, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182–​183 Repin, Ilya 59, 62, 75, 76 resistance 7, 108, 193, 201 revolutionary politics 67 Revolutionary Realism 32, 92–​93, 137 rhythmic beauty 102 Ricoeur, Paul 70 Rijn, Rembrandt van 45, 76, 126, 173, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182–​183 Role of the Reader, The 55–​56 romanticism (pursuit of freedom) 156, 159 Romanticism (specific type of early nineteenth century art) 159, 169 Russian formalism 3 Russian-​Soviet art 64, 97 Ryan, Marie-​Laure 119 Said, Edward 152 Sartre, Jean-​Paul 124, 164, 182 screen, Deleuzian notion of 123 sculpture 23, 112, 127, 129, 131, 132, 134, 195, 197 second space 87, 92, 95, 98, 100, 105, 114, 115; imagined world as 100–​105 Second World War 16, 22, 31, 32, 36, 40, 41, 93, 96, 105, 110, 203 secondary narration, by art historians 1, 119, 179, 183; before 1949 15, 28, 29, 30, 31, 41, 42, 43; since 1949 54, 55, 56, 58, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 83; conceptual art through to the 2020s 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 201 second-​generation artists 2, 34, 57, 65, 72, 74, 75 Secondspace 91, 95–​96, 99, 100, 104, 105, 110, 115 Self-​Portrait (of Jiang Zhaohe) 40 self-​portraits 163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 171, 173 semi-​abstraction 94, 98, 99, 124 Semiotics for Art History 11, 17, 169, 202 Setting Sun, Fishing Harbor 99 shading 27, 28, 35, 37, 39, 40, 44, 62–​63, 74, 169, 171 Shakespeare, William 2, 8, 29 Shang Yang 59, 59, 61 Shanghai School 26 shape 38, 40 Shen Jiawei 67, 69 Shoes 29 Sigg, Uli 169, 170, 172, 201 significant form 101, 102

218 Index Silence 111, 112 simplicity 94, 97, 109, 162–​163 simplification 94, 98, 99, 169, 171 Sino-​Japanese War 18, 19 Six Walks in the Fictional Woods 53, 56 Smith, Murray 174–​175, 177, 178–​179, 180–​181, 183, 185 Socialist Realism 2, 32, 45, 120, 155, 156, 157, 159; since 1949 50, 61, 62, 63–​64, 68, 71, 76, 82; from 1979 to 1985 91, 92, 93, 98, 114 Socialist Realist art 4, 5, 32, 65, 67, 72, 86, 92 sociality 109, 114–​115, 116 socio-​cultural space 88, 89, 90 Soja, Edward: on Firstspace 92, 95; on Secondspace 95–​96, 99, 100, 104; on social and spatial modes 106–​107; on spatial trialectics 91–​92, 109–​110, 114, 115; on Thirdspace 86, 87, 90, 105–​106, 109–​110 Solomon, Andrew 141, 167 Southwestern Art Study Group 122 Soviet art 2, 61, 62, 64, 65, 69, 97 Soviet influence 61, 62, 63–​64, 65, 66–​67 Soviet Socialist Realism 32, 62, 68, 76, 82, 91, 93, 114, 120, 159 Sovietness 63–​64, 65 Soviet-​style brushwork 63, 64, 69 space: first 87, 92–​95, 94, 104, 114, 115; fourth 86, 87, 92, 115, 116; New 122; possible 79, 83, 86; second 87, 92, 95, 98, 100–​105, 114, 115; socio-​cultural 88, 89, 90; textual 15, 51, 53, 86–​116, 94, 99, 112; third 87, 92, 105–​109, 109–​115, 112 spatial practice, Henri Lefebvre’s notion of 92 spatial turn 90, 107 spatiality 86, 92, 95, 105, 106, 108–​109, 114, 115, 116; and textuality 87–​92; theory of 87, 88 spectacle, Guy Debord’s notion of 203–​204 spiritual brushwork 26 Spring Breeze 80, 81 Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland 69 Stars artists 86, 91, 105, 106, 107–​108, 109, 110, 114–​115, 115–​116 Stars exhibitions 87, 105–​109, 111, 112, 124 Stars Group 105, 106, 108, 113, 114 Stars Painting Society 109 still-​life 37, 45, 77, 78–​79, 80, 96 Stones and Rocks 122 storytelling 4, 29, 30, 31, 70 straw boat archetype 199, 200 strong poets, in Harold Bloom’s poetic theory 7, 8, 47 structuralism 3, 9, 14, 15, 164, 185 structuralist theory 164 structure of sympathy 174–​175, 177

Study of History, A 4, 7, 200 Stupa Ruins in Burma 27–​28 sub-​events 118, 119, 122, 127, 151–​152 sub-​split 26, 46, 143, 187; of traditional-​style art 1, 2, 14, 15, 25, 28, 34–​36, 36–​41; of Western-​style art 1, 2, 14, 15, 25, 34–​36, 41–​46, 43 successive independence, of Chinese avant-​garde art 125 Super Realist Painting 160 Supper 156, 158 surrealism 121, 122, 145, 176, 195 system theory 163–​164, 185 Tang Muli 67, 68, 69 Tansey, Mark 78 Tears Shed in the Harvest Land 76 telephoto lens analogy, for “how” to rewrite art history 1, 15, 187 temporality 90, 92, 115, 151 Ten Years of the Stars 113 tertiary narrativization 195–​202, 196, 198, 199 tertiary reader 30, 51, 53, 66–​67, 72, 79, 83, 187 text: central 11, 15, 22–​23, 28–​31, 36, 41, 57; pre-​ see pre-​text textual context 11, 15, 20, 22–​23, 25, 28, 31 textual space 15, 51, 53; and historical transformation 86–​116, 94, 99, 112 textuality 51; inter-​ see intertextuality; and spatiality 87–​92; of third space 109–​115, 112 theorization 2, 6, 56, 91–​92, 187 Theory of Narrative, A 15 Third of May 1808, The 171 third space 87, 92; conceived world as 105–​109; textuality of 109–​115, 112 third-​generation artists 2, 34, 59, 65, 74, 75–​76, 80, 175 Thirdspace 105 Thirdspace, Edward Soja’s concept of 86–​87, 90, 91, 105, 109–​110, 115 three waves, of Western influence 31–​32 Tiananmen Square crackdown 82, 111, 139, 155, 157, 158, 165, 168, 169, 172, 173, 176, 177, 180, 182, 201 Time and Narrative 70 time referred to in artworks 10 To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain 193 To the People 108 Tobey, Mark 33, 38, 99 Toulouse-​Lautrec, Henri de 57–​58, 61, 64–​65 Toynbee, Arnold J. 4, 7, 46, 200, 202

Index  219 traditional Chinese painting 20, 35, 37, 40, 41, 103, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 194 traditional-​style art 1, 14, 25, 26, 28, 35, 45, 57, 118, 143, 144, 187; sub-​split of 36–​41 Traffic Jam 159 Tranquillity and Soul 146 transformation, historical 86–​116, 94, 99, 112 transitional period 5, 71, 72, 73, 74, 87, 176 transitions 61, 71, 87; and avant-​garde movement 119, 120, 123, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 152; double 131–​134; evental 129; generic 129, 130, 131, 132, 134 translation, of Western publications 2, 21, 23, 33, 124, 125, 140 trialectics, Edward Soja’s 91, 92, 114–​115 triangle fold, unfolding the double transitions in a 131–​134 truth of detail 157–​158, 162, 163 Tuan, Yi-​Fu 203 Two Books of “History of Chinese Painting” and “A Concise History of Western Painting” Washed in A Washing Machine for Two Minutes 132 typical characters 157, 158, 162, 181, 184 typical circumstances 157, 158 Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilyich 32, 62 unfolding: Deleuzian concept of 127–​131; the double transitions in a triangle fold 131–​134 United Nations: The Babel of the Millennium 148 Value of Literati Painting, The 26, 38 Viewing Paintings 39 Vinci, Leonardo da 103, 126, 195–​196 visual art 9, 23, 155, 168, 169 visual communication, integrated model of 11 Visual Culture 12, 203 visual form 5, 97, 100, 101, 102, 122, 132, 192 Volga Boatmen 59 Voluntary Hugs, The 196, 197 Wall Landscape 189–​190, 192 Wang Baijiao 129 Wang Guangyi 121–​122, 126, 164 Wang Keping 110, 111–​112, 112, 114 Wang Xiangming 121 Warhol, Andy 190 Water-​Splashing Festival, the Celebration of Life 93, 94 Western art theory 2, 6, 18, 38, 52, 64, 124, 137, 145, 201

Western body theories 194–​195 Western critical theory 163 Western fine art 20, 23, 24 Western formalism 86, 93, 96, 100, 115 Western formalist art 115, 122, 145 Western influence: four avenues of 32–​34; three waves of 31–​32 Western literature 22, 56 Western Modernism 82, 95, 114, 120, 121, 126, 145 Western Modernist art 2, 58, 97, 111; before 1949 26, 34, 40, 42, 43, 45; from 1985 to 1989 119, 121, 122, 126, 143, 145 Western realism 22, 40, 82, 159 Western Realist art 2, 27–​28, 35, 37, 39, 45 Western theory 202 Westernization 18–​20, 21, 23, 24, 34, 41, 74, 155, 202; wholesale 20, 21 Westernization Movement 18–​20, 23, 202 Western-​style art 1, 87–​88, 118, 143, 144, 187; before 1949 14, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38; sub-​split of 41–​46, 43 “what” to rewrite about art history 187 White, Hayden 1–​2 Whitehead, Alfred North 125 “who” rewrites art history 187 wholesale Westernization 20, 21 wide-​angle lens analogy, for “how” to rewrite art history 1, 15, 187 Women of Algiers 101 woodcarvings 110, 111, 113 working class 59, 61, 65, 74, 75 writing: of art history 3, 4, 12, 31, 53, 60–​61, 89, 203–​204; evental 119, 142–​147; of Julia Andrews 55; narrative 54, 56, 62; of Umberto Eco 54 Writing a Letter to Chairman Mao 76 Wu Guanzhong 86, 87, 91, 95–​100, 99, 101, 102, 104–​105, 115 Wu Hung 113–​114, 140–​141 Wyeth, Andrew 80, 81, 82 Xi Jinping 202 Xiamen Dada group 122, 132–​133 Xiao Lu 138, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142 Xinhai Revolution 19 Xu Beihong 32, 40, 57, 72, 97, 159, 173 Xu Bing 147–​148, 149–​150, 149, 150–​151, 151, 152 Yawn 165, 166, 166–​168 Yellow Mountain Symposium 120 Yi Ying 112, 120 yijing 39, 101 Youth 80–​81 Yu Hong 156, 157, 159

220 Index Yuan Yunsheng 93, 94 Yue Minjun 163, 165; and intertextual characterization 168–​174, 170, 197 Zen 24, 33, 39, 113, 146, 191, 204 Zhang Nian 137 Zhang Qun 121

Zhang Xiaogang 122; characters of 174–​179, 177; third-​phase art of 179–​183 Zhang Zhidong 19 Zhao Yiheng 28, 30, 151, 152 Zhong Acheng 110 Zhou, Yan 130–​131, 139, 141, 161 Zhuge Liang 199