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- All Subjects: Chinese diaspora
- Creators: Brown, Claudia
Description
The turmoil that China endured during the twentieth century triggered a series of social and political revolutions. As China struggled to resolve domestic questions of dynasticism or democracy and nationalism or communism, Western industrialization and imperialism dragged China rapidly into the globalizing world. Likewise, Chinese painting had to confront the West, as Chinese artists dealt with the twentieth-century version of the recurring question of modernizing Chinese painting for its times: how does one reconcile an ancient painting tradition with all the possibilities Western interactions introduced? This dissertation focuses on one artist's lifelong struggle, often overlooked, to answer this question. By examining C. C. Wang (1907-2003) and his life in art, this case study reveals broader truths about how twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters, such as Wang, modernized the tradition of Chinese ink painting.
Wang's reputation as a connoisseur of ancient Chinese painting has overshadowed his own artwork, creating a dearth of research on his artistic development. Using public and private sources, this dissertation applied stylistic analysis to track this development. The analysis reveals an artist's lifelong endeavor to establish a style that would lift the Chinese painting tradition into a modern era, an endeavor inspired by modern Western art ideas and a desire to play a role in the larger movement of elevating Chinese painting. The argument is made that these efforts establish Wang as an influential twentieth century Chinese ink painter.
To clarify Wang's role within the broader movement of Chinese diaspora painters, this dissertation employs a comparison study of Wang with such established twentieth century ink painting artists as Zhang Daqian, Liu Guosong, and Yu Chengyao. It is
asserted that the 1949 diaspora forced this cohort of artists to adjust their style and to transcend traditional Chinese painting by integrating newly-salient ideas from Western art, particularly the abstract movement. Meanwhile, the essential Chinese identity in their art collectively became more significant. The solidarity of purpose and identity is a distinctive part of the answer this group of twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters proposed to their generation's inherited challenge of enriching the tradition.
Wang's reputation as a connoisseur of ancient Chinese painting has overshadowed his own artwork, creating a dearth of research on his artistic development. Using public and private sources, this dissertation applied stylistic analysis to track this development. The analysis reveals an artist's lifelong endeavor to establish a style that would lift the Chinese painting tradition into a modern era, an endeavor inspired by modern Western art ideas and a desire to play a role in the larger movement of elevating Chinese painting. The argument is made that these efforts establish Wang as an influential twentieth century Chinese ink painter.
To clarify Wang's role within the broader movement of Chinese diaspora painters, this dissertation employs a comparison study of Wang with such established twentieth century ink painting artists as Zhang Daqian, Liu Guosong, and Yu Chengyao. It is
asserted that the 1949 diaspora forced this cohort of artists to adjust their style and to transcend traditional Chinese painting by integrating newly-salient ideas from Western art, particularly the abstract movement. Meanwhile, the essential Chinese identity in their art collectively became more significant. The solidarity of purpose and identity is a distinctive part of the answer this group of twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters proposed to their generation's inherited challenge of enriching the tradition.
ContributorsHua, Ming (Author) / Brown, Claudia (Thesis advisor) / Baker, Janet (Committee member) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
“I want something that will show what is truth itself.”- Zheng Chongbin For artist Zheng Chongbin, truth is visualized through elegant, frenetic dances of blacks, whites, and grays on paper and sculptural transformations of divine spaces. Beginning with the vehicle of ink and its materiality, Zheng explores the potentialities of phenomenological realities in his artworks. His pieces are portraits and scenes of cosmic links and structures intended to question preconditioned biases and awaken human perception of elemental forms and the unnoticed beauty in our environment. This paper follows the evolution of Zheng’s visual philosophy by tracing the thread of influences, spanning disciplines, cultures, and time, behind Zheng’s artistic endeavors. While a body of literature on Zheng’s practice exists, mainly written by art historians with a specialty in contemporary Chinese art, much of it is largely concerned with establishing his position as a revolutionary artist revitalizing and transforming the Chinese ink painting tradition. Interpretative essays and critical writings about Zheng’s artwork most often attempt to fit them within the Chinese artistic canon or are surface aesthetic comparisons to Western post-war artists. However, little to no scholarly research has comprehensively addressed Zheng’s inclination towards transdisciplinary and transhistorical schools of thought and how those ideas are integrated into his methodology. By revealing the rich philosophical constructs behind Zheng’s practice, the paper opens up pathways for new approaches to his artworks. Ultimately, this challenges the narrow categorization of Zheng’s practice as definitively Chinese contemporary art, and instead facilitates the understanding that his artworks demonstrate a convergence of multiple artistic hereditary lines and global discourses.
ContributorsYang, Celia (Author) / Hoy, Meredith (Thesis advisor) / Little, Stephen (Committee member) / Brown, Claudia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021