Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Painting, Chinese
- 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
The Vimalakirti Sutra is one of the classics of early Indian Mahayana Buddhism. The sutra narrates that Vimalakirti, an enlightened layman, once made it appear as if he were sick so that he could demonstrate the Law of Mahayana Buddhism to various figures coming to inquire about his illness. This dissertation studies representations of The Vimalakirti Sutra in Chinese painting from the fourth to the nineteenth centuries to explore how visualizations of the same text could vary in different periods of time in light of specific artistic, social and religious contexts. In this project, about forty artists who have been recorded representing the sutra in traditional Chinese art criticism and catalogues are identified and discussed in a single study for the first time. A parallel study of recorded paintings and some extant ones of the same period includes six aspects: text content represented, mode of representation, iconography, geographical location, format, and identity of the painter. This systematic examination reveals that two main representational modes have formed in the Six Dynasties period (220-589): depictions of the Great Layman as a single image created by Gu Kaizhi, and narrative illustrations of the sutra initiated by Yuan Qian and his teacher Lu Tanwei. The latter mode, which became more popular than the former in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), experienced adaptation from handscroll to panoramic mural. It is also during this period that a minor scenario, the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers, became a necessary vignette for representation of the sutra. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers gradually became an independent theme. This author investigates the thematic shift caused by various factors. These include the transformation of later Chinese narrative painting and the prevalence of shinu hua 仕女畫, painting of beauties, in later Chinese painting. There is also a change in the role of the Heavenly Maiden from one of many maidens to the only and necessary partner of Vimalakirti. Ultimately, the image of the Heavenly Maiden evolves from a Buddhist heavenly being to a Daoist fairy and later to a symbol representing auspicious meanings.
ContributorsLiu, Chen (Author) / Brown, Claudia (Thesis advisor) / Chou, Ju-hsi (Committee member) / Wu, Jiang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation is the first detailed and extensive study dedicated to the life and art of the master artist and scholar-official Chen Rong (active 13th century), and offers an expanded analysis of his most famous work, the Nine Dragons scroll (1244). It provides a reconstruction of Chen Rong's biography, character and political career, and discusses his significance and impact in the study of Chinese painting during the late Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) and beyond, by highlighting the reception and interpretation of the Nine Dragons scroll in the past and in modern times. This is achieved by addressing writings such as eulogies, poems and commentary about Chen Rong by his contemporaries and later biographers, and also analysis of recent works by contemporary Chinese artists that reinterpret Chen Rong's Nine Dragons motif directly. In addition to offering an expanded reading and interpretation of Chen Rong's inscriptions on the Nine Dragons scroll and inscriptions by subsequent viewers of the scroll, this study sheds light on the artistic context, significance, and historical development of dragons and dragon painting in China. This dissertation also offers the first full English transcription and translation of Emperor Qianlong's inscription on the Nine Dragons scroll, and that of his eight officials. Furthermore, this dissertation includes two detailed appendices; one is a detailed appendix of all of Chen Rong's paintings documented to exist today, and the second is a list of paintings attributed to Chen Rong that have been mentioned in historical documents that no longer appear extant. This interdisciplinary study provides insight into the processes that influence how an artist's work is transformed beyond his time to that of legendary status. This clarification of Chen Rong's biography and artistic activity, particularly with respect to his most famous work the Nine Dragons scroll, contributes to modern scholarship by providing an expanded understanding of Chen Rong's life and art, which in turn, adjusts prevailing perceptions of his life and work.
ContributorsChao, Jacqueline (Author) / Brown, Claudia (Thesis advisor) / Codell, Julie (Committee member) / Baker, Janet (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012