Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China (review)

Reviews 557 worthwhile read, and should appeal to tiiose with a growing curiosity about overseas Chinese matters. Donald A. Jordan Ohio University, Athens DonaldJordan ¿5 aprofessor ofhistory specializing in Republican China and its relations with Japan. im Michael Sullivan. Art and Artists ofTwentieth-Century China. London, Berkeley, and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1996. xxvii, 354 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-520-07556-0. For those of us who studied modern Chinese art before 1980, Michael Sullivan's Chinese Art in the 20th Centurywas one of the few English-language resources available at that time. Other books that address twentieth-century Chinese art have been written since then, but generally they are devoted to a particular time period or artistic medium. Indeed, it is a daunting task to chronicle this fascinating but confusing period in China's art history; however, in his new book Art and Artists ofTwentieth-Century China, Michael Sullivan has done just diat. In this greatly expanded (354 pages), lavishly illustrated (ninety-four color plates and 278 black-and-white figures) new publication, Sullivan has borrowed only six pages from his previous book. The author admits that tiiis new effort represents more a personal view than a definitive study of the topic. Still, he has provided his readers with an abundance ofboth subjective observations and objective information as he recounts the rebirth and evolution of Chinese art in the twentieth century under the influence ofWestern art and culture. Beginning his study in the late nineteenth century and ending in the early 1990s, Sullivan traces the emergence ofWestern art in China and the evolution of its various media and styles, and he documents the series ofongoing confrontations between the practitioners ofWestern and traditional Chinese art. Art in twentieth-century China cannot be divorced from China's political history, and Sullivan acknowledges this. Consequently, he has selected for discussion some y mversity works 0f^1 for pUreiv aestiietic reasons, while others were chosen for what they illustrate about the politics of a particular period. The book is divided into five sections. Four are devoted to specific and important time periods, and die fifth, "Odier Currents," explores the evolution of ofHawai'i Press 558 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 Chinese art outside the People's Republic. Each section is divided into chapters that address, among other items of interest, specific artistic schools, various media , and trends in die Chinese art world. Sullivan is at his best in "Part One: 1900-1937: The Impact of the West" and "Part Two: 1937-1949: War and Civil War," covering historical periods that he has researched extensively. In "Part One," Sullivan explores the revival of traditional painting in the early part of the twentieth century, discusses the two important centers of traditional art in Beijing and Shanghai, and introduces the leading masters and dieir students. However, he also acknowledges the limitations of traditional Chinese painting in its ability to reflect accurately the history of this period. In truth, traditionally trained Chinese artists could not ignore the challenges of Western art. By the early twentieth century, Western drawing and painting were a compulsory part of the curriculum in all Chinese schools and university art departments. This reform went hand in hand with the vision of regenerating Chinese culture that was held by the outspoken minister of education, Cai Yuanpei. Cai was such an enthusiastic supporter ofWestern art that his zeal alone prompted many an artist to go abroad and study it firsthand. Sullivan documents the impact of artists who turned to the West for inspiration as well as the major centers of modern Western art in China. He explores the problems of artists practicing Western oil painting in the early part of the twentieth century and the often formidable obstacles they faced. Ironically, Chinese oil painters encountered many of the same problems during the 1980s, including an uninformed public, a dearth of art critics, the cost of the new materials compared to the traditional ink and paper, and being in the difficult position ofpracticing Western oil-painting styles no longer considered part of the cutting edge. An entire chapter is devoted to the Lingnan School in Canton, which introduced into China the...