Yiyan Wang - Modern Art for a Modern China: The Chinese Intellectual Debate, 1900–​1930

How did art reform fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period?

Modern art for a modern China was the rallying cry of Chinese intellectuals, many of whom were artists, critics, writers, poets and educators. Wang describes how these groups discussed and implanted changes in Chinas conception and practice of art. She demonstrates how art reforms fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period. In doing so, she analyses two key areas in the intellectual history of Republican China: Chinas art reform in the early decades of the twentieth century; and the connection and intersection between colonialism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, including their direct impact on the development of art and art practice in China.

Modern Art for a Modern China is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of Chinas twentieth-century intellectual history and art history.

Yiyan Wang is Professor of Chinese at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research is in the field of modern Chinese literature and culture. She has been particularly interested in the interconnection between modern Chinese literature and art and between the writers and the artists.

Routledge Contemporary China Series

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Yiyan Wang

2021 Yiyan Wang

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The process of writing this book took place when I was to start my new job at Victoria University and trying to settle in the city of Wellington. In more than one way, I needed help and I have been most lucky to have made many friends in this coolest capital of the world, whose friendship and support have been invaluable for both my research and sanity. Gillian and Roderick, Carol and Mark, Amy and Tom are my extended family and I have travelled with them on many, different adventures, from marvellous cuisines to native gardens, from the New Zealand political landscape past and present to local community connections. Thanks to Gillians kindness and generosity in particular I now call New Zealand home and also thanks to her regular checking on the manuscripts progress, I am now able to present this book to the world.

It has been a great privilege to have known Rupert, Gary and James and I am extremely grateful for their openness to a cultural other like myself. They have certainly taken me onto different and yet equally interesting journeys of discovery and through them I came to see and appreciate the deep historical and cultural links between pakeha New Zealanders and their motherland. A special thank you should go to Rupert the drafts of my chapters were direct beneficiaries of his wide knowledge base, meticulous attention to detail and unfailing patience at deciphering my awkward English expressions.

I am also deeply indebted to many of my colleagues. John Clark, emeritus professor of Asian art history at the University of Sydney, offered crucial guidance, help and encouragement when I was conceptualising this project. In my school, the School of Languages and Cultures, Duncan Campbell, Catherine Churchman, Edwina Palmer, Richard Millington, each of these talented multilinguists helped me with their expertise in the language(s) and cultures in other parts of the world beyond my horizon. Their assistance has been invaluable and indispensable, as this research attempts to recover the global territories and historical timelines the Chinese intellectuals reached 100 years ago. Outside of my school, I am particularly grateful to three outstanding historians Alexander Maxwell, Charlotte McDonald and Sekhar Bandyopadhyay who are inspirations as well as scholarly models. They have been an enormous help in my attempt to transform myself from a literary critic to an intellectual historian. Peter Harris, the former director of Institute for Asian Studies at Victoria University, kindly spent time with me analysing the subtleties and nuances of what I intended to call the book and the title of this book was his brainchild.