Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future: Master Ink Painters in Twentieth Century China

Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future examines a crucial turning point in the development of Chinese ink painting in the twentieth century, a change represented by the beautiful and innovative work of four artists, Wu Changshuo (18441927), Qi Baishi (18631957), Huang Binhong (18641955), and Pan Tianshou (18971971). With careers spanning over a century of radical change in China, these artists were instrumental in propelling the ancient tradition of Chinese ink painting into the modern era in the face of compelling Western influences. As a group, their work represents an alternative approach to questions of relevance and modernity. This lavish book illuminates the context in which these artists worked, describes their overall contribution to the history of Chinese art, and highlights their individual ideas and achievements. In his introductory essay, Xiaoneng Yang offers a brief historical background for the evolution of modern Chinese painting. Richard E. Vinograd analyzes the alternative modernism” represented by these artists, each of whom worked in the brush-and-ink idiom, confronted the shift toward practices of the West, and gave new life through this confrontation to cherished traditions. Essays devoted to each artist are followed by individual entries discussing their works. Featuring more than one hundred works of both painting and calligraphy by the four artists, the book, which is published to accompany a traveling exhibition, also includes a glossary and detailed bibliography.

Arts & Photography

Yang, Xiaoneng

History & Criticism

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for

Reflections of Early China is a comprehensive study that presents a historical, archaeological, and theoretical exploration of pictographs and decorations on ancient Chinese bronzes. In it, Xiaoneng Yang challenges the "clan sign" theory and offers new interpretations of the functions and meanings of bronze decor and pictographs in light of archaeological data and social settings. Yang also introduces the new discovery of an unidentified medium that he calls "pictorial inscriptions" that is located in the gray zone between writing and decoration. Further, Yang discusses the sources, contexts, and correlations among the three medium. Yang concludes that the three mediums were derived from various cultures in prehistoric China. Their evolution was closely associated with social, cultural, political, religious, and ritual development. In early Bronze Age China, the three mediums played distinct roles and performed different functions. They are reflections of the formation of Chinese civilation.Reflections of Early China integrates the pictographic inscriptions of Shang and early Western Zhou (2nd millennia BC) with all of our current knowledge of the archaeology, society, and religion that time.

Reflections of Early China: Decor, Pictographs, and Pictorial Inscriptions

History

Asia

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

VG/VG, 1st edn, 316 examples some in colour, 302pps, 43pps of text in English, examples in Chinese/English, 8vo.

Sculpture of Xia & Shang China (Chung-kuo Hsia Shang tiao su i shu) (Chinese and English Edition)

Tai Do Publishing Limited

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Books by Yang, Xiaoneng