Writing Modern Chinese Art

The complexity and confusion of styles and intentions are true characteristics of modern Chinese art. Just as the definition of “modernity” was subjected to reinterpretations at various points in China’s recent history, current notions of the canon are likewise subjected to change.

This book — consisting of ten articles by art historians, artist, historian, and curator — explores the developments of Chinese art in the 20th century, applying critical theories to question and reinterpret concepts that are normally taken for granted. Their writings also reveal the thought processes in which the authors filtered what they considered to be important information, especially regarding people, events, dates, and artworks. As such, the topic of each article is, in itself, a result of judicious selection. This volume demonstrates how modern Chinese art history has been — and can be — written.

Director's Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Modernization, Periodization, Canonization in Twentieth-Century Chinese Painting / Jerome Silbergeld

Part I: Becoming Modern
Chapter 1. When Was Modern Chinese Art?: A Short History of Chinese Modernism / Ralph Croizier
Chapter 2. Fundamental Changes in the Study of Chinese Painting: 1796-1948 / Qingli Wan

Part II: Becoming Chinese
Chapter 3. Concept to Context: The Theoretical Transformation of Ink Painting into China's National Art in the 1920s and 1930s / Kuiyi Shen
Chapter 4. Art under Mao, "Cai Guoqiang's Maksimov Collection," and China's Twentieth Century / Julia Andrews
Chapter 5. Rediscovering China in Japan: Fu Baoshi's Ink Painting / Tamaki Maeda
Chapter 6. "Two Wangs" in New York: Tradition and Modernization in the Diaspora / Arnold Chang

Part III: Becoming Art
Chapter 7. What Is a Masterpiece?: Historiographical Anxieties and Classifications of Painting in Modern China / Aida Yuen Wong
Chapter 8. How Good Are Modern Chinese Landscapes?: Genre, Evaluation, and Works by the "Two Stones" / Josh Yiu
Chapter 9. The History and Collecting of Twentieth-Century Chinese Art: Michael Sullivan's Pioneering Survey / Zaixin Hong

Appendix: Exhibition Materials
Text panels and labels for the exhibition "Of Nature and Friendship: Modern Chinese Painting from the Khoan and Michael Sullivan Collection"