With the occurrences of the Xinhai Revolution (辛亥革命), the New Culture Movement (新文化運動) and the May Forth Movement (五四運動) during the 1910s and 1920s, the traditional Chinese culture and value have been under serious challenges and attacks from numerous scholars such as Sun Yat-sen (孫中山), Liang Qichao (梁啟超), Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀), Lu Xun (魯迅) as well as modern artists such as Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻) and Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中) since the early twentieth century. Guohua (國畫, literally means “national painting”) has also been regarded as an art form in need of reformation and modernization with injection of Western artistic elements such as realism and the use of colours. Confronted by the arrival of the Western painting and the drastic social-cultural changes, the dominance ofguohua, which was entrenched in China for thousands of years, is now being severely attacked for being “outdated” and “irrelevant”, and critics cruelly claimed that “the failure of Chinese painting has reached its peak”(1), “Chinese painting has reached its dead end”(2) and “the brush and ink are equal to zero”(3) . This kind of negative thought toward traditional Chinese painting can be regarded as the consequence of “evolutionism” and “self-orientalism”, which are two prominent concepts in this modern era: an era wherein Western philosophy, art, economy, ideology and definitions of modernity and contemporaneity are hegemonic.
Evolutionism at first referred to the biological concept of Darwinian evolution of organisms (4). The definition was then extended to include “cultural evolution”, “historical development” and “social evolution”(5), meaning that culture, history and society are also organic. Some Western scholars even regard Evolutionism as the synonyms of “progress” and “civilization”, transforming this concept into a Eurocentric view on nationalism, as well as a Western creation of history wherein European culture is positioned at the highest stage of history while Asian culture is at the lowest stage (6). Evolutionism also played a crucial role in shaping the course of imperialism. Imperialism transmogrified economic rapacity into a consolidated crusade for civilization and development with bureaucracies and control , signifying the starting of colonialism. With the impact of the strong Western economic power and military technologies, colonisation raged around the globe, and Asian cultures were forced to submit themselves to the Western cultures. In terms of Chinese art, Chinese painting had to use modernization and westernization to salvage itself from the threat of national crises and colonialism; while scholars also soundly criticised and attacked their own valuable Chinese culture. Gradually, the illusion of “the superiority of the West over the East” was regarded as the reality by the colonized and self-orientalism emerged. Nowadays, there are still numerous artists and scholars giving high praise to Western art and culture, regarding them as a symbol of modernization, progress and advancement, and severely discriminating their own traditional art form. This situation is certainly a manifestation of self-orientalism wherein the Chinese people are regarding Western art and culture as superior to those of their own nation.
Example: The Adoption of Linear Perspective, Colours and Realism
This one is Travelers Among Mountains and Streams (谿山行旅圖) painted by Fan Kuan (范寬) during the Northern Dynasty (960-1127). It is regarded as one of the most magnificent masterpieces of Chinese literati painting (the style of the landscape is painted with the standards of "Southern School" 南宗). Also, the western linear perspective is not used in this masterpiece. The painting is executed in only ink and thus there are only different variations of black and grey colours. The painting is also considered as not "realistic" because it does not represent the reality as no one could actually see such a scenery in reality since Fan Kuan actually adopted three different perspectives to paint this view.
This one is The School of Athens painted by Raphael in 1509 during the Renaissance period. Obviously, the linear perspective is applied here. It is also a very colourful paintings. On the other hand, it adopts the aesthetic concept of realism as the human figures and architecture are all painted in a very realistic way. It is said that this painting is a faithful representation with proper contour, chiaroscuro and balance.
The below painting is called Zhenhai Tower (鎮海樓) and it was painted by a master from the Lingnan School of Painting (嶺南派) called Gao Jianfu (高劍父) in 1926, which is exactly the time when China was advocating and promoting modernization (which, again, I would say is actually westernization). An interesting note about Gao Jianfu is that, he actually participated actively in the republican revolution of Sun Yat-sen. In the 1920s, he advocated a revolution in Chinese art: The New National Painting. Gao declared, “As I followed Sun Yat-sen in the political revolution, I feel the real need to revolutionize painting of our nation. I wish to create a kind of modern painting that truly belongs to the Republican China”(7). The core value of Lingnan School of Painting is to synthesize Chinese and foreign art and to harmonize the past and the presence (折衷中外，融合古今). As a result, we can see a lot of western aesthetic elements in his painting. The below one shows the application of linear perspective, the use of colours, the adoption of realism and chiaroscuro, etc.
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1. The original Chinese text of this quote is “中國畫學之頹敗，至今日已極矣！”. See Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻), Xu Beihong’s Discussion on Arts (徐悲鴻談藝錄), ed. Zhang Yuying (張玉英) (Henan: Henan Meishu Chu Ban She, 2000), 1.
2. The original Chinese text of this quote is “中國畫已到了窮途未路的時候”. See Li Xiaoshan (李小山), “My Opinion on Contemporary Chinese Painting” (當代中國畫之我見), in Essay Selection on Chinese Arts in the Twentieth Century (二十世紀中國美術文選) (Volume Two), ed. Lang Shaojun (郎紹君) and Shui Tianzhong (水中天) (Shanghai: Duo Yun Xuan, 1999), 418.
3. The original Chinese text of this quote is “筆墨等於零”. See Wu Guanzhong (吳冠中), The Brush and Ink are Equal to Zero (筆墨等於零). Hong Kong: Ming Pao Monthly, 1992. The publication of this article caused numerous heated debates and criticisms among different academic fields.
4. Davidson, George W. Chambers Concise Twentieth-century Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers, 1985.
5. Allen, Robert T.Chambers Encyclopaedic English Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers, 1994.
6. Hegel, Georg W. F. The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, Charles Hegel and C. J. Friedrich. New York: Dover Publications, 2004.
7. 高劍夫, “我的現代繪畫觀,” 引至 高劍父詩文初編, 李偉銘編輯 (廣東: 廣東高等教育出版社, 1999), 221.
