[Lingnan Literature and History] – Co-organized by the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Culture and Literature and History Materials Committee and Yangcheng Evening News
As a major printmaking center, Guangdong’s emerging woodcut movement, led by Lu Xun, wrote a brilliant page on the history of modern Chinese printmaking
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Zhu Shaojie
In modern times, Guangdong has been an indisputable printmaking center. Emerging woodcut sports athletes such as Huang Xinbo and Gu Yuan all came from Guangdong. The classic works of Li Hua, Lai Shaoqi and others are also well-known, but their specific creations and explorations during the modern print fair, especially the original woodcuts, are hard to find.
In September 2019, the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Library discovered 146 works from the Modern Printmaking Club while sorting out the collection, presenting more of the modern “emerging woodcut movement”, including early works by Li Hua, Lai Shaoqi and others. This is an important gain from the Guangdong art community in recent years to excavate and organize the treasure mountain of modern prints.
Seeing the light of day again
In 1931, Lu Xun advocated the Babaylan to launch the China Emerging Woodcut Printing Movement, and the “Modern Creation Printing Research Association” (hereinafter referred to as the “Modern Printing Society”) was an important representative of the movement in Guangdong. The initiator of the Modern Printmaking Association was Li Hua, and the initial members included 27 people including Lai Shaoqi, Tang Yingwei, Chen Zhonggang, Zhang Zaimin, Pan Xuezhao, Hu Qizao, Situ Zuo, Liu Jinghui, Pan Ye and others. Its activities were published 18 issues of the “Modern Prints” album until the July 7 Incident in 1937, which had an important influence across the country.
In September 2019, when the Guangzhou Library was sorting out the collection, it discovered a batch of original woodcuts and publications from the Modern Printmaking Club, including as many as 146 woodcut originals, including early works by Li Hua, Lai Shaoqi and others. “The works of the Modern Printmaking Association include two tendencies: realism and modernism.” Hu Bin, deputy director of Guangmei Art Museum, said that this batch of original works “see the light of day again” is of great significance. First of all, its size is very rare among national collection institutions. Babaylan and covers a wide range, covering at least two-thirds of the members of the modern print fair; second, it is well preserved and is all original works of single and loose pages. The original works of the members of the Modern Printmaking Association are mostly kept in the album of “Modern Printmaking” made by handprints in the form of collection and binding; third, the document value is high. In addition to some of these works, some of them are still subject to research and confirmation, and these works are very likely to be left alone.
『Bridgehead』
Around 2001, Wang Jian, associate researcher at the Guangzhou Museum of ArtHe interviewed Chen Zhonggang and Liu Lun, a member of the fashionable modern printmaking club. From their oral descriptions, related documents and publications, Wang Jian realized that the chapters of the modern printmaking meeting in Guangdong’s art history were not inferior to those of the Lingnan School of Painting, so he wrote the article “A Brief Description of the History of Guangzhou in the 1930s” and published it.
Wang Jian told Yangcheng Evening News reporter that the birth of the Modern Printmaking Club originated from a chance encounter by Li Hua, a young teacher in the Western Painting Department of Guangzhou Municipal Fine Arts College at that time. In 1934, in order to relieve the pain of losing his wife, Li Hua created woodcuts after class and unconsciously carved dozens of pieces. After his classmate Wu Qianli found out, he borrowed the second floor of the Volkswagen Photography Store on Yonghan North Road to assist him in holding an exhibition of woodcut works. Li Hua’s students came to visit and suggested that they wanted to learn the prints. So, the modern creative printmaking club was established under the support of students.
Although the founder of the Modern Printmaking Association is Li Hua, the soul and spiritual mentor behind it is always Lu Xun. In a 1991 memorization article, Li Hua wrote that after the establishment of the Printmaking Association, he used the Soviet print collection “Yinyu Collection” compiled by Lu Xun as a learning reference, and actively contacted Lu Xun and asked for guidance, and consciously became a member of the emerging woodcut movement.
Under Lu Xun’s direct guidance, modern Guangzhou prints will quickly start to face social reality from the initial expression techniques of imitating various Western schools, focusing more on expressing characters; artistic language will also gradually change from imitating Western woodcut styles to exploring traditional national styles. They began to refer to traditional Chinese paintings such as “Shizhuzhai Calligraphy and Painting Collection”, “Shizhuzhai Notes Collection”, and “Jieziyuan Painting Biography”, and strive to carve out national styles and personal styles.
Curtain He Xiaote believes that the woodcut movement took place in the 1930s, an important period of the development of modern Chinese art. “The reason why woodcuts successfully occupied the bridgehead of modern Chinese art is not unrelated to its loud ‘popular’ genes. Although they occasionally express their youthful restlessness and peek at the language of Ukiyo-e and Chinese folk prints, the proletarian literary and artistic stance has not wavered.”
The Most Modern Printmaking Association in the country
Although the modern printing association only existed in Guangzhou for more than three years, in the emerging woodblock printing movement, compared with other folk printing associations across the country at that time, it set a national best in the country, “the most exhibitions, the most publications, the longest activity time, and the deepest international influence”, and wrote a glorious page in the history of modern Chinese printmaking.
According to participationBabaylan Chen Zhonggang recalled that in more than three years, the exhibition activities of the association have grown from the initially within the Municipal Beauty School to exhibitions in public places such as Guangdong Provincial People’s Education Museum and Guangzhou Municipal Library; the exhibition locations have also ranged from Guangzhou to Guangdong’s four townships, from this province to more than a dozen cities in other provinces; the number of works created from the initial 1000 Cinema to more than 800. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks Among them, in October 1935, Lai Shaoqi, Chen Zhonggang and Pan Ye held the “Woodcut Three-person Exhibition” at Guangzhou Yonghan Road Volkswagen Company, exhibiting 63 woodcut works. At that time, Mr. Xu Beihong passed by Guangzhou and saw exhibition advertisements to visit, gave positive comments and encouragement, and took a photo with Lai Shaoqi and others.
On July 5, 1936, on behalf of the National Woodcut Federation, the “Second National Woodcut Mobile Exhibition” organized by Li Hua, Lai Shaoqi and others was held in the Zhongshan Library in Guangzhou, with more than 600 works exhibited. Woodcutter Huang Xinbo and others came to Guangzhou from Shanghai to participate in the exhibition and met with members of the modern print fair. Afterwards, the exhibition was held in Hangzhou and KomiksSea, BabaylanThe tour exhibitions in Nanjing, Taiyuan, Hankou, Nanning, Guilin and other cities formed a new climax in Guangdong in the national woodcut movement. On October 8, when the exhibition opened at the Shanghai Eight Immortal Bridge Youth Conference, Lu Xun came to the scene with illness, praising Lai Shaoqi as the “most combative woodcutter” and left a photo. This was Lu Xun’s last public activity during his lifetime.
It is worth mentioning that the Modern Printing Club was the only one among the many print groups at that time, who had art exchanges with foreign colleagues. Not only did he have artistic exchanges with Japanese folk print clubs “White and the Underworld” and “Aomori Printing Club”, “Modern” From episode 9 to episode 15, the works of Japanese woodcutters, Asahi Maemura, Kanamura, Sumio Kawakami, Anji Taniaka, Shizuo Fujimori, Haru Moritomori, and Haru Toku. The works of modern woodcutters were also published in Japanese printmaking magazines.
Carved Knife Weapon
In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, and Li Hua, Liu Lun, and Lai Shaoqi successively joined the war of resistance. As the Japanese army occupied Guangzhou, the cultural and artistic circles in Guangzhou became increasingly quiet, and the activities of modern woodcutting associations have also come to an end, but this does not mean the demise of the emerging woodcut movement. Woodcutters participating in the emerging woodcut movement still used woodcuts on the front line or behind, in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or liberated areas in the anti-Japanese forces of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, in the front line or the rear, in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or the liberated areas. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks knife conducts propaganda battles for weapons, Komiks actively created and published works on the theme of anti-Japanese and national salvation at the critical moment of the country’s crisis.
The “Cinema” created by Lai Shaoqi in 1939, depicting anti-Japanese war soldiers rushing to the battlefield. In the form of traditional folk door gods, it carries the content of the anti-Japanese war and national salvation. During the Spring Festival that year, it was printed in large quantities and posted on the doors of thousands of households in the rear of Guilin, arousing the fighting passion of “every man is responsible”. Later, Lai Shaoqi was a battlefield reporter of the National Saving Daily. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan and came to the headquarters of the New Fourth Army in Yunling, Jingxian County, Anhui Province, and joined the army until the founding of New China.
For artists personally, their participation in the woodcut movement was not only reflected in their creation, but also built the spiritual inner world of their later life paths. Lai Shaoqi’s life-long name Wood and Stone was from the reply from Lu Xun to him and the Modern Printmaking Association: Huge buildings are always stacked from one wood and one stone, why should we make this wood and one stone?
Extended
BabaylanModern printmaking is learned from the folk
Modern printmaking meeting was at its beginningKomiks is committed to creating “woodcuts that are popular among the public”, and folk customs and traditions have become the source of inspiration for woodcut creation. In the eighth episode of “Modern Prints” published on May 1, 1935, the topic of “Folk Customs” was used to describe folk customs such as “Qixi Festival”, “Guanyin Birth”, “Burning Clothes”, “Working on the Cosmetics”, “Crossing the Fairy Bridge”, “Shocking”, “By Brother”, “Burning Lion”, “Qinglong Master”.
In addition to using woodcuts to reproduce the folk customs of the time, members of the Modern Printmaking Association also collaborated with the Japanese woodcut club “White and the Underworld” to publish the “South China Rural Toy Collection” and “North China Rural Toy Collection”, using colored woodcut techniques to record these long-dead folk fun. These two sets of albums were later collected by Lu Xun, which included a large number of folk material and cultural elements such as pineapple chicken, cloth dog clay man, mud pig, dragon boat, rattle, and tumbler.
From this, it can be seen that the emerging woodcut movement that led the momentary trend and took combat as its mission, which included the ChineseCinemaThe vivid and bright colors of the folk New Year paintings, and there are also sharp and vigorous woodcut knife techniques from modern European prints. It is a unique artistic achievement that collided with the modern, Eastern and Western aesthetic tastes.
【Interview with Komiks】
Wang Jian Associate Researcher at Guangzhou Museum of Art
How did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in art history?
Inclusiveness and both become a trend. The people have a sense of family and country
All-media reporter of Yangcheng Evening News: GuangCinemaThe creative style of the members of the Eastern Modern Creative Printmaking Research Association has also shifted from modernism to realism and from individualism to nationalism. How to explain the historical causes?
Wang Jian: The origin of the works of the Modern Printmaking Association is not local, but introduces Western, Soviet and Japanese prints. It can be said that in the early stage of learning and imitation of the Modern Printmaking Association, it is natural for the members to absorb Western modernist expression techniques according to their respective interests.
However, this stays in formal technology The period when the Dharma expresses the imitation level quickly transformed into a metaphysical spiritual creation period for printmakers to express their inner thoughts and emotions. The most typical representative work is Li Hua’s woodcut print “Roar, China”, which abandons all the light and dark light and shadow of Western art, environmental background, etc., and uses the white-scanning technique of Chinese painting to express a giant who is bound and blinded with his eyes, symbolizing the suffering and hard work to get rid of and resist.
In terms of its historical cause, it is mainly related to the tragic situation of China being bullied by the great powers in modern times and becoming a semi-colonial country. Mr. Lu Xun believed: “Save the country and the people, we need to save the thought first. “After advocating the emerging woodcut printing movement, Lu Xun also became the soul and mentor to guide the modern printing association. Therefore, modern printing associations have a positive turn from subject matter to expression form, and consciously incorporated into the left-wing progressive art with realism as the mainstream.
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: Why did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in art history?
Wang Jian: During the Republic of China, Guangdong became a major printmaking center in the history of modern Chinese art. There are several main reasons: First, in terms of geographical location, Guangzhou Located in the south far away from the central government, it is a long-term overseas trade opening port in history. It is influenced by Chinese and foreign cultures and forms a trend that can be both inclusive. The rise of the Lingnan School of Painting in Chinese painting, and the appearance of modern prints in prints, etc., are all due to this.
Secondly, in a relatively relaxed political atmosphere, modern prints in Guangzhou were able to develop actively. At that time, many print clubs outside Guangdong were regarded as “red” and were banned, and members were even arrested and imprisoned. Guangdong was relatively tolerant, and the “People’s Education Hall” under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China government of the Guangzhou Republic of China was alsoProvide a place for the progressive modern print fairs of the left.
Third, Guangzhou is the source of Sun Yat-sen’s democratic revolution, and the people generally have revolutionary consciousness and family and country feelings. Inspired by Lu Xun, the printmakers of the Guangzhou Modern Komiks Printmaking Club fought with printmaking as weapons.
YangchengKomiks Evening News All-Media Reporter: Looking back on the history of Guangdong printmaking, what important role does the personal choice and creative exploration of Guangdong printmakers play in it? What kind of inspiration and experience do you have for your current creation?
Wang Jian: The full name of the Guangzhou Modern Printmaking Association is Modern Creation Printmaking Research Association, which emphasizes “modern” and “creation”. “Modern” mainly reflects the current social reality; “creation” emphasizes that artists are observers of social reality and should create and express themselves based on their own observation and experience and inner thoughts. Creation is a new creation with strong individuality, which is different from the copying and imitation of famous masters such as the “Four Kings” and “Four Monks” in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Although the Modern Printmaking Research Association has become a glorious history that has been turned over, there are still many things to learn from for today’s art creation.
Illustration/Liu Miao
Cooperating website: “Literature and History Guangdong” http://www.gdwsw.gov.cn/