[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 Association 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 and launched the China’s emerging woodcut printmaking movement in Shanghai, and the “Modern Creation Printmaking Research Association” (hereinafter referred to as the “Modern Printmaking Association”) 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, and it had an important influence in the country.
In September 2019, the Guangmei Library found a batch of original woodcuts and publications from the Modern Printmaking Club when organizing the collection at Komiks. There were 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. It also 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 works of members of the Modern Printmaking Association are mostly kept in the album of Modern Printmaking albums 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, Guangzhou Art Museum Associate ResearchKomiks researcher Wang Jian interviewed Chen Zhonggang and Liu Lun, a member of the fashionable modern printmaking club. From their oral descriptions and related documents and publications, Wang Jian realized that the chapters of the modern printmaking conference in Guangdong’s art history are not inferior to the Lingnan School of Painting, so he wrote the article “A Brief Description of Modern Printmaking History in Guangzhou in the 1930s” and published it. Wang Jian told Yangcheng Evening News reporter that the birth of the Komiks generation printmaking association originated from the accidental encounter of 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, but he didn’t know that he had 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 memorable article, Li Hua wrote that after the establishment of the printmaking club Cinema, 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.
curator 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 show the impetuousness of youth, and theThe language of Chinese folk prints, but the proletarian literary and artistic stance has not shaken.” Although the most modern print fair in Guangzhou only existed for more than three years, in the emerging woodblock print fair, compared with other folk print fairs in the country at that time, it set the four national bests, namely “the most exhibitions, the most publications, the longest activity time, and the deepest international influence”, and wrote a glorious page of the history of modern Chinese prints.
According to participant Chen Zhonggang’s recollection during his lifetime, in more than three years, the exhibition activities of the association have developed from the initially within the Municipal Beauty School to the exhibition in public places such as the Guangdong Provincial People’s Education Museum and the Guangzhou Municipal Library; the exhibition locations also range from local to Guangdong. The township, from the province to more than a dozen cities in other provinces, has been created from more than 100 to more than 800. 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, commissioned by 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 a total of more than 600 works exhibited. Woodcutter Huang Xinbo and others came to Guangzhou from Shanghai to participate in the exhibition, and the modern version was Members of the painting meeting met. Subsequently, the exhibition toured in cities such as Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Taiyuan, Hankou, Nanning, Guilin, etc., forming 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 Association was the only one among the many print groups at that time to carry out art exchanges with foreign colleagues. Not only did he have artistic exchanges with Japanese folk print clubs “White and the Underworld” and “Aomori Printing Association”, but from episode 9 to episode 15 of “Modern Printing”, it also published Japanese woodcutting materials The works of Asamin, Kenami Maemura, Sumio Kawakami, Anji Taniaka, Shizuo Fujimori, Haru Moritomori, and Haru Moritomori. The works of modern printmaking association members were also published in Japanese printmaking publications.
Carved Knife Weapon
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, 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 the modern printmaking association came to an end for a while, but this did not mean the demise of the emerging woodcut movement. Woodcutters who participated in the emerging woodcut movement still used woodcutting knives as weapons in the anti-Japanese forces of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, on the front line or in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or in the liberated areas, actively created Babaylan published works on the theme of anti-Japanese and national salvation.
Lai Shaoqi created “The God of Anti-Japanese War” in 1939 to describe the anti-Japanese warKomiks rushed to the battlefield. In the form of traditional folk door gods, the content of the Anti-Japanese War rescue of Cinema was widely printed during the Spring Festival that year and posted on the doors of thousands of households in the rear of Guilin, arousing the fighting passion of “every man is responsible”. Afterwards, Lai Shaoqi, as a war reporter from the National Salvation Daily, 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 is not only reflected in their creation, but also constructs the spiritual innateness of their later life paths. Lai Shaoqi’s name of Mushi is from the reply from Lu Xun to him and the Modern Printmaking Association: Huge buildings are always stacked with wood and stone, so why should we make this wood and stone?
Extension
Modern Printing Learn from Folk
Modern Printing Association was committed to creating “woodcuts that are popular among the public” at its beginning, and folk customs and traditions have become the source of inspiration for woodcut creation. In the eighth collection of “Modern Prints” published on May 1, 1935, the Cinema used the modern artistic language of woodcut prints to describe folk customs such as “Qixi Festival”, “Guanyin Birth”, “Burning clothes”, “Worshiping beefs”, “Crossing fairy bridge”, “Shocking”, “Benefactoring brother-in-law”, “Burning lions”, “Qinglong Master” and other folk customs.
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.
This shows that the emerging woodcut movement that led the momentary trend and took combat as its mission, includes both the vivid and bright colors of Chinese folk New Year paintings, and the sharp and vigorous woodcut knife techniques from modern European prints. It is a unique artistic achievement that collided and blended with traditional and modern, Eastern and Western aesthetic tastes.
【Interview】
Wang Jian, associate researcher at Guangzhou Art Museum
How did Guangdong become a major printmaking town in art history?
Inclusiveness becomes a trend, and the people have a sense of family and country
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: The creative style of members of the Guangdong Modern Creation 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 Komiks, in the early stage of learning and imitation of modern printmaking associations, the members according to their respective interests, and it is natural for Cinema to absorb Western modernist expression techniques. However, this period of staying at the level of imitation of formal techniques quickly transformed into a metaphysical spiritual creation period for printmakers to express inner thinking 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 suffering. Babaylan‘s Chinese nation that is struggling to get rid of and resist.
The historical causes are mainly related to the tragic situation of China being bullied by the great powers and becoming a semi-colonial country in modern times. Mr. Lu Xun believed that “Saving the country and the people need to save the idea first.” After advocating the emerging woodcut printing movement, Lu Xun also became the soul and mentor to guide the modern printing association. Therefore, modern prints will have a positive turn from subject matter to expression form, and consciously incorporated into the progressive left-wing art with realism as the mainstream.
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: Why has 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. First, in terms of geographical location, Guangzhou is located in the south far away from the central government, but it was a long-term overseas business opening port in history. It was influenced by Chinese and foreign cultures and formed a trend that can be inclusive and both inclusive.gas. The rise of the Lingnan school of painting in Chinese painting, the emergence of modern prints in prints, etc., are all due to this.
Secondly, in a relatively relaxed political atmosphere, modern prints in Guangzhou will be able to develop actively. At that time, many print clubs outside Guangdong were considered “red” and banned, and members were even arrested and jailed. Guangdong is relatively tolerant, and the “People’s Education Hall” under the Guangzhou Republic of China government also provides a place for the progressive modern print fair and exhibition.
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 Printmaking Association fought with printmaking as weapons.
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: Looking back at 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/