[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 explore 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, which had an important influence across the country.
In September 2019, when the Guangmei Library was sorting out the collection, it discovered a batch of woodcut originals from the Modern Printmaking Club and the publication materials. There were as many as 146 original woodcuts, including early works by Li Hua, Lai Shaoqi and others. “KomiksThe 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 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, an associate researcher at the Guangzhou Museum of Art, interviewed DangChen Zhonggang and Liu Lun, a fashionable modern printmaking club. BabaylanFrom their oral descriptions, related documents and publications, Wang Jian realized that the chapters of the modern printmaking meeting in the history of Guangdong art are not inferior to those of the Lingnan School of Painting, so he wrote the article “A Brief Description of the History of Modern Printmaking in 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 with Li Hua, a young teacher of 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 them. 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 version of Babaylan is Li Hua, the soul and spiritual mentor behind it is always Lu Xun. KomiksLi Hua wrote in a 1991 memorial article that after the establishment of the printmaking meeting, Cinema, was based on the Soviet version of Babaylan’s painting collection “Yinyu Collection” compiled by Lu Xun as a reference for learning, and actively contacted Lu Xun, requested 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 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.” Komiks
The most popular in the country
Although the Genealogy Printing Association only existed in Guangzhou for more than three years, in the emerging woodblock printing movement, compared with other folk printing clubs across 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 on the history of modern Chinese printmaking.
According to participant Chen Zhonggang’s recollection during his lifetime, in more than three years, the exhibition activities of the association have grown 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 have also ranged from local Guangzhou to four townships in Guangdong, from this province to more than a dozen cities in other provinces; the number of works created from the initial 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, giving positive comments and encouragement, and took a photo with Lai Shaoqi and others.
On July 5, 1936, 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 from Shanghai to Guangzhou to participate in the exhibition and met with members of the Modern Printmaking Association. Subsequently, the exhibition toured in cities such as Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Taiyuan, Hankou, Nanning, and Guilin, 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 while ill, praising Lai Shaoqi as “the most combative woodcutter” and left a photo. This was the last public event during Lu Xun’s lifetime.
It is worth mentioning that modern printmaking will be the only one among the many printmaking groups at that time to carry out art exchanges with foreign colleagues. Not only did he have artistic exchanges with the Japanese folk print clubs “White and the Underworld” and “Aomori Printing Club”, “Modern Printing Club”, etc., from episode 9 to episode 15 of “Modern Printing”, it also published works by Japanese woodcut artists “Maemura Kani, Kawakami Suzuki, Tani Naka, Shizuo Fujimori, Haru Moritoku, and others. The works of modern printmaking club members are also published in Japanese printmaking magazines.
Carved Knife Weapon
The War of Resistance Against Japan broke out in 1937, and Li Hua, Liu Lun and Lai Shaoqi successively joined the army to fight against the war. As the Japanese army occupied Guangzhou, the cultural and artistic circles in Guangzhou became increasingly silent, and the activities of the modern print fair came to an end, but this did not mean the demise of the emerging woodcut movement. Woodcutters who participated in the emerging woodcut movement still used woodcut knives as weapons to promote and fight in the anti-Japanese forces between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, on the front or rear, in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or liberated areas, and actively created and published works on the theme of anti-Japanese and national salvation at the critical moment of the country’s crisis.
The Anti-Japanese War was created by Lai Shaoqi in 1939.comicmov.com/”>Komiks Door God” set of color woodcuts, describing the anti-Japanese warriors rushing to the scene. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan battlefield. In the form of traditional folk door gods, it carries the content of the Anti-Japanese War and National Rescue. It was printed in large quantities 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 battlefield reporter from the National Rescue 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, their participation in the woodcut movement is not only reflected in their creation, but also the spiritual inner world of their later life paths. Lai Shaoqi’s first life name is wood and stone, which comes 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 not make this wood and one stone?
Extension
Modern Printing Learn from the Folk
Modern Printing Association came to be founded at the beginning of its establishment. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan 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 Printings” published on May 1, 1935, the theme of “Folk Customs” was used to describe folk customs such as “Qixi Festival”, “Guanyin Birth”, “Burning Clothes”, “Bending Sugar”, “Crossing Sugar”, “Crossing the Fairy Bridge”, “Shocking”, “Bearing Brother”, “Burning Lion”, “Qinglong Master” and other folk customs.
In addition to using woodcuts to reproduce <a The folk customs of the Cinema. 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 the “North China Rural Toy Collection” and used the method of color-setting woodcut to record the long-dead folk fun of Cinema. These two sets of picture 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, both include the vivid and bright colors of Chinese folk New Year paintings, and there are also modern European versions. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>BabaylanThe sharp and vigorous woodcut knife technique is a unique artistic achievement that collided with the aesthetic tastes of tradition and modernity, the East and the West. Cinema
【Interview】
Wang Jian Associate Researcher at Guangzhou Museum of Art
KomiksHow did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in the history of art?
Inclusiveness and style become a trend. 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 the introduction of Western, Soviet and Japanese prints. It can be said that in the early stage of learning and imitation of the modern Printmaking Association, the members absorbed Western modernist expression techniques according to their respective interests.
However, this period of staying at the level of formal techniques and imitation of imitation quickly became a metaphysical spiritual creation period for printmakers to express their inner thoughts and emotions. The most typical representative<a Cinema is Li Hua's woodcut print "Roar, China", which abandons all the light and dark lights and shadows of Western art, the environment and the environment. The white-scanning technique of Chinese paintings shows a giant who is bound and blinded with roaring, symbolizing the suffering and hard work to get rid of and resist.
The historical cause is mainly related to the tragic situation of China in modern times being bullied by the great powers and becoming a semi-colonial country. Mr. Lu Xun believes: “Save the country and the people, we 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 printing associations 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 did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in art history?
Wang Jian: During the Republic of China, the reason why Guangdong became a modern Chinese art<a There are several main reasons for the important printmaking center in history: First, in terms of geographical location, Guangzhou is located in the south far away from the central government, but 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 inclusive. The rise of the Lingnan School of Painting in Chinese painting, and the appearance of modern printmaking in printmaking, etc., are all due to this.
The second is that under the relatively loose political atmosphere, modern printmaking in Guangzhou will be able to develop actively. At that time, many printmaking societies outside Guangdong were regarded as “Red”The color “sex” was banned, and the members were even arrested and imprisoned. Guangdong is relatively tolerant. The “People’s Education Hall” under the Guangzhou Republic of China government also provides a place for the progressive modern print fair to hold exhibitions.
The third is that Guangzhou is the source of Sun Yat-sen’s democratic revolution, and the people generally have revolutionary consciousness and family and country feelings. Under the enlightenment of Lu Xun, the printmakers of the Guangzhou Modern Print Fair fought with prints as weapons.
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: Looking back on the history of Guangdong prints, what important role does the personal choice and creative exploration of Guangdong print artists play in it? For CinemaWhat kind of inspiration and experience does Cinema have in its current creation?
Wang Jian: The full name of the Guangzhou Modern Printmaking Association is Modern Creation Printmaking Research Association, emphasizing “modern” and “creation”, and “modern” mainly reflects the current social reality; “KomiksCreation” 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 artists such as “Four Kings” and “Four Monks” in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. Although the modern printmaking research association has become a glorious history that has been turned over, there are still many references for today’s art creation.
Illustration/Liu Miao
Cooperation website: “Literature and History Guangdong” http://www.gdwsw.gov.cn/