[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”, and Cinema, and Babaylan, which included 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, 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 and publications from the Modern Printmaking Club, including as many as 146 original woodcuts, 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, Babaylan is very large in the country’s 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 print club are mostly preserved in the album “Babaylan Generation Prints” made by handprints in the form of collection and binding; third, the document value is high. In addition to one of these works, please visit this group of works.>Komiks In addition to determining the author, there are some authors to be determined by research, 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 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 modern chapters of the Babaylan printmaking meeting in the history of Guangdong’s art were not inferior to the Lingnan School of Painting, so he wrote the article “A Brief 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 Association 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. BabaylanSo he accidentally planted willows and the modern creative printmaking club was established with the support of his classmates.
Although the founder of the Modern Printmaking Association is Li Hua, Cinema, 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 the traditional Chinese paintings and painting collections such as “Shizhuzhai Calligraphy and Painting Collection”, “Shizhuzhai Notes Collection”, and “Jieziyuan Painting Biography”, and strive to engrave national and personal styles.
Curtainer He Xiaote believes that the woodcut movement took place in the 1930s was an important period of the development of modern Chinese art. “The reason why woodcuts successfully occupied modern Chinese artThe bridgehead of Komiks 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. Although the country’s most modern print fair has only existed in Guangzhou for more than three years, in the emerging woodcut print movement, compared with other folk print societies across the country at that time, it set a “most exhibitions. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema, the most published, the longest activity time, and the deepest international influence” four national bests, write a glorious page of 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 evolved from the initially within the Municipal Beauty School to the exhibition exhibitions in public places such as the Guangdong Provincial People’s Education Museum and the Guangzhou Municipal Library; the exhibition locations also range from Guangzhou to the four townships in Guangdong, from the province to more than a dozen cities in other provinces; the number of works created from the initial 100 to 8Cinema more than 00 pieces. 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 the exhibition advertisement to visit, giving positive reviews and href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks encouraged him 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 Printmaking Association. Subsequently, the exhibition was held in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Taiyuan, and Han<a Cinema, Nanning, Guilin and other cities tour exhibitions 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 and praised 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 the Modern Printing Club was the only one among the many print groups at that time. Babaylan had an art exchange with his foreign colleagues. Not only did he have Japanese folk editions “White and the Underworld” painting club Babaylan carry out art exchanges with his colleagues abroad. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks “Aomori Printmaking Club” and other artistic exchanges. From episode 9 to episode 15 of “Modern Printmaking”, it also published works by Japanese woodcutters Asahima, Maemura Kani, Kawakami Suzuki, Taniaka Anji, Fujimori Shizuo, and Haru Moritoku. The works of modern woodcutting club members were also published in Japanese printmaking magazines.
Carving 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 modern woodcutting clubs have come to an end for the time being, but this does not mean the demise of the emerging woodcut movement. Participate in emerging woodcutting <a The woodcutters of the carving movement, in the anti-Japanese forces of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, still used woodcut knives as weapons to carry out propaganda and fight in the front line or rear, in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or liberated areas. At the critical moment of the country's danger, they actively created and published works on the theme of anti-Japanese and national salvation.
The “Gate God of Anti-Japanese War” created by Lai Shaoqi in 1939 Cinema, depicting the anti-Japanese warriors rushing to the battlefield. In the form of traditional folk door gods, the content of the Anti-Japanese War and National Rescue was widely printed during the Spring Festival of that year, and posted on the doors of thousands of households in the rear of Guilin, evoking the passion of fighting that “every man is responsible”. Afterwards, Lai Shaoqi, as a battlefield reporter of 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, 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 life-long name Wood and Stone came 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?
Extended
Modern Printing Learn from the Folk
Modern Printing Association is in Since its establishment, it has been 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 modern art language of woodcut prints was used to describe folk customs such as “Qixi Festival”, “Guanyin’s birthday”, “burning clothes”, “paying sugar beef”, “crossing the fairy bridge”, “shocking”, “going brother-in-law”, “burning lions”, and “Qinglongye”.
In addition to using woodcuts to reproduce the folk customs at that time, members of the modern printmaking club also used the Japanese woodcut club “Bai Yu” and “The underworld has jointly published the “South China Rural Toy Collection” and the “North China Rural Toy Collection”, using color-set woodcuts Komiks‘s method 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, has the vivid and bright colors of Chinese folk New Year paintings. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks also has 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】
Wang Jian, associate researcher at the Guangzhou Art Museum
How did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in art history?
Inclusiveness and prosperity become a trend 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 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 stays at the level of formal and technical expression imitation The period of 2019 was soon 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 realistic as the mainstream.
Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter: Why did Guangdong become a major printmaking center in the history of art?
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 is located in the south far away from the central government, but it was a long-term overseas trade opening port in history. It was influenced by Chinese and foreign cultures, forming a trend that both tolerance and tolerance. The rise of the Lingnan school in Chinese painting, and the appearance of modern printing in printmaking, are all due to this.
The second isUnder 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 left-wing modern print fairs. Third, Guangzhou is the source of Sun Yat-sen’s democratic revolution, and the people generally have revolutionary consciousness and feelings for their country. 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/