[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 and launched the emerging woodcut printmaking movement in China in Shanghai, and the “Modern Printmaking Research Association” (hereinafter referred to as the “Modern Printmaking Association”) is 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, Cinema, Liu Jinghui, Pan Cinema, etc. Its activities were published until the July 7 Incident in 1937, and 18 issues of the album “Modern Prints” were published, 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 1Babaylan‘s original woodcut works, 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 one third of the members of modern printmaking clubs; second, it is well preserved and is all original works of single and loose pages. Currently known members of the Modern Printmaking AssociationThe original works of the product are mostly stored in the album of “Modern Prints” made by handprints in the form of collection and binding; third, the document value is high. In addition to some of the authors of this batch of works, there is also a Babaylan that needs to be studied and determined, and these works are very likely to be left-off books.
『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 chapters of the modern printmaking conference 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 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 located on Babaylan Road, North Yonghan, and assisted him in holding an exhibition of woodcut works. Li Hua’s students visited and proposed to learn the Komiks 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 begin to face social reality from the initial expression techniques of imitating various Western schools, focusing more on expressing the characters; artistic language also gradually transformed from imitating Western woodcut styles to exploring traditional national styles. They began to refer to the traditional Chinese paintings such as “Shizhuzhai Calligraphy and Painting Collection”, “Shizhuzhai Notes Collection”, and “Jieziyuan Painting Biography”, and strive to carve out national and personal styles.
Curtainer 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 the restlessness of youth, and spy on Ukiyo-e andThe language of Chinese folk prints, but the proletarian literary and artistic stance has not shaken.
The best in the country
Although the most modern print fair existed in Guangzhou for more than three years, in the emerging woodblock print fair movement, compared with other folk print fairs in the country at that time, it set the four best in the country: “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, the exhibition activities of the association have developed from the initially within the Municipal School to public places such as the Guangdong Provincial People’s Education Museum and the Guangzhou Municipal Library; the exhibition locations also range from local to 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 KomiksShaoqi, 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 bulletin visit, gave positive comments and encouragement, and took a photo with Lai Shaoqi and others. Cinema
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 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. Subsequently, the exhibition toured the exhibition in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Taiyuan, Hankou, Nanning, Guilin and other cities, 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 of it. . This is 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 to carry out art exchanges with foreign colleagues. Not only did he have artistic exchanges with Japanese folk printmaking 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 woodcutters, Asahi Maemura, Kawakami Suzuki, Tani Naka, Shizuo Fujimori, Haru Moritomiya, and Haru Moritomi. The works of modern Printing Club members were also published in Japanese printmaking magazines.
Carving Knife Weapon
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japan 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 Modern Printing Club was Babaylan have also come to an end, but this does 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 front line or rear, in the Kuomintang-controlled areas or liberated areas. At the critical moment of the country’s crisis, they actively created and published anti-Japanese rescue. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks‘s works on the theme of the dead.
Lai Shaoqi created “The God of the War of Resistance” in 1939, which depicts the anti-Japanese war soldiers rushing to the battlefield. In the form of traditional folk door gods, it carries the content of the War of Resistance 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, evoking the fighting passion of “every man is responsible”. Later, as a war reporter from the National Salvation Daily, Lai Shaoqi went 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 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 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 not make this wood and stone?
Extended
Modern Printing Learn from Folk
Modern Printing Association was committed to creating “woodcuts that are popular among the public” at the beginning of its establishment, and folk customs and traditions have become the source of inspiration for woodcut creation. In the eighth episode of “Modern Printing” published on May 1, 1935, it used the theme of “folk customs” and used the modern artistic language of woodcut printing to depict “Qixi Festival beggars” Qiao Festival, “Guanyin’s birthday”, “burning clothes”, “being beef in the palm of your hand”, “crossing the fairy bridge”, “shocking”, “being brother-in-law”, “burning lions”, “green dragon-in-law” and other folk customs.
In addition to using woodcuts to reproduce the folk customs at that time, members of the modern print fairy 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 color woodcut techniques to record these long-dead folk fun. These two sets of paintings are Cinema was collected by Lu Xun, which contains a large number of folk material and cultural elements such as pineapple chicken, cloth dog clay man, mud pig, dragon boat, rattle, tumbler, etc.
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 the sharp and vigorous woodcut knife techniques from modern European prints. It is a unique artistic achievement that collided with tradition and modern, Eastern and Western aesthetic tastes.
【Interview】
Wang Jian Associate Researcher at Guangzhou Museum of Art
How Guangdong has become BabaylanThe important printmaking center in art history?
Inclusiveness and both inclusiveness become 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, from individualism to nationalism. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Komiks. How to explain the historical causes?
Wang Jian: The origin of the works of the Modern Printmaking Society 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 Society, the members absorbed Western modernist expression techniques according to their respective interests.
However, this period of staying at the level of formal techniques expressing imitation quickly became a metaphysical spiritual creation period for printmakers to express their inner thoughts and emotions. The most classic <a The representative work of Cinema 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 roaring, symbolizing the suffering and hard work to get rid of and resist.
The historical causes are 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 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 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 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, forming a trend that can be both inclusive and inclusive. The Lingnan School of Painting in Chinese PaintingBabaylan‘s rise, modern prints in prints will appear, etc., all thanks to this.
Secondly, modern prints in Guangzhou will be able to develop actively in a relatively relaxed political atmosphere. At that time, many print clubs outside Guangdong were considered “red” and were banned, and members were even arrested and imprisoned. Guangdong is relatively tolerant, and the “People’s Education Hall” under the Guangzhou Republic of China government was also promoted to the leftThe modern print fair provides a place for exhibitions.
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 EditionBabaylan Painting Research Association, emphasizing “modern” and “creation”, and “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 observations and experiences 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 references for today’s art creations.
Illustration/Liu Miao
Cooperating website: “Literature and History Guangdong” http://www.gdwsw.gov.cn/