The fierce western artistic trend of thought has impacted the traditional painting values, created enough room for heresy, and is also the outer edge of the ideological trend and genre dispute after the May 4th Movement. After the May 4th Movement, many thoughts and schools of thought appeared in China art world. Is it not the result of the impact and integration of western art? Many ideological trends and schools are direct transplants of foreign art, from the academy to post-impressionism, from fauvism to surrealism, and from Dada to ordinary art, all of them have appeared in China painting circles successively or timely. Artists returning from studying abroad are undoubtedly the direct creators of this situation. They introduced western traditional painting fashion and popular or even emerging art fashion into China, or spread them in China through teaching, creative practice or text introduction, which made the art world in China complicated and diverse. Here, the main ideological trends and schools in the Art Nouveau movement can be summarized as the following main aspects:
(1) Institutionalism and Modernism
Among many schools, academic realism has always occupied a very important position in the Art Nouveau movement, with many advocates and admirers, which is incomparable to other schools. Academic realistic painting had a glorious history in the history of western art, but at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of many modern schools such as post-impressionism, symbolism, cubism, expressionism, barbarism, Dadaism and surrealism, she had ended her "golden age" and lost her leading position in painting, as Herbert Read, a famous British art historian, said. It is such a school that has been neglected in the west, but it has been warmly welcomed into China by artists in China, who regard it as a good medicine to save the "extremely declining" Chinese painting. China people made this choice because under the heavy responsibility of saving the country, China's intellectual elites (from Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao to Chen Duxiu, etc. ) In comparison with western traditional painting, it is found that traditional painting is only "freehand brushwork" but not realistic. Therefore, people regard the characteristics of western painting as the biggest difference from Chinese painting. In the May 4th New Culture Movement, which called for "democracy" and "science", western realistic painting was regarded as a scientific and progressive artistic concept and form, which was vigorously promoted. Under the influence of the New Culture Movement, groups of art students are eager to understand and learn western art, and most of them have been trained in academic realistic painting in Japan and Europe. After returning to China, they tried their best to promote realistic painting through teaching, making academic realistic painting the most influential and dominant school in painting.
While realistic painting prevailed in the college, western modernist painting thoughts also flooded into China. Many painters praise western modernist painting by teaching or organizing societies. They not only showed a firm critical attitude towards China's traditional painting, but also distanced themselves from realistic painting in the academic school, trying to move the western modernist art concept into China painting circle, thus constructing a modern art system in China that is in sync with the western modern art trend. From the 1920s to the mid-1930s, it was the most active and complicated period in China's art history before the early 1980s. In this period, the most representative society advocating western modern art was undoubtedly the "Juelan Society" organized by Pang Xun and Ni Yide in September 1930, which gathered a group of youthful, passionate and ideal young oil painters such as Wang Jiyuan, Zhou Duo, Yang Taiyang, Yang, Duan Youping, Qiu Di and Liu Shi. They saw that "since the 20th century, the European art world has realized a new atmosphere: the cry of fauvism, the deformation of cubism, the violence of Dadaism, and the vision of surrealism ..." (Note: China Modern Social Thoughts, edited by Gao Ruiquan, page 5, published by East China Normal University Press in July 1996. Therefore, he expressed strong dissatisfaction with the status quo of "silence", "decline" and "weakness" in China's art world, and issued that "the art world in China in the 20th century should also have a new atmosphere. Let's get up! Create our world of colors, lines and shapes with crazy passion and iron reason! " Shout loudly. 193 10 The works exhibited in the first exhibition of Juelan Society held in June showed the artists' efforts to express the spirit of the new era with new techniques, but they were not limited to the same way, but showed a tendency of multiple choices. Pang Xunqin (1) ... There is no different tendency in style, but it shows a variety of faces. From flat and deep to lines, from realism to decoration, from deformation to abstraction ..., many popular painting schools in Paris seem to be making novel attempts. ...... Zhou Duo is painting distorted figures in Modi Rianni style, from Modi Rianni to Ruoke, and Koslin, and now he tends to Trump's new realistic style. Duan Youping's birth is between Picasso and Trump, and he is also changing new tricks from time to time. Yang Qiu people and Yang Taiyang can be said to be ... Picasso and chirico pursue new forms, but they have the bright feeling of southerners in color. ..... Zhang Xian ............................................................................................................................................... ............................... "(Noe: (English): Art and Society, p. 128, translated by Chen, published by Workers Publishing House in March 1989. Through this comment by Ni Yide, it is not difficult for us to grasp the value orientation of young oil painters in artistic concepts and feel the traces of their reference and imitation in the process of exploring artistic styles. Faced with all kinds of unpredictable western modern art, they don't have time to examine it carefully and study it deeply. Their choice is inevitable.
On the eve of the outbreak of the All-round Anti-Japanese War, Liang Xihong, Zhao Beast and Li Dongping, who returned from studying in China, established the "Independent Artists Association" in Shanghai, aiming at launching a new artistic movement with the "new painting spirit" and "avant-garde culture" and creating oil paintings by adopting western modernist painting methods such as Fauvism and Surrealism. Because of the critical period of national survival, members' understanding that "artists should not be dominated by the environment" and their works are obviously quite inappropriate. Therefore, their views and works not only failed to find more bosom friends, but became the curtain call ceremony of China modernist painting before the war.
Modernist painting has made some achievements in China's fine arts, but its momentum and influence are far from that of academic realistic painting. Not only the society and the public showed indifference to it, but also artists who returned from studying abroad denounced it. In the first national art exhibition held by the Ministry of Education of the National Government in 1929, realistic works and modernist paintings each accounted for a certain proportion. Xu Beihong, a representative painter of academic school, expressed confusion and strong dissatisfaction with the introduction of western modernist painting, which triggered an intriguing "two-Xu debate" on how to evaluate modern painting. This debate, although after several rounds of war of words, did not end in which side won or lost, but it made clear the contradiction and conflict between academic painting and modernist painting. China's social reality and people's attitudes towards them are still biased. If the first national art exhibition, academic and modernist paintings and calligraphy like "Moon Brand" all occupy their respective positions, showing diversified characteristics, then the second national art exhibition held in Nanjing after eight years, the dominant tendency of the participating works in style is very obvious. "Among the 220 western paintings in modern painting, realistic works account for more than 80%." (Note: The Declaration of Winning the Lanshe Club No.5, Volume 1, Art Xun Magazine, June19,32. ) Modernist painting has been greatly neglected.
Some people blame the rejection and suppression of the academic school for the modernism painting from prosperity to coldness in China. In their view, "the spirit and techniques of modern painting art should at least not be doubted, and many people have accepted and tried." ..... But at the first national art exhibition, after all, some people will put forward the "confusion" about modern painting, which is simply to make China's modern painting develop to a deformed road, abandon the empty academic style of European art circles advocated by Xu Beihong, and try to integrate into the essence of China's modern painting, thus honestly causing the development of China's modern painting academic school. ..... So Xu Beihong's article "Puzzlement" fully exposes his naivety in understanding the trend of modern art, and also shows that he has committed some crimes in the development of modern painting in China. ..... These drawbacks are enough to deal a heavy blow to the development of modern painting in China. (Note: This article was published in Shanghai Youth World, Volume 8, Issue 3, and quoted from Duoyun, Issue 47. They think that the establishment and activities of "Juelan Society" and China Artists Association since 1930s "put modern painting in China on the right path", but at the second national art exhibition, "because the hosts seemed too general, they underestimated the modern painting representing modern art in China, and the kind assistance really turned into malicious obstruction. "
Laughing at academic painting, Wen Zhaotong, who thinks that "the development of modern painting in China undoubtedly needs to follow this goal", said in the article "Times Art and Art Times" that "the decisive role of art belongs to the times. And art can also push the times forward. Therefore, it is positive and beneficial for today's artists to reflect the times and lead the times in their artistic creation. If you can only follow the times or even ignore them, then his art is not only negative, but also harmful, and it can be said that it has been abandoned by the times. " (Note: Chen Xiaonan: Artistic activities in the four years of the Anti-Japanese War, published in the August issue of Literature and Art Monthly 1942. It is quite appropriate to use this passage to explain the situation of China's modernist painting in the 1920s and 1930s.
(2) Left-wing art movement
In the process of the conflict and debate between the academic school and the modernist school, the overall artistic trend of thought has also quietly emerged and evolved into an influential left-wing art movement in the art world. The general artistic trend of thought is also a transplant of foreign literary trend of thought, but the difference is that its ideological edge is not from Western Europe, but mainly influenced by the Soviet Union's Russian Marxist literary view and Japanese left-wing literary theory. After the victory of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, with the spread and development of Marxism in China, Marxist ideological and literary views began to be accepted by early producers and revolutionary progressive writers and artists, and tried to observe and solve the social and cultural problems in China with Marx's viewpoints and methods.
Just like the transformation of Chinese painting, the slogan of "art revolution" was first put forward by the elites in the ideological and cultural circles, and the art reform movement was subordinate to the new culture movement. Just like the general artistic consciousness and the left-wing artistic movement, it is also stimulated by the wave of revolutionary literature. After the 1920s, the controversy among schools in the art world was mainly manifested in how to treat Chinese and western paintings and the attitudes of western colleges towards realistic and modernist paintings. Few people use Marxist literary theory to analyze and study China's artistic phenomenon and guide the development of artistic movement. Compared with the lively scene that literary circles are keen on translating and introducing Marxist literary theory works and setting off a wave of "revolutionary literature", the artistic circles are still immersed in the enthusiasm of "artistic revolution" for quite some time, and the progressive literary society represented by the Creative Society in the literary world completed the transformation from "aestheticism" to "for art" as early as 1924 to 1927. After 1927, the revolutionary literature movement formed a majestic trend, and the art world was involved, gradually establishing a universal consciousness among some artists and leading to the left-wing art movement.
The relationship between art movement and class consciousness was first explained by Marxist view of class struggle in the art world, and Xu Xingzhi advocated proletarian revolutionary art after returning from studying in Japan. Because of his talents in oil painting, poetry and drama, as well as his close contacts with progressive literary and art circles such as Guo Moruo and Xia Yan, he actively participated in the left-wing literary and art movement and became an advocate and practitioner of the revolutionary literary and art movement. At the end of 1929, his article "The Task of the Emerging Art Movement" was published in the first issue of Art. Firstly, this paper focuses on the class nature of the art movement and the cultural movement from the perspective of history and reality. "History clearly shows that no matter which class was in power in the past, there must be corresponding culture and cultural movements." According to this view, he thinks that the problem of the emerging art movement is by no means a simple art movement, but a general cultural movement, and behind the general cultural movement is by no means a simple general cultural movement, but a class relationship and class consciousness. After expounding the class nature of the art movement and the cultural movement, he reflected and analyzed the Art Nouveau movement since the May 4th Movement, and made a rather severe evaluation of the Art Nouveau movement that had developed for ten years. He believes that "not only can not be crowned, but even the medal of merit is not worthy to be brought to him." Because, "the history of the past art movement is the history of their big and small schools fighting each other ... it is their conflict for interests, their attack and defense for honor, and their melee to win over students." In his eyes, this kind of history left only a barren garden for the art world, with unpredictable utopian themes, inexplicable mysterious paintings, rash composition, disorderly dancing of colors and extremely individualistic descriptions. After completely denying the past art movement, he pointed out that the task of the art movement is the task of the new class art movement, and artists should reflect the life of the public and meet the requirements of the public from the standpoint of the proletariat. He clearly put forward the specific policy of the emerging proletarian art movement:
1. We must base ourselves on a certain class position and carry out a thorough struggle with the ruling class and its art policy. 2. We must master dialectical materialism to overcome the artistic theory of the ruling class and criticize their artistic works. We must strengthen our emerging art movement and fully hone our works to dominate the works of art of the ruling class. 4. We must establish the relationship between art and social life and its own existence value, and we must complete the unfinished enlightenment of the ruling class.
Xu Xingzhi's article, involving the nature and tasks of the emerging art movement, has actually become the general declaration of the left-wing art movement.
The left-wing art movement centered on Shanghai has developed rapidly. Left-wing art groups such as Chaohua Club, 18th Club, Times Art Club and Comic Club were established one after another, and a series of activities were carried out. On this basis, in July of 1930, the China Left-wing Artists Union, the central group of the left-wing art movement, was established in Shanghai, which marked that the left-wing art movement entered a new stage. Although the left-wing art groups before and after the Midland Alliance and the Midland Alliance were different in the specific expressions of their respective programs and declarations, they all regarded the emerging art movement not only as a genre movement in art, but as a means to serve the masses and the proletariat. In the Declaration to Young Artists in China, Time Art Society clearly stated: "Our art movement is by no means a struggle of art schools, but a counterattack against the class consciousness of the oppressed class, so our art has to become a weapon of class struggle." (Note: See Vanguard 1 No.3, March, 9301Volume. The action plan of the Comic Club requires that "the painter's works should go deep into the streets and factories. Carry out proletarian publicity and education activities. So as to "actively promote the social revolution with painting as a weapon." (Note: It is quoted from the revolutionary art societies during the left-wing literary movement in Huang Ke, which contains historical materials of the left-wing cultural movement. The main body of the proletariat and social revolution is the workers and the working masses. After defining the class attribute of art, all left-wing art societies require artists to take the road of art popularization, and to "walk into factories, live with workers and laborers, deeply understand the lives of workers and laborers, and convey them from their own works, so that their works can penetrate the masses and arouse the struggle mood of workers and laborers." (Noe: Xu Xingzhi: The Prospect of China Art Movement, published in Helen Monthly in June 1930. ) Art that can be accepted by the workers and peasants and become a powerful weapon for education, propaganda and organization of the masses, of course, cannot take the form of "national quintessence art that will die with feudalism", nor can it absorb the "dead oriental spirit", nor can it be "not impressionism, dadaism, fauvism, subjectivism or constitutionalism of bourgeois art". ..... What should be paid attention to is the content produced in the revolutionary struggle of workers and peasants and the form it determines. " (Note: Violating Taboo: Writers and Works of Ordinary Art, published in Literature News 1932 on June 6th. Obviously, the general art movement pays attention to the functions of art propaganda and fighting, and pursues the social utility value of art.
Driven by the rising revolutionary enthusiasm, left-wing art youth groups not only appeal to art as a weapon of proletarian revolution in public opinion, but also do their best to draw propaganda drawings and mimeographs for various mass organizations, and often participate in activities such as writing slogans, distributing leaflets and demonstrating. They closely linked art with revolutionary political struggle, and among them, they were more committed to revolution, because these artists who were keen on revolution "generally changed from petty bourgeoisie and abandoned to proletarian camp", and they hoped and tried to draw a clear line with previous artists in life style, thoughts and feelings, eager to clear and overcome "romantic tendency and left-leaning or right-leaning opportunism tendency" in the fierce revolutionary struggle; (Note: Violating Taboo: Ordinary Art Writers and Works, published in Literature News 1932 on June 6. ) I am eager to be reborn in the struggle of the great working masses. Revolutionary artists in their minds "are by no means like bourgeois artists with long hair, hiding in ivory towers to praise the ruling class, landlords and capitalists, or deceiving the public in the name of' art for art's sake'. But they are members of the masses, and their skills and abilities will be acquired through the struggle of the masses. " (Note: Violating Taboo: Ordinary Art Writers and Works, published in Literature News 1932 on June 6. )
The main participants in the left-wing art movement are young artists with junior qualifications and little fame. They are full of ideals to change the old world. They are neither attached to the quintessence of Chinese art nor superstitious about traditional western realistic art. Let's get up! Create our world of colors, lines and shapes with crazy passion and steel-like rationality! "Cry is dismissive. They advocate social revolution. The victory of the October Revolution in Soviet Russia ignited the fire of hope in their hearts. Therefore, after the failure of the Great Revolution, they firmly believed that the revolution had to face violence, and the art movement, as a cultural movement, had to be attached to the revolutionary class for class resistance. They eagerly draw spiritual strength from Marxist literary theory, such as plekhanov's On Art and Luna Charles' Literature and Criticism. Soviet art and Japanese left-wing art based on "national depression, shouting, blood and tears, heroism" hope to construct a new proletarian art form. Lu Xun was not only the standard-bearer of the May 4th New Culture Movement, but also the initiator and navigator of the left-wing art movement. He led the establishment of the first revolutionary art group "Chaohua Society" during the left-wing literature and art movement, and directly guided the activities of the 18th Society, always giving strong support and enthusiastic encouragement to young artists full of revolutionary passion.
Under the advocacy of Lu Xun, the left-wing art movement not only shifted its creative focus to woodcut prints, but also shifted its work focus from "propaganda and education activities for the proletariat" to anti-Japanese and national salvation propaganda from the early 1930s to the mid-1930s.
It is a consistent feature of the left-wing art movement to closely combine social revolution with realistic struggle, pay attention to the fate of the country and the nation, and seek the way to save the popularization of art. Before the Anti-Japanese War, left-wing art groups were mostly students of art schools and young painters. They advocate Marxist theory of literature and art, treat art problems with Marxist theory of class struggle, regard art movement as an art movement with class consciousness, regard struggle and propaganda as the highest standard to judge the quality of art, completely deny and vilify non-struggle, non-propaganda art schools, artists and works of art, and give contempt and ridicule to many famous artists in the art world. This actually draws a clear line between left-wing art groups and other art schools. Of course, it also sets obstacles for the spread of left-wing artistic thoughts. In addition, the left-wing art movement turned into a new printmaking movement in essence. Therefore, although the left-wing artistic trend of thought centered on Shanghai has spread to Beijing and Guangzhou, its influence has not expanded to more and wider levels. As Lu Hongji, who had actively participated in the left-wing art movement, said when reviewing the development trend of pre-war art after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War:
"Although the art world at this time found another form, another theory-propaganda and struggle. But it didn't affect them at all Maybe the young people of this new army are not in their eyes (they just forgot one sentence: the afterlife is awesome). Therefore, it has been almost ten years since the transplantation of new theories and the emergence of new armies, but it still cannot spread to the whole art world. It was not until the awakening of the nation and the beginning of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression that the overall situation realized that artistic propaganda and struggle were the truth, which also made Lu Xun, a visionary, an ordinary prophet. " (Note: Lu Hongji: The Art Movement in China in the Three Years Since the Anti-Japanese War is a special issue of Sino-Soviet culture to commemorate the third anniversary of the Anti-Japanese War. )
Indeed, although the influence of the ideological trend of left-wing art before the war was not comprehensive, many viewpoints and understandings sprouted during the left-wing art movement during the Anti-Japanese War were further improved and deepened, and were generally recognized.
(3) National quintessence and nationalism
The spread of academic realism, various modernist painting schools and left-wing artistic thoughts in China is not only due to their strong radiation, but also related to some social expectations within China society. That is to say, these ideological trends or schools are in line with the aesthetic value orientation and social realistic needs of artists of different levels and groups in China, so they are accepted by the art circles in China, forming a situation in which various ideological trends overlap and rise. Regardless of the infiltration and degree of various ideological trends, they were originally the result of the spread of similar ideological trends in the West.
Corresponding to various artistic trends of thought from the west, it belongs to the national quintessence of China's local cultural and artistic products and nationalism of artistic trends of thought. These two ideological trends are fundamentally based on China's own artistic problems, evolved from the inherent artistic traditions, and showed a unique national color from the very beginning. The quintessence of Chinese culture and the trend of nationalist art are not only intrinsically related, but also completely different. Nationalism, or "national quintessence", belongs to the trend of cultural conservatism that rose at the beginning of the 20th century. Cultural conservatism is a common phenomenon after human history enters the stage of modernization, which may occur in countries where internal factors promote modernization, and its conservatism is aimed at anti-traditional radical tendencies; It may also happen in countries that have embarked on the road of modernization due to external forces, and their conservatism is aimed at both anti-traditional ideas and foreign cultures. China's cultural conservatism obviously belongs to the latter type. It contains both traditionalism and nationalism. (Note: See China Modern Social Thoughts published by East China Normal University Press 1996. During the Reform Movement of 1898, especially since the May 4th Movement, some artists were worried about the precarious painting tradition under the violent impact of western cultural and artistic trends. They stood up and took the revival of Chinese painting as their own responsibility, and launched a verbal war with the reformists. They emphasized that eastern and western painting are two completely different painting systems, each with its own independent value and significance. It is believed that painting can't be judged by the old and the new, Chinese painting can be constantly improved through self-adjustment, and China painters don't need to be baptized by western art. The quintessence painters not only fully affirmed the value of traditional painting, but also thought that western traditional painting was "extremely similar". "Although the painting is long, it has to be different." In short, it is the purpose of the quintessence school to affirm the value of traditional painting and seek the theoretical basis for the survival and development of Chinese painting under the new historical conditions. In fact, the quintessence of Chinese culture is a product stimulated by the western artistic trend of thought, and it is a coping model for the challenge of heterogeneous culture. Therefore, the quintessence of Chinese culture has a distinct nationalist color. Since the 20th century, China society has finally started the modernization process in the conflict and blending of Chinese and Western cultures. Therefore, it is definitely out of place to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and western culture and art and try to build barriers between them. Nationalism not only failed to gain the upper hand in the war with reformists, but also spread as a trend of thought in a short time.
Different from the quintessence school, artistic nationalism gradually became a powerful ideological trend after the May 4th Movement, especially in the early 1930s, under the historical conditions of the deepening national crisis, and it still exists today. Nationalism worships traditional art blindly and refuses to take the road of integration of Chinese and western, and its vision is basically introverted and backward. Although artistic nationalism recognizes the value of national traditional painting, it does not stick to tradition, and advocates "ignoring the boundary between China and the West, bringing forth the new" and integrating Chinese and Western ancient and modern art. In the late 20th century and early 1930s, quite a few people in the art world changed their attitude of totally denying traditional art and stopped bowing to western art. Instead, they reflected on cleaning up the artistic tradition from a modern standpoint, observed the advantages of western art from a local art and tried to build a kind of integrated traditional art.. National crisis. It not only activated the national self-esteem of China people, especially China intellectuals, but also urged them to reach the awakening of nationalism with modern significance. As a result, a strong nationalist trend of thought has emerged, stirring in various fields, resulting in economic nationalism, political nationalism and cultural (artistic) nationalism, which complement each other and support each other. No matter what form of nationalism, it is the product of resisting aggression and striving for national rejuvenation. In other words, the nationalist trend of thought is formed under the stimulation of foreign forces and foreign cultures. Compared with other artistic trends of thought, artistic nationalism is the most penetrating and widespread trend of thought. It can be said that all artistic trends of thought since this century have shown strong nationalism. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, China artists pushed artistic nationalism to a climax in the great struggle for national survival.
Before the Anti-Japanese War, China's art world was really full of schools of thought. No matter how big the differences between these ideological trends and schools are, how sharp the conflicts are and how fierce the struggles are, they are all related to solving the realistic crisis of China's fine arts, trying to show China the way out of the maze of fine arts teaching and design. The survival of the country is