NAMOC

One of the most interesting museums I visited in China was the National Art Museum of China (or NAMOC for short) [中国美术馆]. It offers a look at the last century of Chinese art. Needless to say, the twentieth century in China was one of great upheaval. That is reflected in the art.

Yi Ming's [佚名] painting from 1928, is a good example of early Republican era art. In some ways it is two things at once -- it both fits in the tradition Chinese landscape painting and betrays European influences. Instead of the sparse Chinese textures, it is a full-scale oil painting. (The museum labels it as 仕 女肖像, which means "Portrait of Female Official." That is obviously not correct. You can see the actual female official here.)

As the civil war between the KMT and the CCP heated up, political themes became more common. The struggles got worse with the invasion of Japan in 1937. "The Call of July 7" [“七七”的号角], painted by Tang Yihe [唐一禾] in 1940, depicts Chinese citizens marching to rebuff the Japanese. (This painting is very tame, actually. Take a look at the other paintings from the 1940's, which depict fighting, evacuations, and hunger.) The war, which didn't end until Japan surrendered to the US in 1945, is still a very current issue in Sino-Japanese relations. (It even has currency in the arts -- Bright Sheng, a Chinese composer now living in Michigan, wrote Nanking! Nanking!, a concerto about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, in 1999.)

After Mao declared the People's Republic in 1949, the tone of the paintings changed decidedly.
There was a resurgence of traditional style painting, consistent with the communist ideology's cultural isolation. Naturally, there was also a surge in propaganda painting. The bucolic scene seems harmless enough, until you examine the iconography. Those peasant women, smiling as they plow the fields, are in traditional Tibetan dress. They are pleased because the enlightened Chinese occupying army has freed them from their own self rule. The painting's title? The First Step on the Golden Road [初踏黄金路]. Li Huanmin [ 李焕民] painted it in 1963, eleven years after Tibet was "liberated."

Not all Chinese propoganda art is this cruel, however. Portraits of Mao were naturally quite popular, depicting him as a friend, a sage, an older brother, and, of course, as a wise leader. (These paintings still have currency in China today. Somehow, Mao has avoided the re-examination that brought Hitler and Stalin out of favor after they died.) My favorite of these is Sun Zixi's [孙滋溪] In Front of Tiananmen [前天安门], depicting a cross-section of Chinese citizens posing in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, China's national symbol. (The gate is across the street from Tiananmen Square, which has become infamous outside of China after the 1989 incident.) The scene is one that is repeated hundreds (if not thousands) of times every day, as people from all over the country flock to see the monument that has been at the center of Chinese life for 500 years. In this painting, soldiers, officials, and peasants all stand together, along with people representing several of China's ethnic minorities. This is classical propoganda, showing the ideal society that communism (and Mao) have brought.

The repressive Cultural Revolution years are conspicuously absent from the museum. The revolution sought to eliminate old customs, old habits, old thinking, and old culture. (That was communism at its worst.) Things started to open up then, however. Nixon visited and Deng Xiaoping instituted reforms, and Western influences returned to Chinese painting. There is little to suggest that this nude figure is a Chinese painting, or was painted in 1980. Jin Shangyi [靳尚谊] seems influenced by a classical Western sense of beauty. Likewise, Wei Qimei's [韦启美] New Wires [新 线 ] seems almost abstract (even though it depicts something very concrete -- large spools of electircal wire demonstrating China's modernization). The texture of the paint almost takes over from the images on the canvas.

I'm going to artificially stop this brief survey at 1983. At some point, I'll pick things back up and include a look at Shanghai's gallery, which has a better collection of contemporary art. Also planned is a look at contemporary Chinese classical music, which shares a similar trajectory as painting. Finally, I'll be doing the first assessment of an important genre of modern Chinese sculpture: the art of the Chinese public square.

For more on painting, check out the on-line collections of the National Art Museum of China and the Shanghai Art Museum. Don't be intimidated by the Chinese writing; just click around on things and have fun.