Reform And Respond:A Study Of The Transformation Of The Flower-and-bird Painting In The Seventeen Years After The Founding Of The People’s Republic Of China

In the study of the "reform" of Chinese painting from1949to1966, the transform of "class character" according to the "realistic" demand of realism is usually used to describe the general turning of Chinese painting during the17years, while the trend of freehand brushwork based on "national character" of the literature and art in new China, considered "counter current" of history, is not accepted as part of the overall structure of fine arts of this period; Figure painting emphasizing "realistic" reform and landscape painting adopting the Western notion of " sketching to the view" has drawn extensive attention, but the situation of flower-and-bird painting that could not be fully explained by "Realistic" reform or the notion of "sketching to the view" is lack of research. Even in the limited discussions on the flower-and-bird painting’s transformation in new China or in the whole20th century, people also tended to only pay attention to the phenomenon that the flower-and-bird painting moved towards realistic style when "facing to Western trends", few concerned the artistic reforms with no obvious "Western" influence or the changes in the function and value of the flower-and-bird painting in the specific socio-cultural context…This dissertation is not a detailed "encyclopedia book" on the flower-and-bird painting from1949to1966, but analysis on the interactions of flower-and-bird painting and its social Zeitgeist as well as the transformation of flower-and-bird painting during this period by reconsidering existing research paradigms and absorbing what had been achieved. Considering the relationship between "reform" and "respond", this article explores the flower-and-bird painting’s changes in the aspects of artistic standpoint, function, value, schema and style, etc., and provides an explanation for the historical "structure" of the flower-and-bird painting between the year of1949and1966. The first chapter, consisting of three sections including "the standpoint of’people’","social function’s anxiety and realism’s demands of themes", and "methodology of’creation and sketching’" discusses the new demands with which the flower-and-bird painting had been confronted in new China. These demands are considered main reasons leading to the transformation of the flower-and-bird painting in new China. These three sections gradually turns the topics of external society to art itself, eliciting later recounting on the specific performance of the flower-and-bird painting’s transformation in these17years. The second chapter is based on the main line of Chinese painting thoughts during this time, and discusses the three stages of Chinese painting’s reform in this period and the consequent three tendency of the reform of the flower-and-bird painting, namely the "realistic trend" of the reform of "class character" in early1950s; the dual demands on class character and national character after the "double hundred policy"(let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend) in1956; the "freehand brushwork" trend in the pursuit of "national character" after the "eight policies about art and literature" in1961. The third chapter inspects the social function of flower-and-bird painting in its social background, and discusses different themes of flowers-and-birds painting as responds to the demands of "realism", especially the themes of "harvest" and "hundreds of flowers\mountain flowers". The last chapter focuses on the schema changes of the flower-and-bird painting to discuss three reformative trends including "class\realism""class\national characters","national\freehand brushwork styles" which are responds to the social requirements of "creation\sketching from nature". The arts of Yu Feian, Guo Weiqu and Pan Tianshou are discussed to represent the schema changes of many flower-and bird painters.In the history of "reform" and "respond", the conversion of value and the transform of schema are generalizations about the history’s results. The establishment of new values is due to the top-down "reform" while the appearance of new schemas is an bottom-up response by the artists. The overlap and interaction between the two will be involved in the epilogue of this dissertation. On the basis of collecting and analyzing first-hand materials, this paper tries to explore perspectives and methods fitted into historical facts as well as theoretical summarizations in the process of historical statements.