| Chang Shuhong, born in 1904 and died in 1994, is noted for his Studies of Dunhuang Caves, paintings and artistic theory in China. He had gone through three important conversions in his life. In 1927 he went to France to study western classical art. In 1936 he came back to China because of his increasing psychology of dislike. Finally in 1942 he abandoned comfortable life that he had had and began to be engaged in studies and protection of Dunhuang Caves for 40 years. However, he had never stopped his paintings during these periods. Throughout his life Chang Shuhong produced many excellent oil paintings, and was prominent among students abroad who studied classical art in the modern times of China. He unceasingly tried to assimilate nourishment from modern western and national traditional art, and he is one of the earliest pioneers to advocate the national style of oil paintings.The research makes use of the way of iconology to clarify the cultural meaning of the picture by analyzing the oil paintings of Chang Shuhong. The research not only explores the style evolvement of his oil paintings from studying abroad to homecoming and to studying and protecting the Dunhuang Caves, but also studies the reasons of the style evolvement, including the social background of China and abroad, the form and transformation of his artistic idea and the difference between his artistic idea and the artistic ideas of the cotemporary artists — gaining development in what and why. Considering the length of the thesis, the emphases of the discussion centralize his course in France, but that does not mean that his art after that period is unimportant. Therefore, the former three chapters focus on his artistic idea and works in France, comprising his pursue in classicalism at the beginning of his staying in France, his exploring for the national style and his preliminarily-formed artistic idea. The fourth chapter discusses his works and his lofty spirit of working "for nation and country" after his homecoming. |
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