The combination of poetry and image seen in surimono is, in fact, part of a long Japanese tradition of unifying literature and art,  typically seen in painted hand-scrolls of classical stories, such as the tenth-century Tales of Ise and the twelfth-century Tale of Genji (including text with poems alongside the pictures). The Chinese style hanging scrolls of the eighteenth century, known as Nan-ga, also often include poetic inscriptions in calligraphy. Poetry has long been inextricably linked with art in Japan and has always played an important role in Japanese culture and aesthetics. There is a famous phrase by the court poet Ki no Tsurayuki in the preface to the Kokin wakashū (Collection of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry), an early imperial anthology of c. 914 : ‘yamato uta wa hito no kokoro o tane to shite yorozu no koto no ha tozo narerikeri’ (‘Japanese poetry takes as its seed the human heart’). In other words, men and women speak of things they hear and see, giving words to the feelings in their hearts.

Poetry has also traditionally been seen as more than simply a form of personal expression. Reciting Japanese poems at religious ceremonies or at public banquets in ancient times enhanced the solemnity of the receptions, pleased the gods and Buddha, and also united the participants spiritually, having an effect akin to chanting mantra. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Japanese poems  were often sung in  ritualistic ceremonies, accompanied by the wa-gon (Japanese 5 or 6 stringed instrument), which was played as means to commune with the gods and also to enhance communication between individuals.

Waka, the Japanese classical poetry form consisting of 31 syllables (5/7/5/7/7) that stemmed from these ancient Japanese poems, developed into various waka poetry styles from the mid-eighth century. Waka poems were exchanged personally among high-ranking courtiers and recited on social occasions such as uta-kai (poetry gatherings) or uta-awase (poetry competitions). Kyōka poetry in surimono can be regarded as the descendant of this literary tradition, using exactly the same structure and poetic techniques as waka.  However, kyōka dispensed with many of waka’s formal constraints of style and theme, rather showing its witty, sometime sarcastic wordplay, thus being called ‘crazy’ or ‘humorous’ verse.

The ritualistic aspect of reciting poems can be likened with exchanging surimono among kyōka poets of poetry clubs at the New Year or on special occasions such as the celebration of an age milestone. The poems composed for New Year’s surimono often conveyed wishful thoughts of happiness and prayers to the gods, particularly prayers to Toshigami, a god worshipped at the beginning of the New Year, and to whom poems were dedicated with accompanying pictures. New Year’s surimono were known as saitan surimono (surimono for New Year’s Day) or shunkyō kyōka surimono (surimono for celebrating spring). The New Year was the most important event in the Japanese festival calendar, marking the rebirth of nature in springtime.

Most kyōka surimono were composed to commemorate New Year’s poetry gatherings. The subjects of the poems and images on surimono are varied, with the most conspicuous themes being still-life subjects, Kabuki actors, zodiac animals, legends and literature, among others. What was common to all New Year’s surimono was that they invariably carried auspicious imagery that conveyed messages of vigour, happiness, longevity, beauty and wealth. Both those sending and receiving surimono would be suffused with the pleasure of anticipation of positive things to come. The sense of anticipating auspicious things for the New Year took the form of ritualistic prayers and events known as yoshuku. These consisted of celebrating in advance the thing that was wished for and performing actions designed to imagine the actual realisation of that thing.

The poems and images on surimono often performed a similar function. Thus the tobacco pouch in the surimono ‘Pipe case and tobacco pouch with a netsuke and chain’ represents fullness and happiness because it is fully packed with tobacco.

Pipe case and tobacco pouch with hyogo-gusari chain and netsuke
Kikukawa Eishin (active c. 1804-30) 菊川英信
Artist’s signature: Hōrai Eishin ga 蓬莱英信画
Artist’s seal: Ei 英
c. 1820s
Colour woodblock print with metallic pigments and embossing
12.6 x 17.3 cm, kokonotsugiriban format
Presented by Mrs E.M. Allan and Mr and Mrs H.N. Spalding from the Herbert H. Jennings Collection, EAX.4615

This surimono represents a celebrative and happy New Year theme. The poem reads: ‘Laughing at the stitches of a spring pouch fully packed with tobacco – what a joyful time!’ ‘Spring pouch’ (haru-bukuro in Japanese) is the key word to link the kyōka poem with the picture, and to offer various interpretations of the surimono. ‘Harubukuro’ was a type of pouch made in the New Year by a young woman wishing for the pouch – generally a drawstring purse – to be filled with happiness in the year ahead. The playful poem by the kyōka poet Uramichi Chikaki (meaning ‘back street shortcut’) has turned the woman’s spring pouch into a man’s tobacco case fully packed with tobacco. The designer, Eishin, an ukiyo-e artist, has depicted a tobacco case with a braided metal chain (hyōgo-gusari) embellished with a boar’s tusk netsuke and fur pompom. The green pipe case that accompanies the tobacco pouch is sewn with irregular stitches that reference the poem. The word ‘haru’ is a pun, or ‘kakekotoba’ in Japanese, meaning both ‘spring’ and ‘being full’. The pipe case is empty and it is possible that Eishin’s design incorporates a risqué interpretation of a young woman’s ‘full pouch’.

Surimono sometimes alluded to classical themes of the past in a form of gentle parody known as mitate. In mitate, esteemed historical, religious or literary personalities were depicted as contemporary figures such as courtesans or actors. For example, in the surimono below, the Chinese immortal Rogō is portrayed as a courtesan.

The Immortal Rogō
Series title: The biographies of immortals parodied by courtesans: a set of seven (Keisei mitate ressenden: nanaban no uchi 傾城見立列仙伝 七番の内)
Probably commissioned by the Tsurunoya poetry group
Yashima Gakutei (c. 1786 – 1855) 屋島岳亭
Artist’s signature: Tōto Gakutei 東都 岳亭
Artist’s seal: Sadaoka 定岡
1827-1834
Colour woodblock print with metallic pigments,
20.8 x 18.5 cm, shikishiban format
Presented by Mrs E.M. Allan and Mr and Mrs H.N. Spalding from the Herbert H. Jennings Collection, EAX.4561

This surimono is one of seven prints in a series designed by Yashima Gakutei. The series likens famous courtesans to venerated immortals of the Chinese Daoist tradition, which is included in the category of legendary subject. The courtesan depicted here is the allusion to the immortal Rogō (Lu Ao in Chinese), who is often depicted riding on the back of a turtle. The designer of the surimono, Yashima Gakutei, has depicted a courtesan as if she were seated on the back of a long-tailed turtle embroidered on the bottom of her splendid kimono – the long-tailed turtle is an auspicious symbol of longevity. Gakutei seems to have been well acquainted with the subject and has extended the turtle imagery by depicting a tortoiseshell pattern on the courtesan’s obi (sash) and on the upper part of purple her purple kimono. This tortoiseshell pattern was typically found on the armour of the deity Bishamonten, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune and the Buddhist guardian of the north – one of the four directions represented by a turtle.

The turtle is also associated with an ancient East Asian practice of divination (uranai), in which the cracks that appeared on the surface of a heated turtle shell would foretell future events. In the poem, the phrase ‘kame no urakata uramasa ni ‘ [the fortune (urakata) predicted by the turtle (kame) happened as predicted (uramasa)] has a close association with the theme of Rogō riding on the back of a turtle. The background of the surimono is decorated with a pattern of cranes (tsuru), probably associated with the emblem of the Tsurunoya poetry group, who commissioned the surimono. The combination of crane and turtle is a most favoured motif as representing longevity (according to legend the crane lives up to a thousand years and turtle up to 10,000 years).

‘Still life’ was a popular subject for surimono, in contrast to commercial ukiyo-e woodblock prints which mostly depict the beauties of the pleasure quarters and popular Kabuki actors. The still-life depicted on the surimono ‘A vase with plum twigs and a crab on a court hat’ stirs your imagination of how these objects are related each other and what kind of narration could be unravelled. Only by reading the poems can the reader begin to understand the meaning of the picture.

A vase with plum twigs and a crab on a court hat
Rintei Yūshin (act. 1780s – 1820s) 林亭雄辰
Artist’s signature: Rintei
Probably 1825 (Year of the Rooster)
Colour woodblock print
16.5 x 20.4cm, kokonotsugiriban format
Purchased with the assistance of the Story Fund, EA2017.35

This surimono is a still life that shows a blue-and white vase containing twigs of plum blossom and a crab on an eboshi, a type of lacquered black hat worn by high-ranking nobles. These objects are laid on a chintz fabric with motif in red and green, all of which is presented in a diagonal bird’s-eye view, lacking a sense of three-dimensional perspective. The vase looks as if it is floating in the air. The theme of this surimono is puzzling –  the meaning of the picture only becomes clear once the poems have been fully appreciated. The key to unlocking the surimono lies in the place name ‘Akama’, found in the second and fifth verses. Akama is also known as Akamaga-ga-seki (modern Shimonoseki City of Yamaguchi Prefecture) and is the place where the Battle of Dan-no-ura took place in 1185, at which the Heike clan suffered a final defeat and was vanquished. Consequently the opposing Genji clan took the power of controlling the country. This battle marked a cultural and political turning point in Japanese history: Japan was to be ruled by Shoguns and warriors instead of Emperors and aristocrats.

At the site of the battle at Akama-ga-seki is found a type of crab whose shell bears a pattern resembling a fierce human face, like the crab depicted in the surimono. These crabs are called the Heike-gani (Heike crabs). It is locally believed that these crabs are reincarnations of the Heike warriors defeated at the Battle of Dan-no-ura as told in The Tale of the Heike. The black eboshi court hat on which the Heike-gani is placed represents the Heike family, who gained power by matrimonial links to the imperial court. The surimono was produced probably in the year of the Rooster, which can be surmised from the inscription around the base of the vase indicating of the date of production, the Bunsei era (1818-30).

The beautifully designed surimono below was produced for the poet who commissioned the surimono, to celebrate the special occasion of his early old age (shorō). It was commissioned with wishful thoughts of longevity.

Two sheets of haiku poems with chrysanthemums
Commissioned by the poet Tomioka Rochō
Artist unknown
1851
Colour woodblock print with embossing
19.5 x 28cm, chūban format
Acquired 1979, EA1979.21

This surimono consists of two sheets of haiku poems decorated with red and white chrysanthemums that are depicted using an embossing technique. The haiku poetry form was born when the starting verse (hokku) of the linked poems known as renga became independent. Renga itself developed from 31-syllable waka (5/7/5/7/7) and was a collaborative poetry genre in which different poets contributed the upper stanza (5/7/5) and lower stanza (7/7) of waka in turn. Haiku ( the upper stanza) consist of 17 syllables in a 5/7/5 meter. Nature plays the most important role in haiku, and a seasonal word (kigo) must be included in each haiku.

The inscription at the beginning of the left sheet declares that the poet ‘ Tomioka Rochō celebrates his early old age’,  known as ‘shorō’, and indicates that the poems on the surimono were composed to celebrate Rochō’s ‘ga no iwai’, a custom commemorating one’s longevity at significant milestones, the first celebration of old age on his 41^st birthday. This custom continues in modern times in Japan, but nowadays the first celebration of this kind is at the age of 60, with an event known as ‘kanreki’, returning to the year you were born in a sexagenary cycle.

The poems on the two poetry sheets depicted are composed by poets gathered from various prefectures, including modern Tokyo, Kyoto, Tokushima, Chiba and Aomori Prefectures, to contribute to Rochō’s milestone celebration, and also to wish for blessing of longevity. The poems are filled with autumnal imagery (kigo seasonal words), including references to autumn plants, geese, and numerous poetic terms for the moon in autumn, as the following examples illustrate.

Sōkyo of Mutsu Province:  ‘Worthy of the fame, the autumn full moon makes its presence known’

Isshi, also of Mutsu Province: ‘The clouds have cleared – the cool shade of roadside trees on a moonlit night’

The young man Sakyō: ‘On a moonlit night, the reflection of moonlight on pine needles’

Tomioka Rochō’s own poem, the last on the left-hand sheet, alludes to his own old age: ‘I scoop the reflection of chrysanthemums in the narrow stream’, conveying the sense of leaving his mark on nothing, echoing the transience of nature.

Kiyoko Hanaoka

Last Chance to see the Exhibition

PLUM BLOSSOM AND GREEN WILLOW: SURIMONO POETRY PRINTS

on view until Sunday 17 Mar 2019

Gallery 29 | Admission Free

A catalogue of the exhibition is available at the Ashmolean Museum shop.

The Ashmolean Museum is currently displaying in two galleries a selection of works by the Hong Kong artist Wucius Wong. This display based on the Museum’s collection is linked to the Lui Shou-kwan Centenary Exhibition: Abstraction, Ink and Enlightenment on view in the The Khoan and Michael Sullivan Gallery (Gallery 11) until the 7^th of April 2019.

Born in Guangdong province on mainland China in 1936, Wucius Wong moved with his family to Hong Kong when he was not yet ten years of age. The influx of many aspects of Chinese culture that arrived in Hong Kong from the mainland, throughout the nineteenth- and twentieth centuries, created a unique multi-cultural atmosphere that permeated all aspects of life in what was then a British Crown Colony. Wong grew up in this cross-cultural atmosphere, one that he later saw as being a dialogue between East and West. His Hong Kong upbringing, and the three periods in which he lived in the USA later in life, all greatly affected his art work and resulted in the unique transcultural flavour that is evident in his painting. Despite spending sixteen years of his adult life in the USA, Wong identifies Hong Kong as being his home; the place where his roots truly lie.

Image 1: Wucius Wong , Valley of the Heart #7心壑之七, 1997, Sullivan Bequest, EA2015. 331  © the artist

With regard to the question of what the contribution of Hong Kong artists has been to the broader worldwide artistic endeavor, Wong has suggested that the answer lies in the cross-cultural nature of Hong Kong. He considers Hong Kong artists to be in a unique position to use this cross-cultural phenomenon in the formulation of new approaches to ink painting, and in the seeking out of new directions that cut across cultures, media and forms. Of course, it might well be suggested that this was something that had already been achieved with considerable success by Wong’s one-time teacher Lui Shou-kwan. In the case of the landscapes of Lui Shou-kwan they represent aspects of the Hong Kong landscape as he saw them on his sketching and painting trips around the islands from the 1950s to the 1970s. Wong, on the other hand deals with this in his own way.

For Wong it has been the modern city landscape, together with imagined landscapes, some of which show the starkest of scenes, that have been at different times the main themes in his work. Since the mid-2000s Wong has thought increasingly about Chinese traditions, following his lifelong engagement with East and West, to work “towards a new understanding of ink and brush.” At this time he was producing ink paintings of landscapes in series on such apparently Chinese-inspired themes as Great River, Deep in the Mountains, and Searching for Plum Trees.

Wong was heavily involved in the Hong Kong modern art scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s and in 1958, at the age of 24, was a co-founder of the Modern Literature and Art Association. This was the same year in which he began his studies with Lui Shou-kwan. As had been the case with his teacher, in order to perfect his skills, Wong copied the Chinese masters of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and a firm grounding in landscape painting is reflected clearly in his own creative work during subsequent years.

Wucius Wong first went to the USA in 1961, in order to pursue his painting studies. Following five initial years of training at the Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio, and the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, when his work is seen to have been heavily influenced by abstract expressionism, he went on to produce works that incorporated elements of popular culture and mixed media. This can be seen, for example, in an album leaf dedicated by inscription to Michael Sullivan in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum. This album (EA2015.421) is one of two in the museum’s collection that demonstrate the state of modern art at the time when they were compiled. The other (EA2015.422), was compiled two years later, in 1970.

Image 2: Wucius Wong, Album leaf Collage with newspaper clippings, 1968, Sullivan Bequest, EA2015.421 © the artist

Wong produced this album leaf the year after he became curator of the City Hall Museum and Art Gallery. He remained in that post for a number of years, making his second trip to the USA during this period as recipient of a John D Rockefeller 3^rd Fund Grant. This took him to New York for a year and it was at this time that he turned to Chinese brush and ink again. By his own estimation, during the year he spent in New York, his works were “subtle and muted”, while, following his return to Hong Kong, they became increasingly “colourful and vibrant”.

On his return to Hong Kong he resumed his post as curator but resigned in 1974 in order to take up a post in the Design Department of Hong Kong Polytechnic. The teaching of graphic design was something that has occupied him throughout his professional career.

In 1984 Wong went again to the USA and took up residence, first in Minnesota and then in New Jersey, remaining there until 1994. His decisive homecoming was as a result of Britain’s historic return of Hong Kong to China. Thinking back to this time, in 2006 he wrote, my “…main motivation for coming back was to bear witness to the historic day in 1997 when Hong Kong returned to China.”

His involvement since his youth in writing and literature can be seen to great effect in his later works, in the use of his own poetical inscriptions as well as those by major poets from China’s past. An impressive large-scale calligraphic work from 1999 entitled Expression in Calligraphy #25 (書興之廿五) is currently on display in the Early China Gallery at the Ashmolean Museum. This example, of a well-known poem by Su Dongpo 蘇東坡 (1037-1101), displays his own remarkably idiosyncratic calligraphic style to great affect – a style in which he appears to have deliberately avoided adopting the trappings of traditional calligraphic models from China’s past.

Image 4: Wucius Wong, Expression in Calligraphy #25 (書興之廿五), 1999, Reyes Gift, EA2002.142 © The artist

Despite this poem being very well-known, in Wong’s hands, a new dimension can be observed, the profound sentiments found within the text expressing thoughts and feelings that are frequently represented in visual form in his own landscapes:

“Viewed from the front, an entire mountain range; from the side, forming into a peak; from a distance, close up, high, and low – all [views] are different. I cannot recognise the true appearance of Lushan precisely because I am in the midst of the mountain itself.”

According to Pat Hui (b. 1943), collaborator with Wong on over 200 works – for a period of more than twenty years – it was in the 1980s that Wong began to concentrate more on the development of his calligraphic skills and made a return to the writing of poetry that had occupied him in his youth. The use of poems from the Song dynasty can also be seen in two other examples in the museum collection, one of which is currently on display in the Later China Gallery (EA2015.191), in which a Ci lyric by Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 (1140-1207) appears to move from left to right, floating above Pat Hui’s painted ground, lending a new dimension to this poem of nostalgia and regret.

Image 5: Wucius Wong and Pat Hui Painting and Calligraphy of a Song Dynasty Poem, 1987, Sullivan Bequest, EA2015.191 © The artist

These collaborative works – combining the calligraphy of Wong with the painting of Pat Hui – they named “poetic visions” (詩情畫意). As well as historical poems Wucius Wong uses his own poetry with which to construct the very fabric of his landscape, where a literary text or poem is subsumed into the main body of the painting. This is illustrated well in New Dream no. 4 新夢之四 (1997).

Image 6: Wucius Wong, New Dream no. 4 新夢之四, 1997, Reyes Gift, EA2002.141 © The artist

In the poem hidden within this painting Wong displays a nostalgic view for the Hong Kong in which he grew up, while at the same time expressing a profound understanding of the landscapes of both China’s past, and the American landscape of his personal experience:

“Can you cut your vision into strips and arrange them vertically and horizontally like all the tall buildings you once grew up with; and then desire to forget that which you have so often seen; and chase those mountains and waters that it has not been so easy to see? On awakening could you seek a new dream, and not care what mountains are, or what waters are, because you have your own dream?”

Dr Paul Bevan, Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting, Ashmolean Museum

Bibliography

The Poetic Visions 詩情畫意 (Hong Kong: Alisan Fine Arts, 2005)

Wucius Wong, Pleasure in Ink 筆情墨一 (Hong Kong: hanart T Z Gallery, 2006)

Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Wucius Wong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1979)

Mountain Thoughts: Landscape Paintings by Wucius Wong (Minneapolis: The Minneapolis Institute of Art, 1987)

The Paintings of Wucius Wong (London: Goedhus Contemporary, 2000)

Wucius Wong, Visions of a Wanderer (Hong Kong: Plum Blossoms, 1997)

Wucius Wong City Dream 王無邪，城夢 (Hong Kong: hanart T Z Gallery, 2002)

Calligraphy and Beyond: Wang Jiqian, Wucius Wong 書意畫情：王己千，王無邪 (Hong |Kong: Plum Blossoms, 1999)

The Ashmolean Museum holds an extensive collection of objects from the Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976). One striking exhibit that appears in the exhibition is a ceramic figurine of a young woman in army uniform washing the floor with mop and pail.

Girl in Army Uniform with Bucket and Mop (1970-1979)
Porcelain figure, with polychrome glazes; wooden mop handle
Jingdezhen, Wade Gift, EA2010.78 © the artist

Throughout the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the porcelain kilns at Jingdezhen, renowned as the imperial kilns since the early Ming dynasty (c.1400), continued to produce fine quality porcelain. Much of the output from this time used the forms and decoration of revolutionary imagery, often depicting Chairman Mao himself, heroes from revolutionary history, and in particular figures from the eight Yangbanxi – often known in English as the “Model Operas”. These revolutionary dramas, ubiquitous during the period and still hugely popular today, originally included five modern Peking Operas, two ballets – Red Detachment of Women and The White Haired Girl – and one symphonic work, the Shajiabang Symphony. Later the symphony was replaced by other theatrical productions. Women play central roles in all of these.

At the time of the Cultural Revolution, images taken from these popular dramas could be found reproduced on all manner of everyday objects, from thermos flasks to teapots, from biscuit tins to matchboxes. One example of the latter in the Ashmolean collection shows an image of the lead female character from The Legend of the Red Lantern (红灯记 Hongdeng ji) (EA2010.229.1). This drama tells the story of Li Tiemei and her role in the communist underground during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-1945); this conflict, and the civil war that succeeded it, being the most common themes on which these dramas were based.

Matchbox with image of Li Teimei from The Legend of the Red Lantern, Wade Gift, EA2010.229.1 © the artist

Perhaps the best known of the Model Operas is actually a ballet: The Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军Hongse niangzijun). This tells the story of a young woman who escapes servitude on Hainan Island, one of the last stands of the Nationalists in the Civil War before the People’s Republic of China was established. Wu Qinghua defies the local gentry that have enslaved her, and the Nationalists authorities who prop up the corrupt landowners, and joins the “Red Detachment of Women” to overthrow them.

Another example, in which women are represented in their new role as active participants in the military struggle for a socialist society, is on display in the exhibition. This a woven silk picture based on an oil painting by the artist Luo Qi 罗祺 (b.1929) (EA2010.284). The scene depicted shows a group of armed female militia looking up towards the red glow at the mountain top, on which a gun placement can be seen and where the red flag of the People’s Republic of China is flying; the ‘red glow’ of the title alluding to the Chinese Communist Party and to Mao Zedong himself.

Red Glow (1964) after a painting by Luo Qi 罗祺 (b.1929)
Woven silk with applied colour pigments, EA2010.284 © the artist

Luo Qi’s original painting, on which this silk textile is based, was awarded the highest prize when it was displayed in the Fourth National Art Exhibition; the exhibition to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the PRC that took place in 1964. This silk example was woven in black and white and colour was later applied by hand, a speciality of the “Hangzhou Picture Weaving Factory” at which it was made.

Figures from The Red Detachment of Women can be seen in two sets of papercuts in the Ashmolean collection (EA2008.37.b). This story was known to all during the period of the Cultural Revolution and was performed across China, adapted to local theatrical forms using a host of different Chinese dialects. The most famous filmed version of the story is the ballet; so famous was it that it later became an inspiration for the American composer John Adam’s modern opera Nixon in China. The ballet version of the Red Detachment of Women was based on a hugely popular feature film that had been released in 1961 and the ballet was followed by a Peking Opera version.

Wu Qinghua from the ballet Red Detachment of Women
Gittings Gift, EA2008.37.b © the artist

For more on Peking Opera, see the next instalment of this blog.

In another set of paper cuts in the museum’s collection can be found an image of a woman dock worker, calling to mind the Model Opera On the Docks (Haigang 海港) (EA2008.34). This revolutionary drama, written by Xie Jin and originally staged in the 1960s, was filmed in 1972 and starred Li Lifang as Fang Haizhen. It tells the story of a team of dock workers loading a cargo of rice to be shipped to Africa, overseen by the heroine Fang Haizhen, local communist party secretary. A counterrevolutionary attempts to sabotage their mission by substituting glass fibre for the rice, but is discovered by Fang. The plot is foiled and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Papercut – Woman Docker
Gittings Gift, EA2008.34.c © the artist

A poster from the museum’s collection shows stars from the Model Operas, (EA2006.261). The main caption reads: ‘Long Live the Triumph of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line of Literature and Art!’ It will be noticed that four of the ten figures depicted are women, although, Li Tiemei, from the Legend of the Red Lantern and Wu Qinghua are not amongst those shown here. In the front row can be seen Xi’er – the White Haired Girl, lead protagonist in the 1966 ballet, based on a story from the 1940s.  In the middle row, from right to left, can be seen the female leads from other revolutionary operas: Ke Xiang from Azalea Mountain (Dujuan shan) (1973), Jiang Shuiying from Ode to the Dragon River (Longjiang song) (1972), and, on the left, Fang Haizhen from On the Docks.

Poster – Characters from Revolutionary Operas, EA2006.261 © Shanghai People’s Publishing House

Another type of revolutionary woman altogether, can be seen in the 1971 print “There are Heroes Everywhere” Biandi yingxiong 遍地英雄 by the printmaker Zhang Chaoyang 張朝陽 (b.1945) (EA2007.90). This print, the title of which suggests that revolutionary heroes could be found in all walks of life, shows a harvest scene during the Cultural Revolution, at a time when young educated city dwellers had been sent “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside” Shangshan xiaxiang 上山下鄉 to be “re-educated” by the local peasantry. The title of the print is taken from the final line of a poem by Chairman Mao, entitled, Dao Shaoshan 到韶山 (To Shaoshan) (1959) – one of many poems written by Mao Zedong – composed on a visit to his hometown after an absence of 32 years.

Zhang Chaoyang 張朝陽, “There are Heroes Everywhere” Biandi yingxiong 遍地英雄 (1970) EA2007.90  © the artist

In 1976, with the death of Mao, which brought the Cultural Revolution to a close, the educated youth slowly began to return to their hometowns. A scenario closely related to this can be seen in the 1977 print prominently shown in the exhibition “Returning after Graduation” Biye guilai 毕业归来 by Li Xiu李秀 (b.1943), an impressive, large multi-block woodcut print using oil-based inks (EA2007.43).

From just a few clues in the detail of this print it can be deduced that the three young people in the picture have returned to their hometown in southwestern China following their graduation in Beijing (note the copy of Beijing Daily in the pocket of the young man). They had certainly been roughing it on their journey, as the number on the side of the train reveals the information that they had been travelling in a “hard seat” carriage, on a long distance sleeper, with no air conditioning; a journey, from the Chinese capital to Kunming in Yunnan, of almost 2,000 miles.

Li Xiu李秀, “Returning after Graduation” Biye guilai 毕业归来 (1977), multi-block woodcut printed with oil-based inks, EA2007.43  © the artist

The young lady and the man to her left are dressed in the costume of the Yi, a minority people found in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. The other figures in the print are wearing the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army. This conveys an atmosphere of new found hope and freedom, having been made in the year immediately following the end of the Cultural Revolution. Following its appearance, this print quickly became one of the most published in China. It is often regarded as a depiction of the artist’s own experience, Li Xiu herself being a member of the Yi minority. The smiling faces, beaming with unbridled delight, show traces of the distinctive style that was often seen in the art of that period, for example, with the figurine of the girl with a mop and in the faces on the poster depicting the figures from the Model Operas. On another poster in the Ashmolean collection such delighted expressions can be seen again. Here the caption reads: “Long Live the Great People’s Republic of China”

Poster – “Long Live the Great People’s Republic of China”, based on an original painting by Jiao Huanzhi (1928-1982) and Sun Quan (active 1974), EA2006.267 © People’s Fine Arts Publishing House

The Ashmolean Museum is currently offering a travelling exhibition on the theme of the Cultural Revolution to venues round the country. See leaflet here.

Events linked to the “A Century of Women in Chinese Art” exhibition:

16 June 2018 Women in Chinese Art Symposium

11 July 2018 Guided tour of the exhibition with Dr Paul Bevan

Dr Paul Bevan, Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting, Ashmolean Museum

Gallery 29 | Admission Free

The New display Beyond the Brush—Abstract Ink Painting since 1960 in gallery 29 explores abstraction in Chinese art. The paintings, selected from the Ashmolean Collection, combine elements of Chinese and Western art. Ink, acrylic and collage were used to create vibrant images, steering traditional Chinese ink painting towards Abstract Expressionism. The artists include Liu Kuo-sung (b.1932), Chen Ting-shih (1913-2002), Chuang Che (b.1934) and Fong Chung-ray (b.1933), all leading members of the Fifth Moon Group, representing a new wave of modernism that began in the 1960s in Taiwan. Their paintings depart from the Chinese artist’s conventional relationship with the brush, and emphasise the importance of personal expression and individual style in search of a new modernity.

Beyond the Brush: Abstract Ink Paintings since 1960 – Exhibition View

The Modern Art Movement in Taiwan Part I

In the 1960s a group of young artists in Taiwan believed that Chinese painting frozen into formality on the mainland and hidebound by conservatism in Taiwan, was at a standstill, and it was their mission to bring it to life. Abstract Expressionism, which was developed in New York in the 1940s, became a major source of their art creation. The Fifth Moon members met regularly to appreciate and critique one another’s work, including Liu Kuo-sung, Chuang Che, Chen Ting-shih, Hung Hsien, and Hu Chi Chung. They also exhibited their works at art shows held in May. They were not restricted by medium or technique, and used oils, acrylic, collage and Chinese ink to create a new Chinese painting responsive to the challenge of Western modernism. These stylistically diverse paintings illustrate a variety of new ink language in modern Chinese painting. Since 1960, a number of innovations initiated by a group of Taiwan artists have introduced new themes, techniques and ideas to Chinese painting, at the same time they serve to reaffirm the strength and vitality of the tradition itself. Although the Modern Art Movement began in Taiwan, its outlook from the very beginning was international.

Beyond the Brush: Abstract Ink Paintings since 1960 – Exhibition View – On the left: Liu Kuo-sung, Abstract landscape, 1966,  Sullivan Bequest  © the Artist. EA2015.223; On the right: Chuang Che, Abstract, 1967, ink and colour on paper,  59.9 x 46.3 cm,Sullivan Bequest  © the Artist.  EA2015.77.

Liu Kuo-sung is one of founders of the Fifth Moon Group and a leading painter in Taiwan. Born in Bangbu, Anhui province, Liu began learning Chinese painting when he was fourteen years old. He moved to Taiwan with the National Revolutionary Military Orphan School in 1949. He changed his area of study to Western painting after entering university. During 1958 and 1959, he experimented with a number of Chinese and Western styles, feeling the influence of Cézanne, Klee, and Picasso. Since 1960 he has abandoned oil and canvas, and returned to the world of ink and paper. As early as the 1970s, Liu developed his theory about modern ink art, in his own words, “A brush is but dots and thread; ink is but colour and surface; light-ink strokes are but a way of creating texture.” His individual creative technique was marked by bold, sweeping brushstrokes and calligraphically-inspired lines. The two landscape paintings on display show results of Liu’s early experimental ink art. He invented Guosong paper made with coarse fibre to create white lines by stripping off the top layer to expose the rougher surface beneath and pulling out the fibres. He combined paint with collage and the calligraphic brushstroke to create his own vision of the natural world.

Liu Kuo-sung, Blue and black abstract landscape, 1970, ink and colour on paper, 270.7 x 16.6 cm,  Sullivan Bequest © the Artist. EA2015.224

Chuang Che, born in Beijing, was introduced to art by his father when he was little. Chuang’s father was Chuang Shang-Yen (1899-1980), a scholar and calligrapher who worked at the National Palace Museum in Beijing. Chuang Che moved to Taiwan in 1948. After graduated from Taiwan National Normal University in 1958, Chuang taught at Tunghai University. He joined the Fifth Moon Group and actively pushed the modernization of Chinese painting. He introduced lines, shapes and structures of calligraphy into his painting.

Chen Ting-shih, Black and white abstraction, 1968, fibre-board with string print, with oil-based ink, 27 x 19 cm, Sullivan Bequest © Artist Estate. EA2015.421.g

Chen Ting-shih (1913-2002) was born in Fujian, China. Although deaf at a young age, Chen studied Chinese painting at thirteen and taught himself oil painting. He left China for Taiwan in 1948 and has participated in various artistic circles such as the Fifth Moon Group, the Modern Graphic Art Association and the Modern Eyes Group. He was known as a representative of the abstract style. Chen created his signature technique using bagasse plates, the natural cracking of which became his unique artistic style. The painting Abstraction is created by pressing inked fibre-board over loosely coiled string. The entangled and spiralled threads are set afloat against a solid ink background, like sparkling in the dark. This album was circulated among artists of the younger generation whom Professor Michael Sullivan (1916-2013) met during his visit to Hong Kong in 1968. All were painters, except for the sculptors Cheung Yee  (b.1936) and Van Lau (b.1933).

Yan Liu, Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting.