Book by Yi Gu
How did modern Chinese painters see landscape? Did they depict nature in the same way as premoder... more How did modern Chinese painters see landscape? Did they depict nature in the same way as premodern Chinese painters? What does the artistic perception of modern Chinese painters reveal about the relationship between artists and the nation-state? Could an understanding of modern Chinese landscape painting tell us something previously unknown about art, political change, and the epistemological and sensory regime of twentieth-century China?
Yi Gu tackles these questions by focusing on the rise of open-air painting in modern China. Chinese artists almost never painted outdoors until the late 1910s, when the New Culture Movement prompted them to embrace direct observation, linear perspective, and a conception of vision based on Cartesian optics. The new landscape practice brought with it unprecedented emphasis on perception and redefined artistic expertise. Central to the pursuit of open-air painting from the late 1910s right through to the early 1960s was a reinvigorated and ever-growing urgency to see suitably as a Chinese and to see the Chinese homeland correctly. Examining this long-overlooked ocular turn, Gu not only provides an innovative perspective from which to reflect on complicated interactions of the global and local in China, but also calls for rethinking the nature of visual modernity there.
Papers by Yi Gu
Word & Image, 2023
Ever since Jean-François Millet (1814-75) was introduced to China in the 1920s through translatio... more Ever since Jean-François Millet (1814-75) was introduced to China in the 1920s through translations, Chinese artists' fascination with him has resulted more from his life story than from the poor reproductions of his artworks. Millet's focus on the imagery of the peasantry and his purported identification with the peasant made him a unique figure in the rise of a discourse on native soil, which conflates peasants, the land, the Communist revolution, and a distinctive Chineseness in art. This discourse first took form during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45) and continues to thrive in China today. This article examines the growing list of artists-from the well-known masters Gu Yuan (1919-96) and Luo Zhongli (1948-) to lesser-known artists whose professional work was supported by state painting academies and teaching institutions-who have been named the "Chinese Millets." I propose that "Millet" continues to be effective as a trope in the discussion and imagination of art in China today because his life story provides multiple thrusts-the rapport with peasants, the simplicity and nobility of an artist's character, an unflinching insistence on one's own style in opposition to more fashionable trends-in support of a vague conviction of the vitalist force of the native soil. This simultaneously eases Chinese artists' anxiety over their distinction in the international contemporary art world and echoes the civilizational nationalism increasingly promoted by the party state. Foregrounding the persistent phenomenon of likening to Millet in art discourse in China, this study reveals the challenges and dilemmas of an art world that simultaneously strives to rise in the global order and manages to work with an authoritarian state that both promises generous patronage and demands cooperation.
Representations, 2016
This article examines the time-based artworks involving peasants as participants, coworkers, and ... more This article examines the time-based artworks involving peasants as participants, coworkers, and fellow artists that were created by Chinese artists during the first decade of the millennium. These works bring into relief China's postsocialist reality and socialist legacy, offering a unique perspective on the politics of time in global contemporary art.
This paper examines We Love Peace, a poster that became exceedingly popular among Chinese People'... more This paper examines We Love Peace, a poster that became exceedingly popular among Chinese People's Volunteer Force soldiers and essentially the iconic image for the Korean War. The poster was based on a photograph initially published in the People's Daily, and it continued to circulate in various formats, including a pirated version of black-and-white photographs. Focusing on the production and reception of the image, this paper contextualizes the propaganda of the Korean War in the early PRC visual culture. By bringing attention to the active engagement of We Love Peace by the CPVF soldiers, this study attempts to approach the soldiers' affective responses as a window to the complicated relationship between the control of the state and the agency of its subjects.
Ars Orientalis is a peer-reviewed annual volume of scholarly articles on the art and archaeology ... more Ars Orientalis is a peer-reviewed annual volume of scholarly articles on the art and archaeology of Asia, the ancient Near East, and the Islamic world. It is published jointly by the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the University of Michigan Department of History of Art. Fostering a broad range of topics and approaches through themed issues, the journal is intended for scholars in diverse fields. Ars Orientalis provides a forum for new scholarship, with a particular interest in work that redefines and crosses boundaries, both spatial and temporal. Authors are asked to follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition.
Conference Presentations by Yi Gu
The 1911 revolution, well known for overthrowing the imperial dynasty and giving birth to the fir... more The 1911 revolution, well known for overthrowing the imperial dynasty and giving birth to the first republic, is one of the first political events in China to be accompanied by abundant photographic imagery. These photographs and the varied frames of their visibility, when taken together, illuminate entanglements of political upheavals, shifts in moral discourses, and changing understandings of visual representation. This paper examines the complicated relationship between photography and history using a wide variety of sources. Photographs of the revolution were sold as individual prints or albums, circulated as postcards, and published in photo-books and pictorial magazines. More than mere visual documentation, these photographs shaped the public's experience of rather spontaneous, separate, and local revolts into a coherent event. The flood of new imagery engendered by the revolution became a discursive field where pivotal moral issues such as violence and justice were dramatized, contested, and consolidated. Fascinatingly, the anxiety over the validity of the revolution often dovetailed with the renewed concern about visual veracity. Even though what photography captured was often the before, after, or beside the real happenings of the major events of the 1911, it was the revolution that finally consolidated the truth value of the photographic medium. While photographs of the revolution were presented and promoted as the “truth (zhenxiang),” at stake was not only the truth claim of the photographic medium but also specific narratives of the revolution, the two of which were often deliberately conflated. By bringing attention to this long overlooked parallel, this paper hopes to offer a new perspective to the discussion on photography and historic truth.
“Historical Photography in Modern China,” Oxford University (December 2013)
By examining the Chinese reception of landscape art from abroad, this paper attempts to illuminat... more By examining the Chinese reception of landscape art from abroad, this paper attempts to illuminate the entangled concerns of socialist ideal, national sovereignty and artistic lineage that shaped the canon formation in Socialist China. The 1950s and early 1960s witnessed active diplomatic and cultural exchanges between China and other socialist countries, of which art exhibitions, artists’ visits and art publications constituted an important part. Similar cultural exchanges occasionally extended to countries beyond the Eastern Bloc. This paper focuses on the once popular but now forgotten landscape painting exhibitions—ranging from a solo show of Vangjush Mio (1891-1959) to a large survey on British watercolor. The way by which these exhibitions were presented reveals nuances of China’s difficult pursuit of a socialist yet distinctively national style of landscape painting. The multilayered responses from Chinese artists, government officials, and general audience will be gleaned from news coverage, academic debates, visitors’ responses, and classified government documents. The Chinese reception of international landscape art reminds us that, prior to Cultural Revolution, the socialist China defined its officially endorsed styles and formed its canon of both Chinese and world art by considering, comparing, and evaluating a variety of foreign sources. By unearthing the lost legacy of influences such as Turner, the Barbizon School, and Impressionism, this paper calls attention to the international dimension of Chinese Socialist art and traces its continuity from the earlier attempts during the Republican era to define a national modern art with extended reference to world art.
Annual conference of the College Art Association, 2014
Drafts by Yi Gu
Uploads
Book by Yi Gu
Yi Gu tackles these questions by focusing on the rise of open-air painting in modern China. Chinese artists almost never painted outdoors until the late 1910s, when the New Culture Movement prompted them to embrace direct observation, linear perspective, and a conception of vision based on Cartesian optics. The new landscape practice brought with it unprecedented emphasis on perception and redefined artistic expertise. Central to the pursuit of open-air painting from the late 1910s right through to the early 1960s was a reinvigorated and ever-growing urgency to see suitably as a Chinese and to see the Chinese homeland correctly. Examining this long-overlooked ocular turn, Gu not only provides an innovative perspective from which to reflect on complicated interactions of the global and local in China, but also calls for rethinking the nature of visual modernity there.
Papers by Yi Gu
Conference Presentations by Yi Gu
“Historical Photography in Modern China,” Oxford University (December 2013)
Annual conference of the College Art Association, 2014
Drafts by Yi Gu
Yi Gu tackles these questions by focusing on the rise of open-air painting in modern China. Chinese artists almost never painted outdoors until the late 1910s, when the New Culture Movement prompted them to embrace direct observation, linear perspective, and a conception of vision based on Cartesian optics. The new landscape practice brought with it unprecedented emphasis on perception and redefined artistic expertise. Central to the pursuit of open-air painting from the late 1910s right through to the early 1960s was a reinvigorated and ever-growing urgency to see suitably as a Chinese and to see the Chinese homeland correctly. Examining this long-overlooked ocular turn, Gu not only provides an innovative perspective from which to reflect on complicated interactions of the global and local in China, but also calls for rethinking the nature of visual modernity there.
“Historical Photography in Modern China,” Oxford University (December 2013)
Annual conference of the College Art Association, 2014