Modern Art for a Modern China

The Chinese Intellectual Debate, 1900–1930

Yiyan Wang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367312718
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000207927
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Modern Art

How did art reform fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period?

"Modern art for a modern China" was the rallying cry of Chinese intellectuals, many of whom were artists, critics, writers, poets and educators. Wang describes how these groups discussed and implanted changes in China's conception and practice of art. She demonstrates how art reforms fit into the many initiatives for social and cultural change that contributed to the New Cultural Movement that transformed the Chinese cultural landscape during the Republican period. In doing so, she analyses two key areas in the intellectual history of Republican China: China's art reform in the early decades of the twentieth century; and the connection and intersection between colonialism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, including their direct impact on the development of art and art practice in China.

Modern Art for a Modern China is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of China's twentieth-century intellectual history and art history.

1 Cai Yuanpei

His vision for art reform in China

The start of the twentieth century was not auspicious for China. A series of military defeats by European powers and the Japanese in the nineteenth century led to lingering feelings of humiliation, anger, frustration and sorrow. The words “national crisis” were constantly on the lips of both the ruling class and the intelligentsia. In particular, the Japanese victory in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) shook the Chinese to the core, as they had never imagined such a defeat by their small neighbour possible. However, the rise of Japan brought a message home to the Chinese: modernise or perish. In the dying days of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the court had already begun to initiate change, at least technologically, educationally and linguistically, if not politically. In 1905, the Qing court established a new ministry, the Ministry of Education (Xuebu 學部). The civil examination was abolished the same year, and soon afterwards the Qing government started sending students overseas to study in Japan, Europe and North America, many other students funding their own overseas study by one means or another.

By the time the Qing government fell in 1911, many of those students had returned to China, having been exposed to Western knowledge and with the valuable experience of both learning foreign languages and learning in foreign languages. Some had earned university degrees and other qualifications. These returning students would become the first generation of the “bilingual intelligentsia”, individuals that Benedict Anderson has identified as crucial to many Asian countries’ nation-building in the twentieth century.¹ Indeed it was those bilingual intellectuals who would play a major role in China’s route to modern nationhood. Even so, scholarship on modern Chinese history has not given sufficient consideration to the implications of the bilingual or multilingual capabilities of these intellectuals, or their cultural affiliations with the countries where they studied or received training.

Many scholars have established that the modern Chinese intellectual emerged as the Qing empire was collapsing. In a recent monograph Timothy Cheek highlights the differences and connections between the English word “intellectual” and the Chinese zhishifenzi 知識份子, pointing out that zhishifenzi comes from the Russian “intelligentsia” and noting that the Chinese intellectual has a sense of mission in civilian governance.² Yu Yingshi has also considered the numerous similarities and differences between the Chinese scholar-official and the public intellectual in modern Western societies.³ According to Yu, the scholar-official emerged early in Chinese society and has had a continued presence and important political functions. Compared to their counterparts in modern Western democracies, Chinese intellectuals had an additional sense of social responsibility since they inherited the tradition of speaking out to the powerful as society’s conscience. With the emergence of a plural public sphere and modern social structure in the early decades of the twentieth century, the educated elite morphed into intellectuals. Cheek specifically makes the case that it was print media brought to China by the colonial powers that created a public sphere that enabled debate among intellectuals.⁴ Given their sense of social obligation, the educated elite tended to speak out for the public good on social issues. I hasten to add the further point that at the beginning of the twentieth century the educated elite in China were not only verbally eloquent; they were also visually literate, both interested in and having the capacity for producing and appreciating visual art.

Such was the paradoxical beginning of China’s modernisation. On the one hand, the nation’s very existence was threatened by colonial powers. On the other hand, there was an intense desire to modernise and reform following the examples of Europeans and the Japanese. By the time the Republic of China was established in 1912, elite thinkers had realised that national salvation could not be achieved through direct resistance to the colonial powers; their predecessors had tried this and had failed miserably. Most significantly, many started questioning Chinese cultural traditions, a discussion that soon led to harsh criticism of both traditional and current politics. The May Fourth Cultural Movement in the late 1910s saw nationalism and anti-imperial sentiment rise to new heights, along with deepening self-doubt about China’s own history and cultural heritage.

Radical, harsh criticism of Confucianism notwithstanding, the new bilingual intelligentsia identified a preferred path for a strong China: social and cultural transformation through education to produce new citizens and learning from the West. Cheek identifies Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) as the leading and most influential intellectual figure in this period, summarising Liang’s approach to national salvation under three key words: people – educating the new citizen; Chinese – finding the new national identity; and democracy – discovering the function of constitutions and business associations.⁵ Indeed, Liang’s analysis of China’s national crisis and his proposed approach to rejuvenating the nation was shared by many, if not most, elite thinkers.

Cai Yuanpei’s vision for art

Many intellectuals agreed that national salvation could be achieved only through the education of new citizens, and this was primarily the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940), the first Minister of Education of the Republic of China, was in Germany when the Qing Manchu court fell.⁶ At the request of President Sun Yat-sen 孫中山 / 孫逸仙, he immediately returned to China to take up this new position. The Ministry of Education was a major ministry in the early years of the Republic, responsible for a wide range of state- and nation-building tasks and under Cai Yuanpei’s leadership the Ministry undertook the task of educating new citizens, leading many initiatives for China’s social and cultural transformation. Reforms in art were one of them.

Cai Yuanpei was the primary reason that art became a state priority. He represented that generation of intellectuals able to make the intellectual and practical connection between European practices and Chinese traditions. When Benedict Anderson talks about the bilingual intelligentsia of the new nation states in Asia, he offers insight into how these intellectuals with a European education controlled the modernisation agenda.⁷ Cai Yuanpei was precisely the kind of bilingual – or, rather, multilingual – intellectual Anderson had in mind. He was a degree holder under the imperial civil service examination system and an official in the Qing government. At the age of 42, he chose to go to Germany to study and explore European social systems. Cai travelled widely in Europe during the eight years he spent in Germany but devoted most of his time to studying philosophy and anthropology at the University of Leipzig. He was strongly influenced by Immanuel Kant’s ideas on the Enlightenment and on aesthetic education. In his travels he paid special attention to cultural expression and believed that social progress in Europe after the Enlightenment was reflected in the reduction of religiosity among the general population. Well educated in Confucian classics, with a profound understanding of Chinese social and cultural traditions, Cai Yuanpei’s research and study in Europe gave him a global perspective on China’s need for change.

Most significantly, these German influences led Cai Yuanpei to make the connection between developing individual citizens’ capacity for aesthetic appreciation and their sense of social morality. As a result, he developed his theory of aesthetic education for producing citizens in a modern China. Sharing Liang Qichao’s view about the essential importance of a new citizenry for a modern nation, Cai envisaged a new knowledge structure for the generations to come, and, related to that goal, for the role the Ministry of Education should play in driving social and cultural change in China. As soon as he took up the position of Minister of Education in February 1912 he articulated five principles in an inaugural policy document. These were universal military education, utilitarian education, moral education, education for a world view, and aesthetic education (jun guomin jiaoyu, shili zhuyi, gongmindaode, shijieguan, meiyu 軍國民教育、實利主義、公民道德、世界觀、美育).⁸ In this document he explained in detail the meaning and implications of each of these principles, effectively laying out his educational philosophy and vision for the systemic change he was to bring to educational institutions. Cai’s five principles were implemented immediately, replacing what had been imposed by the Qing administration: loyalty to the emperor, respect for Confucius, diligence in service to the public, excellence in martial practice and dedication to achieving practical results (zhongjun, zunKong, shanggong, shangwu, shangshi 忠君、尊孔、尚公、尚武、尚實). Cai Yuanpei proposed a balanced approach to education, based on the whole-person educational theories promoted by German philosophers.⁹ He stressed that the five principles were an integrated whole and all of them should be incorporated into the teaching curricula. He considered the first three – universal military education, utilitarian education and moral education – belonged in the arena of political ethics, whereas the last two – education for developing a global view and aesthetic education – were education in general.

Cai Yuanpei was the first person in state administration in China to prioritise aesthetic education. Throughout his entire career as the nation’s top official in charge of educational, social and cultural affairs he led the way in facilitating social and cultural change through aesthetic education. He made consistent and serious attempts to introduce aesthetics to the general public as he continued to develop his ideas on aesthetic education and discuss his ideas in public. When, in 1912, he first raised the notion of aesthetic education, he acknowledged its origins in Kant as well as other German thinkers. He highlighted the capacity of aesthetic education to transform individuals, since through the ability to appreciate beauty it enabled them to transcend the quotidian. In 1916 he attempted to publish a series of booklets introducing European aesthetics to a Chinese audience but due to various constraints was able to write and publish only one essay, “Kantian Aesthetics” (Kang De meixue 康德美學). The first part of the essay was an introduction to the basic philosophical issue Kantian aesthetics attempted to explain, namely, the subjective nature of beauty. The second part dealt with possible aspects of human experiences that might contribute to either the experience or perception of beauty. Clearly, Cai Yuanpei was making an effort to bring an understanding of aesthetics to the general population.

In 1917, in a speech entitled “On Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education” (Yi meiyu dai zongjiao 以美育代宗教), Cai Yuanpei further articulated the notion of aesthetic education, aligning its social function with religion. For him, all religious belief derived from the spiritual needs of human beings, whether out of apprehension or admiration for nature or natural phenomena, and these needs would always be there. What underpinned the practice of religion was the use of art, from music to visual images, to stimulate feelings of the sublime to transcend daily life. As civilisations advanced, with scientific knowledge answering many questions that had puzzled humans, it was natural that many of the functions of religious practice would lapse. However, the spiritual needs of humans, in which art would and should play a role, would remain. It was in the sense of lifting the human spirit that aesthetic education could and should replace religion.

Cai Yuanpei was preoccupied with the idea of aesthetic education and frequently revisited the topic. Over the years he continued to refine his position and develop his theory. In 1932 he reiterated his proposal of replacing religion with aesthetic education. This time he stressed the point that promoting aesthetic education was not the same as promoting art, because the former was much broader. Art by itself should not have the social responsibility of moral education; aesthetic education, however, should. The purpose of aesthetic education was to teach people where and how to find beauty and comfort, and to provide the means for people to transcend the daily hardships of life. He believed he was making the connection between art and social transformation similarly to how Immanuel Kant had argued for the ability of art to assist people develop social morality. In other words, Cai Yuanpei did not see the transformation of art as being purely for the development of art. He saw it as a way to institutionalise the best art practice to ensure a positive outcome for aesthetic education. For him, education was the key to nation-building and aesthetic education was an essential part in the whole process of transforming China into a modern nation. He never adopted a utilitarian view of art, however, and he supported all kinds of approaches and styles. He saw his role as creating an environment conducive to art thriving in China.

The Ministry of Education’s art reforms project

The word jiaoyu 教育 (education) had a far wider meaning and social significance around the turn of the century than it previously had and has had since. In antiquity, jiao and yu were used separately, jiao meaning “to teach” and yu meaning “to bring up one’s children and ensure they are good and kind”. In the late nineteenth century, jiaoyu as a loanword from Japanese returned “home” with a transformed meaning.¹⁰ It referred to the process of giving or receiving systematic instruction at schools or universities, but very soon this was extended to cover cultural and social engagements as well as literacy, school curricula and teacher training. Many newspapers, for instance, had a regular education news (jiaoyu xinwen 教育新聞) column in which they published news and opinion pieces about art, culture and literature as well as school and university issues. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the meaning of jiaoyu has gradually become narrower, referring primarily to school education. Nowadays it mo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• Preface
• 1 Cai Yuanpei: His vision for art reform in China
• 2 The other Lu Xun: Graphic designer, book collector and art reformer
• 3 Xu Zhimo: Public intellectual and art reformer
• 4 Art Exhibition, art reforms and the debates
• 5 Chinese art students in Lyon: Individuals and institutions
• 6 Afterword: Questioning the agency of the semi-colonised
• List of terms
• Index