Friendship in Art: Fou Lei and Huang Binhong

Claire Roberts

    Research output: Book/ReportBook

    Abstract

    This book documents in letters, photos, and paintings a special friendship between two highly creative individuals who helped shape Chinese culture in the twentieth century�the revered traditional painter Huang Binhong (1865�1955) and the young, cosmopolitan critic and translator Fu Lei (1908�66). As one of China's oldest and most distinguished artists in the 1940s and 1950s, Huang Binhong was committed to artistic continuity and the reinvigoration of brush-and-ink painting. Fu Lei was a child of the New Culture Movement that repudiated many literati traditions, but reached out to Huang Binhong to discuss the possibilities for contemporary Chinese art amid the tides of war and Communist dictates of socialist realism as the guiding priority for cultural workers. Both were cultural mediators and translators of ideas and cultural expressions. Both had a deep appreciation of the common origins of calligraphy and painting, rendering complex feelings with brush and ink. Their intimate artistic conversations over more than a decade depict their alienation and uncertainty amid China's turbulent cultural politics.
    Original languageEnglish
    Place of PublicationHong Kong
    PublisherHong Kong University Press
    Number of pages232
    Edition1st
    ISBN (Print)9789888028405
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

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