ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: LEARNING NEW PAINTING FROM JAPAN AND MAINTAINING NATIONAL PRIDE IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY CHINA, WITH FOCUS ON CHEN SHIZENG (1876–1923) Kuo-Sheng Lai, Doctor of Philosophy, 2006 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jason C. Kuo Department of Art History and Archaeology In the early twentieth century, many Chinese painters went to Japan to study. This dissertation argues that, despite learning from Japan, these artists sought to create a better future for Chinese painting. They did not desire to create a single kind of “Eastern painting” with their Japanese counterparts. The Chinese had long claimed a kind of cultural superiority, called Sino-centrism, which did not diminish in the early twentieth century. The Japanese, however, developed a kind of thinking termed pan-Asianism, in which Asia was considered a unity, and Japan, its leader. Because of this difference, the similarities between Chinese art and Japanese art in the early twentieth century cannot be interpreted as the emergence of an “Asian art” because the Chinese did not endorse Japanese pan-Asianism. Li Shutong was one of the first Chinese painters to visit Japan to learn Western-style painting. Gao Jianfu, founder of the Lingnan School, went to Japan to learn painting and returned with the style known as Nihonga, a synthesis of traditional Japanese painting and Western-style painting. Chen Shizeng was a traditional painter of the scholar class. He also went to Japan to study. But he studied natural history, not painting. Chen Shizeng was most active during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s, when radicals wanted to abandon traditional Chinese culture. They called for a total adoption of Western culture. Although Chen Shizeng was open-minded to Western culture, he chose to defend traditional Chinese literati painting. His translation of Japanese scholar Amura Seigai’s essay The Revival of Literati Painting was part of this defense. Chen Shizeng was strongly influenced by his teacher Wu Changshuo (1844–1927). He was inspired also by other great Chinese painters of the past, and he adapted some Western methods that he learned in Japan. However, the Japanese influence in his painting should not be interpreted as his attempt to create an “Eastern art” in collaboration with Japanese painters. LEARNING NEW PAINTING FROM JAPAN AND MAINTAINING NATIONAL PRIDE IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY CHINA, WITH FOCUS ON CHEN SHIZENG (1876–1923) by Kuo-Sheng Lai Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2006 Advisory Committee: Professor Jason C. Kuo, Chair Professor Marilyn Gleysteen Professor Eleanor Kerkham Professor Sally Promey Professor Marie Spiro Copyright by Kuo-Sheng Lai 2006 ii Disclaimer This dissertation document that follows has had referenced material removed in respect for the owner's copyright. A complete version of this document, which includes said referenced material, resides in the University of Maryland, College Park's library collection. iii To my parents: Mr. Lai Der-Liang and Ms. Yen Li-Hua iv Acknowledgements I must express my gratitude to many people who helped me while I wrote this dissertation. Without their kind help, this dissertation could not be completed. First, I thank my advisor Dr. Jason Kuo for his guidance and for kindly providing important materisls for my research. I greatly appreciate Dr. Marilyn Wong-Gleysteen’s advice. She patiently read different versions of my manuscript and provided very helpful suggestions. I thank Dr. Sandy Kita for opening my eyes to the field of Japanese art. His enthusiasm in helping students is hard to forget. I thank Dr. Sally Promey for thoroughly reading my dissertation and making very detailed suggestions. I am also indebted to her for all kinds of help during my studies at the University of Maryland. I thank Dr. Marie Spiro for being on my committee, reading my dissertation, and providing very useful suggestions. I thank Dr. Eleanor Kerkham for reading my dissertation and providing suggestions on my translations from Japanese sources. I thank my parents for their endless support. Not many parents have the patience to see their children in school for such a long time. I thank Dr. Jane Jing-Hua Ju at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan for leading me to the field of art history. She was my first art history professor and she greatly inspired me. I thank Dr. Hui-shu Lee for her guidance in 2002, when I took her class at the University of California, Los Angeles. I thank Mr. Suzuki Hiroyuki of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, for helping me obtain important research materials during my trip to Japan in 2000. I thank Ms. Lu Hsuan-Fei for exchanging research materials on Chen Shizeng. Our scholarly discussions helped form my ideas for this dissertation. I thank Dr. Su-Hsing Lin for providing research materials and her support. I thank Ms. Chen Yin-Ju v for sending me an important article when she was studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I thank all the teachers who taught me when I studied Japanese at the Languange Training and Testing Center at the National Taiwan University. Without them, I would not have been able to use Japanese materials for my research. I am especially indebted to Ms. Takahashi Keiko for helping me resolve problems I encountered in my Japanese research materials. I thank my editor Joel Kalvesmaki for his professionism and perfectionism in copy-editing and proofreading my dissertation. His work was a great help in completing this dissertation. I thank my colleague Ms. Euni Sung for her support during my internship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art between 2001 and 2002. I thank my colleagues Ms. Seojeong Shin and Ms. Tang Li for their outstanding support during my studies at the University of Maryland. I thank Ms. Han-Yun Chang at the University of California, Santa Barbara for supporting and exchanging ideas with me. Several colleages and friends helped me with my English, including Ms. Emily Grey, Ms. Valerie Ortiz, Ms. Margaret Morse, and Ms. Rebecca McGinnis. Finally, I must express my special appreciation for my beloved friend Ms. Wang Yi-Hsuan for giving me encouragement, comfort, and help. Not only is she my closest companion but she helped me obtain important research materials in Taiwan while I was away in the United States. vi Table of Contents List of Figures .......................................................................................................... vii I. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 II. Different Worldviews of the Chinese and the Japanese 1. The Chinese Self-Knowledge and Worldview ............................................. 8 2. The Japanese Self-Knowledge and Worldview ........................................... 20 III. Studying Abroad in Japan 1. China’s Importation of Western Painting from Japan .................................. 32 2. The Lingnan School’s Adoption of Japanese Nihonga Painting .................. 47 3. Chen Shizeng and His Japanese Experience ................................................ 64 IV. Chen Shizeng’s Defense of Chinese Literati Painting and Japan 1. The May Fourth Movement and Chen Shizeng ........................................... 74 2. Chen Shizeng’s Defense of Chinese Literati Painting ................................. 89 3. Chen Shizeng and Amura Seigai ................................................................. 110 V. Chen Shizeng’s Painting and Japan 1. Wu Changshuo’s Painting and Japan ........................................................... 125 2. Chen Shizeng’s Traditional Literati Painting and Wu Changshuo .............. 136 3. Chen Shizeng’s Manhua and Japan ............................................................. 144 VI. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 156 Figures....................................................................................................................... 161 Bibliography.............................................................................................................. 213 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Kokumin Shimbun, October 4, 1906. Figure 2. Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), Le Sommeil, 1873, oil on canvas, 119 × 209 cm, Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts. From Bridgestone Museum of Art, Nihon kindai yga no kyosh to Furansu, 18. Figure 3. Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), On the Sea Coast. From Bancroft, Book of the Fair, 704. Figure 4. Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), Floreal, 1886, oil on canvas, 110.5 × 191.0 cm, Arras, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Palais Saint-Vaast. From Bridgestone Museum of Art, Nihon kindai yga no kyosh to Furansu, 19. Figure 5. Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), Morning, 1884, Philadelphia Museum of Art. From museum print. Figure 6. Susan Watkins (1875–1913), Lady in Yellow, 1902, oil on canvas, 44.5 × 35.5 in. (113.0 × 90.1 cm), Chrysler Museum of Art. From Cruger, American Art at the Chrysler Museum, 132. 堚ᔕ, Fujinzu ഡԳ㤾 (Portrait of a lady), 1891–92, oil onضFigure 7. Kuroda Seiki 㹃 canvas, 179.8 × 114.5 cm, The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. From ChMN KNronsha, Kuroda Seiki, plate 11. ,堚ᔕ, Dokusho 儧஼ (Reading), 1890–91, oil on canvasضFigure 8. Kuroda Seiki 㹃 98.2 × 78.8 cm, Tokyo National Museum. From