Past as future: The discourse of Chuantong in twentiethcentury China1

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the approaches of Chinese intellectuals and artists to tradition throughout the twentieth century. Tradition in China is understood, on the one hand, as a notion born in a framework constructed by twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals and their realm of senses and concept of time, on the other hand as a notion driven by modernity and capitalism to anchor a work of art to a distinguishable point of time. Hence, the article will first review a series of debates on old and new culture that have taken place since the May Fourth Movement. It will then move on to discuss how contemporary artists made peace with tradition since the '85 New Wave, a new era when artists are also subject to market forces of supply and demand.