Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting, by Yi Gu

Abstract

Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting is a tremendous undertaking, not only as a much-needed scholarly study on a key concept and practice in modern Chinese art but also as a timely contribution to the ongoing reckoning and rethinking of global modern art and multiple modernisms. As the refreshingly unadorned title indicates, the book is a critical account of the history of open-air painting in China and its role in the construction of “Chinese ways of seeing.” What is “open-air painting” in China? How did this understudied genre, not usually associated with traditional Chinese image making, give shape to “Chinese ways of seeing”? And what are “Chinese ways of seeing”? In addressing these questions, Yi Gu carefully traces the history of “open-air painting” in China from its promotion in the early years of the twentieth century to its continuous propagation and practice in the ensuing eras under different political circumstances, from the Second Sino-Japanese War, known as the war against Japanese invasion in China (1937–45), to the decades under the Maoist regime (1949–76). Gu also clearly centers this study on openair painting’s dynamic and transformative intervention in the discourses and practice of guohua, brush-and-ink painting, in modern China. She argues that open-air painting should be treated not merely as a type or a method of representation but as a paradigm change for Chinese visual culture. Chinese Ways of Seeing is also lucidly written, enriched by deep historical research and insightful case studies. It is surely an essential reference for scholars working on the history of modern Chinese art and visual culture, and will also be very helpful for those interested in modern art more globally, as it illuminates how ideas traveled across and between visual cultures in the modern era, the generative contact zones and creative negotiations that emerged where “traditions” and “alien” ideas met. Open-air painting was certainly an alien idea for Chinese painters, especially those educated in traditional guohua methods, when it was introduced and promoted by modern reformers in the early twentieth century. Gu provides a brief explanation of the nomenclature, which in itself involved a complex and multidirectional practice of translation. Open air, or plein air, was introduced as a foundational principle of Western art history, but its association with Impressionism was not of great concern to contemporary Chinese artists and art educators. Nevertheless, some of the term’s associated values, such as spontaneity and individual genius, were well received. The Chinese phrases chosen as translations of “open-air painting,” including shiwai xiesheng and yewai xiesheng (both literally mean “sketching from life outdoors”), or fengjing xiesheng (landscape sketching from life), all highlighted the location of the act of painting outdoors or in nature. But eventually these variations became consolidated in the abbreviated form xiesheng, which Gu, bearing the task of writing this study in English, translates back to English as “sketching from life.” The outdoor or open-air part of the phrase was dropped, even though its connotations did not entirely vanish. Meanwhile, xiesheng, interestingly, was also a known term in premodern Chinese art, having referred to bird-and-flower painting since the eleventh century, and sheng (life) in this premodern connotation referred to living organisms in the natural world, differentiated from landscape. Why was this Chinese phrase xiesheng adopted as the terminology of choice to translate open-air painting that mostly referred to landscape? The answer can be found in yet another layer of translation: this term underwent a transformation in Meiji Japan (1868–1912), when Japanese artists chose it as the kanji phrase to translate the terms “sketching” and “drawing” from Western languages. In turn, the Japanesemodernized phrase shasei (xiesheng in Chinese pronunciation) was ushered into China at the turn of the twentieth century, no longer referring to the bird-and-flower genre, but as the foundation of Western-style painting. The translingual journey of xiesheng (sketching from life) foreshadowed the complex trajectory of its perception and adoption in China, which involved negotiations and refigurations by multiple agents. The transnational and diachronic nature of the term revealed modern Chinese artists’ ambition to participate in “the global modern” at a time when emulation of the Wen-Hsin Yeh (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1998), 1–22.