Transforming Traditions in Modern Chinese Painting: Huang Pin-Hung’s Late Work

Modern Chinese painting embodies the constant renewal and reinvigorations of Chinese civilization amidst rebellions, reforms, and revolutions, even if the process may appear confusing and bewildering. It also demonstrates the persistence of tradition and limits of continuities and changes in modern Chinese cluture. Most significantly, it compels us to ask several important questions in the study of modern Chinese culture: How extensively can cultural tradition be re-interpreted before it is subverted? At what point is creative re-invention an act of betrayal of tradition? How has selective borrowing from Chinese tradition and foreign cultrue enabled modern Chinese artists to sustain themselves in the modern world? By focusing on the art of Huang Pin-hung (1865-1955), particularly his late work, this book attempts to provide some answers to these questions.

The Author: Jason C. Kuo teaches Chinese art at the University of Marlyland. He has held appointments at the National Taiwan University, Willliams College, and Yale University. Among his publications are The Austere Landscape: The Paintings of Hung-jen; Chen Chikwan; Word as Image: The Art of Chinese Seal Engraving; and Art and Cultural Politics in Postwar Taiwan.