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Abstracts
War in Black and White: Chinese Prints During the War
of Resistance to Japan
Julia F. Andrews, Ohio State University
andrews.2@osu.edu
The woodblock print, often called by the Japanese term "creative
woodcut," began its twentieth century renaissance in China
as an art of modernist experimentation, with varied styles and
subjects. Political subject matter, although frequent, was only
one theme among many competing areas of concern for the young
artists. Modernist angst, formalist experimentation, technical
experiments with color and light, lyrical landscapes and domestic
scenes, and creative ideas of all sorts filled the exhibitions
and publications of the fledgling print movement. How, then, in
the time between its inception in 1931 and the establishment of
the People's Republic of China in 1949, was the woodblock transformed
into the genre by which it is best commemorated today, the art
of the revolution? This paper will explore woodblock prints produced
during the eight-year war with Japan, and examine both how artists
transformed that experience into visual imagery, and how their
commitment to convey that experience to a large public audience
permanently changed the practice of woodblock printmaking in China.
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