Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng (Jackson School Publications in International Studies) [Hardcover]

Jerome Silbergeld (Author), Jisui Gong (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1993 | Series: Jackson School Publications in International Studies

Li Huasheng (b. 1944) represents the first generation of artists raised and trained in the People's Republic of China. His career spans the painting of Maoist propaganda in the 1960s, a decade of secretly studying forbidden traditional styles during the Cultural Revolution, an overnight rise from poverty to prominence during the artistic rejuvenation of Sichuan province under Deng Xiaoping, a hellish descent into political disgrace during the anti-Western campaign of 1983-1984, and a boldly pursued political rehabilitation to become Sichuan's foremost younger artist today. All along, Li has been driven by a fearless flair for drama that is expressed not only in his remarkable paintings of the Sichuan landscape but in a lifelong passion for Sichuan-style theater. Li's career has been allied with that of his foremost mentor, Chen Zizhuang (1913-1976). Chen, a personal bodyguard and cultural adviser to Sichuan's last warlord governor, was ostracized by the Communist arts administration after 1949 and died in obscurity, but posthumously became a centerpiece of the revival of traditional arts in Sichuan under the influence of Deng Xiaoping. Since the advent of socialism in China, no mainland Chinese artist has dared expose his life in detail. As a result, little is known outside China of how artistic life is lived or of the system that regulates it. In exploring the lives of Li Huasheng and Chen Zizhuang, Contradictions reveals for the first time both the details and the character of artistic life in socialist China. Particular attention is given to the various forms of patronage that shaped these artists' options: state patronage, a monopoly that has been regulated by associations,academies, exhibition halls, and publication houses in conformity with Communist party ideology; commercial patronage, in which painting serves as a form of currency in the exchange of private services and personal favors; protective patronage, provided by the political elite in exchange

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chinese painter Li Huasheng's dramatic, pure landscapes and realistic depictions of dingy towns are far removed from hydroelectrified socialist realism. Infusing a new subjectivity into the traditional "literati" style of Chinese painting, which is steeped in Confucianiam, Li (b. 1944) was vilified during the Cultural Revolution. Trumpeted as a rising "youth artist" of his native Sichuan province in the early 1980s, he was condemned in the anti-Western campaign of 1983-1984 but had his laurels restored in the late '80s. Now a salaried, state-sanctioned painter, this outspoken, chain-smoking, opera-loving individualist views success as a pitfall that could obstruct his artistic progress. In a profusely illustrated biographical study, Silbergeld, an art historian at the University of Washington, and doctoral candidate Gong Jisui provide a rare peek inside China's fiercely politicized art world.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr; First edition (January 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029597155X
• ISBN-13: 978-0295971551
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 9.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,427,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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