Influence on contemporary Chinese printmaking

• Main Author: Zhou, Tongyu
• Published: Manchester Metropolitan University 2006
• Subjects: 769.951
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.427117

The aims of this thesis are to identify the influences on contemporary Chinese Printmaking (1990 - 2002) from China's tradition and the influences from contact with the West. This thesis begins with a history of Chinese printmaking which is based on material collected from published literature and museums. This history started with the Tang dynasty (618AD-907AD), and goes up to the various economic, cultural, political and military influences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is shown that printmaking has been particularly affected by these wider social changes. The main empirical study focused on the nature and direction of recent changes in printmaking, notably in style, artistic development and economic purpose. It was conducted through video-taped interviews, with artists, and owners of studios and galleries in China. Those interviews were structured around questionnaires which asked about the purpose, forms and markets in printmaking practices and operations. The data were analysed by identifying the main themes in the transcripts, and written up as case studies. These are in three sections: artists, studios and institutes, and galleries. Finally this contemporary research was linked back to issues which emerged during the initial historical review. The major conclusions are: 1. Contemporary Chinese Printmaking bears mixed influence. The major influences come from western contemporary culture and there are also degrees of influence from Chinese revolutionary and traditional cultures. 2. Contemporary Chinese printmaking is in a process of transformation. The model examined in this thesis is in the process of change to a contemporary model which can interact with the market economic system, but how close it will get to the western contemporary model is still not clear. 3. Contemporary Chinese Printmaking is developing in a context of cultural change which features the confrontation between the market economy system, the remains of a planned economic system, and some resurgence of traditional culture. The author concludes with the hope that the continuing influence of traditional and revolutionary culture in this modernising society may lead to a new era of printmaking which will integrate and balance uniquely Chinese elements with modern Western approaches