春雨直播app

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) interpreted his theory of abstract art in book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (U?ber das Geistige in der Kunst, 1912). He addressed the importance of “the spiritual” or “inner feeling” in abstract painting, which is opposite to the theory of imitative painting in the West. We could observe many studies of the reception of Kandinsky’s abstract art and the theory of abstraction in Europe. However, what are the situations of the reception of Kandinsky outside of the EU, such as in America and East Asia? This is what the book explores.
 
This book focuses on Western and Oriental comparison between Kandinsky’s theory of abstract art and Chinese classical painting theory, particularly Xie He’s (479-?) concept of “living movement (气韵生动，Chinese pronunciation: Qi Yun Sheng Dong; Japanese pronunciation: KI IN SEI DO).” Specifically, this book traces the genealogy of Kandinsky’s reception from Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920) to SONO Raizo (園頼三，1891-1973), and then to FENG Zikai’s (丰子恺，1898-1975).
 
In America, Eddy collected Kandinsky’s works of art from nearly all his periods, quickly introduced Kandinsky’s abstract art into America, and compared Kandinsky’s theory of abstract art with Oriental concept of “living movement” in his book Cubists and Post-Impressionism (1914). In Japan, Sono translated parts of Kandinsky’s book Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1915, published research papers “On Kandinsky (1-16)” (1917-1918), and published book The Psychology of Art Creativity (1922), in which Sono accepted Eddy’s comparison between East and West and compared Kandinsky’s “the spiritual” with Oriental concept of “living movement.” Further, based on Sono’s comparison, Chinese scholar Feng started his own comparative studies between East and West. In Feng’s essay “The Victory of Chinese Art in Modern Art” (1930), he compared Kandinsky’s theory of abstraction with “living movement” in Chinese calligraphy.
 
In this genealogy of the reception of Kandinsky, this book explores the issues such as how “the spiritual” in Kandinsky’s abstract art relates to the concept of “living movement” in traditional Chinese literati painting, how Feng modernized the traditional concept of “living movement,” and how Feng re-explained Chinese literati painting and calligraphy using the modern concept of “living movement.”
 
This book reveals the birth of modern Chinese aesthetics in the process of modernizing traditional Chinese culture. On this basis, this book explores the “Oriental consciousness” that emerged when the East met the West in the 1920s and 1930s in China.
 

(Written by: LIU Jia / July 03, 2024)

Related Info

Award:
The 4th 春雨直播app Jiritsu Award for Early Career Academics  (春雨直播app  2023)
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Honorable mention of Hallam Chow’s Central Academy of Fine Arts Young Critics Award  (Central Academy of Fine Arts  2008)