The 18th Annual Papp Family Seminar on Chinese Paintings

Join Dr. Kuiyi Shen, Professor of Art History, Theory & Criticism at the University of California, San Diego, as he presents “Literati Painting, Bunjinga, and Sino-Japanese Exchanges in the Early Twentieth Century,” followed by a viewing and discussion of Chinese paintings from the Phoenix Art Museum Collection. Joining the discussion with Professor Shen will be Julia F. Andrews, Distinguished University Professor Emerita and Academy Professor at Ohio State University, who was last year’s visiting scholar for the Papp Chinese Painting Seminar.
Chinese literati painting had strong impacts on Japanese art as early as the Southern Song period with Zen painting and landscape styles. Although the Meiji era (1868-1912) was a key period in which Japanese artists re-adjusted their understanding of Chinese literati painting traditions, there still was a gap between Chinese and Japanese tastes and evaluation of painting styles. But by the end of the Meiji and beginning of the Taisho period (1912-1926), the two sides seemed to gradually find common ground. At the end of the 1920s and early 1930s, however, Chinese painting turned in a more culturally nationalist direction rather than toward the cosmopolitan modernism promised by new directions in literati painting.