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1981
Volume 11, Issue 2-3
  • ISSN: 2051-7041
  • E-ISSN: 2051-705X

Abstract

Accused of being self-centred or disconnected from the needs of the nation or society, surrealism as a movement was given short shrift by some of the more Left-leaning members of the Chinese art world during the Republican era. Rather than (‘Art for life’s sake’), surrealist artists (and modern oil painting in China generally at this time) were associated with the philosophy of (‘Art for art’s sake’) by politically engaged commentators and roundly criticized. However, this article demonstrates that surrealist themes and images in the work of artists Cai Ruohong (1910–2002) and Bide (likely Huang Shiying, n.d.) were in fact found in the pages of () and the magazine that continued its mandate, (), and were effective vehicles for the dissemination of pointed Leftist social critique.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Cambridge Visual Culture Visiting Research Fellowship (2023–25)
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2024-12-20
2025-02-13
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): anxiety; Cai Ruohong; decay; Huang Shiying; montage; political cartoon; Wang Dunqing
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