The Tangle of “Chineseness” and “Modernity”:On the Practice of Chinese Christian Painting at Fu Jen Catholic University (1929-1949)

CHU Xiaobai

doi:10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247103

Volume 7 Issue 1

Mar. 2024

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CHU Xiaobai. The Tangle of “Chineseness” and “Modernity”:On the Practice of Chinese Christian Painting at Fu Jen Catholic University (1929-1949)[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 39-67. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247103

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CHU Xiaobai. The Tangle of “Chineseness” and “Modernity”:On the Practice of Chinese Christian Painting at Fu Jen Catholic University (1929-1949)[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2024, 7(1): 39-67. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247103

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The Tangle of “Chineseness” and “Modernity”:On the Practice of Chinese Christian Painting at Fu Jen Catholic University (1929-1949)

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20247103

CHU Xiaobai^,

East China Normal University

Received Date: 2023-12-11
Accepted Date: 2024-01-10

Abstract

Abstract

Christian art has a long history in the West, but it has not formed a fixed pattern in traditional Chinese painting. Artists from Fu Jen, then commonly known as The Catholic University of Peking during the Republic of China era, attempted to combine the themes of Western Christian painting with Chinese painting traditions, creating religious paintings with a distinctive "Sino-Western fusion" style. These works displayed a blend of Eastern and Western elements in composition and the use of conventional visual symbols, while also reflecting the characteristics of traditional Chinese meticulous brushwork and literati ink wash painting in terms of subject matter, painting medium,techniques, and spatial arrangement. This leads to a double paradox between form and content, visual modernity and theological connotations in these paintings, due to which they were praised in the West but faced a dilemma in Republican China. This paradox reflects the tension between the pursuit of visual modernity and an attempt at inculturation in the context of semi-colonial China, as well as the complex attitudes of Chinese society towards modernity, national identity, and religious art. The work Suffering China (1943) by the missionary painter Mon Van Genechten from Fu Jen University, with its profound touch of social realism, touched upon the universal human experience of suffering,thereby transcending the boundaries of art to some extent and exploring the possibilities of localizing Christian art amidst the entanglement of "Chineseness" and "modernity." The practice of Chinese Christian painting at the Fu Jen Catholic University of Peking was not only an attempt at artistic innovation but also an important case of cultural exchange between China and the West and inculturation.
- Fu Jen Catholic University,
- Christian art,
- visual modernity,
- theological content,
- inculturation

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References(34)

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