Chinese ink painting and its histories in the academies

Researcher: Dr. Yuet Heng Wong

Although the art academies were founded to institutionalize a modern art education based on European and Japanese models, ink painting as a national art form was at an early point considered an important element in the curriculum. The project will trace the history of ink painting education across Chinese art academies from the 1910s into the 1990s. It will study the debates about inherited teaching practices such as copying earlier paintings, the role of drawing and discourses of realism, and the positioning of ink painting and calligraphy as regards abstraction, installation, and conceptual art. A special focus will be on the question of how receptions of art and art history from other world regions shaped interpretations of Chinese art historiography and the medium of ink painting in what can be called a translated historiography.