Course overview
Art and visual culture in China during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries are remarkable for their vibrancy and visual complexity, reflecting dramatic political and cultural change. In this course we will examine the traditions of brush-and-ink painting, oil painting and photography beginning with the decline and fall of the Manchu-Qing dynasty and ending with globalised contemporary practice. The course explores art and photography in the context of scholarly communion and exchange; personal and artistic expression; portraiture and commemoration; media, propaganda and education. Consideration will be given to techniques and approaches suggesting deep continuities and ongoing transformations, the relationship between painting and photography, and questions of realism, truth and the spirit. The examination of recent artistic and documentary works by leading practitioners will highlight a society that continues to experience significant change.