Biographical information about artists whose names are written in bold and underlined can be found on their respective pages; the reader may also reter to the links to "Explanation of Technical Terms" and "lnformation on Important Subjects"

As a means to make muitiple impressions, woodblock printing has a long history in China and was already well developed more than a thousand years ago, in the Tang Dynasty (630-930). A surviving scroll of a Buddhist text, the Diamond Sutra, which was found in 1900 in the Dunhuang caves, is dated to the ninth year of Xiantong (868) and is probably the earliest extant woodblock printed "book" in the world with an exact date. It is skillfully engraved and finely printed, not only a medium for transmitting a message but also a charming object in itself. The skills required to produce it indicate that a substantial period of development took place before it was created.

By the time of the Song (960-1278) and Yuan (1278-1367) Dynasties, woodblock art was thriving. Techniques quickly developed for printing in a number of styles, and both literary and utilitarian books with illustrations were produced in large quantities, soon becoming commodities. (An edition of the History of Three Kingdoms from this period had more than 240 woodblock illustrations.) In the Ming Period (1368-1644) some famous painters began to draw designs for printing, and the collaboration between such painters and engravers raised the artistic level still more. With the introduction of the multiblock colored woodblock print in the 17th century, the qualities of an orginal painting could be reproduced, and books like Scenes from the Huan Cui Hall, Illustrations of the Poetry of the Ten Elders from Little Ying Island, and The Ten Bamboo Letter Papers became important collectors' items among scholars and connoisseurs. (In contemporary Europe, woodblock printing was still in its infancy.)

In the production of the traditional Chinese print, drawing, engraving and printing were separate processes performed by different people and, with some notable exceptions, the creators of traditional prints were viewed as artisans, not artists. This exhibition includes examples from traditional workshops typical of production centers using such collaboration. In the terminology of Chinese art, they do duplicating or multiple image production, and the engraver's name and the studio that organized the collaboration are often indicated.

But although all the the prints in our exhibition are multiples, or duplicates, in the sense that more than one image has been printed from the blocks, most of them differ from traditional Chinese prints both in style and method of production and are not referred to in the Chinese literature as duplicated images. They belong to the Creative Print Movement: the artist himself draws the design, cuts the blocks, and prints the images. The artist's ideas and attitudes find expression not only when he produces the original design but also in the different types of marks he makes with his knife and chisel when he carves the block.1 Lu Xun (1881-1936) said of them, "they are European in method and have nothing to do with ancient Chinese woodblock printing." 2

In the 1930s, Lu Xun, whom Mao Zedong called "the chief commander of the revolution in Chinese culture," brought about this revolution in Chinese woodblock printing by his unceasing efforts. In the 1920s, artists like Feng Zikai (1898-1975) had absorbed some of the ideas of European woodblock creation from contemporary Japanese artists, who were intermediaries for transferring "things European" to China.3 But it was only in the 1930s, when Lu Xun decided that European printmaking techniques must be widely introduced into China and promoted the Creative Print Movement in a planned and determined way, that the European approach to the art came to have an important role in China's New Culture Movement. Lu Xun imported prints by Western printmakers, organized classes in creative woodblock techniques, acquired the necessary tools, and organized exhibitions of both Western and new Chinese prints. The style that emerged is called the Creative, or New, Chinese woodblock, to differentiate it from the duplicating woodblock of traditional production. The differences between the creative and duplicating woodblock are found also in their artistic ideals and conception. The artists practicing this new approach to woodblock were intensely concerned with social problems. Before this, modern theorists such as Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) and Kang Youwei (1858- 1927) had argued that art could have amelioritive effects on society and had called for a revolution in fine art, but the result had been only formal change: some Chinese artists began practicing realistic European painting techniques instead of the freehand brushwork of traditional Chinese painting.4

The Creative Print was meant by Lu Xun to be a tool of revolution, a corollary to his own political standpoint and artistic interests. (Many of the foreign woodblock artists whom Lu Xun introduced to China, such as the German Kaethe Kollwitz (1867- 1945) and the Belgian Frans Masareel (1889 - 1971), and for whom he had special esteem, were occupied with strong social criticisms in their own worlds.)

Lu Xun recognized woodblock printing as a substantial and feasible tool for delivering new revolutionary perspectives to many people. It can make multiple copies inexpensively, using knife, paper, ink and a piece of wood, materials that could be found anywhere, and did not require the expensive mechanical presses available only in large cities-which in any case were not available to revolutionaries hiding from the authorities. In his essay A Simple Introduction to' The New Russian Woodblock,' Lu wrote: "In revolutionary times woodblock is used most extensively-it can be done hurriedly and in a short time."5

Lu Xun's intention to use art as a tool for enlightenment had many precedents in earlier Chinese tradition. In a broad context, it has the same origins as the essays of the Tang Dynasty (630-980) art historian Zhang Yanyun, in his Educating and Developing Human Relationships (from the series, Famous Pictures from Successive Dynasties). The customary educational practice had been to praise virtue by presenting idealized examples; and, in some forms of art, such as traditional nianhua (New Year's pictures), the main themes were people and events that were paradigms of happiness and peace. But these paradigms represented the received values of the orthodox Confucian authorities and implied rigid and unequal social relationships. Lu Xun's special contribution was the addition of critical consciousness, which focused on the adversity that followed from this social organization.

Thus the Creative Print of the 1930s was new both in content and style: a) it focused on the facts of everyday life, especially class contradictions, and depicted the labor of those on the bottom of the social scale, the subjects being (in Lu Xun's words) "hardness and difficulty," "revolting conditions," and "shouts of protest;" b) the designs met Lu Xun's aesthetic criteria: they were simple and avoided elaboration, used the contrast between black and white clearly, and were permeated with "vigour" and "sprightly spirit." In our exhibition, Quarry Workers, 1945 (28) and Chat, 1945 (cat. 29), by Wang Qi (b.1918) represent this terse style very well and were widely viewed and praised at the time by leading figures of the art world.6

Lu Xun was interested in the preservation and development of traditional Chinese woodblock techniques as well as the importation of techniques and styles used in Western graphics, and this also was to play a role in the creation of the new kind of woodblock. He thought modern Chinese art should " show Chinese characteristics, so that one could tell that this was a Chinese person or Chinese subject matter after just taking a look: art needs local color." Thus he also advocated the study of China's own art as a source for the new print. Together with the scholar-connoisseur Zheng Zhenduo (1898 - 1958), he edited and saw to the reprintings of The Beijing Letter Papers and The Ten Bamboo Letter Papers, two collections of qi pu (traditional writing paper decorated by woodblock printing and embossing). In his letter to Li Hua (1907-1994) he adds: "If someone deliberates on stone engravings from the Han Dynasty and on illustrations in Ming Dynasty books, and familiarizes himself with nianhua (New Year's pictures) enjoyed by ordinary people, and combines elements of these with the new European methods, perhaps he can produce a better kind of woodblock."7

Not many years later (though after Lu Xun's death, in 1936), his advice to Sinicize the Creative Print came to concrete expression in the work of young artists working in Yan'an, in the northern province of Shaanxi; this city had become the headquarters for the Red Army from January, 1937, some months after the Long March ended. There, in May, 1942, Mao delivered his Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature andArt .8 The speech was addressed mainly to the teachers and students of the Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts,9 including young woodblock artists, followers of Lu Xun, who had made their way to Yan'an because they felt their talents could best serve their country's interests there. In this speech Mao systematically and clearly instructed artists to use the ordinary activities of working people for their subjects and to make their art serve the masses. Artists were to seek means of formal expression which the common people loved.

The Yan'an artists saw this as the logical extension of Lu Xun's admonitions to create a new but Chinese-style woodblock. Lu had warned artists not to simply mimic European models. He had recognized that in their eagerness to adapt European modes, the earliest artists of the new woodblock movement had overemphasized the contrast between bright and dark, so that the scenery and objects in their pictures seemed held together by light and shadow. The faces of the figures had been shadowed in such a way that for ordinary Chinese people, accustomed to seeing the simple lines and flat color of nianhua, they were hard to accept; also, such shadowed images were associated by the peasants with ghosts, who called them "ying-yang faces." 10

So the young artists adopted elements of the nianhua style so popular with the masses. They used simple outline instead of chiaroscuro and tried to make the background as clear as possible so that figures would be intelligible and prominent. All stage properties that had nothing to do with the story were omitted. Works from that period may not seem very skillful to us now, but they were already much closer to the creation of a Chinese style than the totally Europeanized modes of the early stages of the modern woodblock print.

Yan'an artists investigated other interesting aesthetic problems as well; for instance, how a complex story could be made clear at first glance within the confines of a small and narrow format, and how to show the actions of real life. The events described were not taken from tales and historic stories like those in nianhua, and depictions of the human body were not restricted to the very conventionalized models found in traditional Chinese art. Gu Yuan (l919 - 1996), Yan Han (b. 1916) and others produced effective works in this style. 11

With the development of the Yan'an style of woodblock, artists had come to an absolutely new understanding of the function of art. By comparison with the early stages of modern woodblock art which was a revolutionary cultural tool made by intellectuals and that attracted intellectuals (a very limited part of the population), the Yan'an woodblock was meant to have appeal to the peasant masses and was intended to be a kind of "fighting weapon" in the struggle for total social revolution. At Yan'an, the young woodblock workers aimed first to be revolutionaries and then to be artists, and the needs of the revolution would take precedence over independent artistic preferences.

The way subject matter was handled also changed. The earlier works had focused primarily on the depression, rage and misery of the masses. Now, according to Mao Zedong's instructions, the lives of the peasants going about their daily routines were to be portrayed in a positive and attractive light. The artists did not give up the critical outrage which animated the earlier woodblock prints, but criticism was now directed only against specified enemies, not workers or peasants.

With the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1949, the makers of policy for literature and the arts decided that the principles established at Yan'an must serve the social revolution for the whole country. Woodblock printing, which had been a leader in creating revolutionary images, was seen as an art form in its own right and, within a few years, organizations were created to set aesthetic standards and to support production: departments of woodblock printing were set up in academies of fine arts, artists' associations were set up in every region, and woodblock artists were attached to publishing houses and art research institutions to create illustrations where needed.

Li Qun, Li Hua and Wang Qi observe in their book Zhongguo xinxing ban hua wu shi nian (Fifty years of the Chinese woodblock print): As the construction of a modern industrial nation took on urgency, artists took on totally new areas of subject matter: industry and mining, massive engineering works, construction of all kinds, the food-producing plains of the countryside, the taming of mountains and valleys, the wealth of beautiful forests in the border regions ... all these were depicted to enhance the people's pride and love of country. They aimed to show a spirit of selflessness in the people's labor, and to demonstrate the huge power inherent in the masses ability to improve nature, and they strived to imbue their characters with strength and vigour. In the works of this period, our laboring people no longer appeared as insulted and injured characters, as in the 1930s woodblock works, but appeared as the masters of our country. This was an epoch-making revolution in art production." 12

Consistent with the international political relationships of the time, Chinese artists were greatly influenced by art theories current in the Soviet Union. A new, rich, finely detailed and elaborate print style gained many adherents. This mode of expression can be seen in the works of the artists Feng Zhongtie (b.1917), Xu Kuang (b. 1938) and Wu Qiangnian (b. 1937).13 Even when relationships between the People's Republic and the Soviet Union were disrupted at the beginning of the 1960s, Chinese artists continued to pursue the artistic canons of the Soviet Union. The selection of subjects and the composition, whether overall design or the postures of the characters in the drama portrayed, all were recognizable as Soviet inspired art.

Of course, at the same time, some artists still looked to traditional Chinese art for inspiration. Artists like Zhang Yangxi (1912 - 1964), whose prints before 1949 had followed the European social protest style, now looked to Chinese models.14 In his sprightly and simple pictures, such as Bringing Lunch to the Fields, we can recognize the influence of Han Dynasty stone-and-brick engravings. The interest in traditional art also led to the rediscovery of the shuiyin (waterprinted) woodblock technique (see the esssay, "Explanation of Technical Terms"; shuiyin was the traditional Chinese printing process that had been abandonned for oil-based inks by artists in the Creative Print Movement.) Early in the 1950s, the directors of the Chinese academies of fine arts realized the expressive potential of shuiyin and selected young teachers to study it from veteran artisans at the one-hundred-year old Beijing studio, Rongbaozhai. Some artists made the special effort necessary to adapt this ancient technique to the new motifs and compositions of the times. An outstanding example is Huang Peimo (b.1925), who uses shuiyin to create landscapes with strong emotional appeal; his prints strike us as sumptuous, with their rich graded coloration and minimal use of black ink. In his shuiyin landscapes, the works of man nestle in natural scenery in an organic relationship.

But the traditional modes of these works were more appreciated by urban dwellers and other artists than by the peasants in the countryside, where 80% of the Chinese population dwelled. Country folk still preferred the nianhua style created in popular studios. The contents of such prints were completely new, but the designs and colours retained familiar characteristics. A vast quantity of nianhua were produced and distributed from the old, established ateliers of Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Taohuawu in Suzhou, and Yangjiabu in Shandong. With their bright colors and clear designs, they were particularly suited to educate the peasantry about the new revolutionary agenda. For this public, the Creative Print could rarely match them in appeal. (Among specialists interested in twentieth-century woodblock styles, nianhua creation is an area not yet properly explored.) The works of Zhao Yannian (b. l 924) are perhaps an exception. His prints are composed like posters, the subjects clear and unequivocal and the stories simple, calling out directly to the viewer. Their popularity with all segments of society is attested to by their many reprintings in popular magazines and journals as well as in specialized art publications. His style reflects Lu Xun's dictum "use the spirit freely and directly." In addition, Zhao's work is always relevant to current topics and has a timely appeal. 15

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, many amateur artists-that is, artists without academic training in the arts-began to make woodblock prints that had great appeal for the general public. These woodblock artists had spent much of their lives as workers in pioneering economic enterprises: Chao Mei (b. 1931) was formerly an agricultural worker and took part in surveying harsh wastelands, and Song Enhou (b.1936)16 was a master welder who had worked on the building of a great steel production complex. Because they had a special feeling for the kind of life in which they had participated, their works delight us with their empathy for the things shown. Perhaps because they wanted to get around their lack of professional training in depicting the human body, their works usually emphasize panoramic description, and people in their pictures tend to be ornaments. Although they eventually became professional artists, they remembered their origins, and remained fond of organizing and encouraging amateur artists, of whom there were many.

Approbation for nonprofessional artists from among the workers and peasants was at its zenith during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when policy elevated them to an idealized and undeserved position. Their kind of effort had qualities similiar to the spontaneous amateurism for which the traditional scholar-literati amateur artists had claimed approval,17 but because such practitioners overemphasized the spiritual content of their art, yet were deficient in formal aesthetic training, the results failed for the most part.

In the late 1970s, after the Cultural Revolution had ended, China initiated its Open-Door Policy. Both the people who made art policy and the artists themselves came to a new understanding of the artists' function, which was now defined to take in a greater range of concerns. The artists' creative vision broadened, and woodblock creation developed into a multifaceted art form. The older generation of woodblock artists began to create some relaxed, carefree happy works, and the younger generation directed their attentions to quite diverse intellectual explorations.

From concerning themselves primarily with how to create art that would facilitate social reform, artists began to pay greater attention to purely aesthetic values. They thought the latter was a more contemporary intellectual task than the former. At this time the "burning issue" in the media was how to relocate the relationship between form and content in art. Those concerned with theory asked, "is it content that decides form or form that determines content? Does form have an independent value? Is the content limited only to the story?" Although discussion of these topics is taken for granted today, at the time they were novel questions that generated heated discussion.

To the common people, however, the problems these artists think about, and their means of expression, are often strange and remote; their art forms seem hard to understand. Xu Bing's work, Tianshu-Xi shi jian, (A book from heaven, or a mirror for analyzing the world), 1988-1991 (cat. 43 and 44) is a typical representative of this obscure mode.18 So is Zhang Minjie's work, for although it is concerned with "yellow earth culture," that is, the consciousness of seeking roots, it is unintelligible and inaccessible to ordinary people.19 In a sense we can say that this art has returned to a stage before Lu Xun began to criticize creation in an ivory tower. Of course, such a description is not perfectly correct because it is obvious that these artists have thought about Eastern and Western cultures, modern civilization, human history, and relative values-in short, crucial social issues.

Because Chinese artists have reinterpreted the function of art, and a diversity of styles has emerged (with new ones appearing daily), the woodblock, a "minor" art form that has attracted countless young artists with progressive social ideas, no longer has, in contemporary Chinese cultural life, the influence that it had before. The black and white woodblock, once thought of as the orthodox model, now seems to have lost its status within the world of the Chinese woodblock. Nevertheless, we certainly have reason to believe that for the Chinese people, with its thousand-year woodblock tradition, for the nation that invented the woodblock, it will still be an important medium for transmitting messages.

Yan Shancun is Professor of Modern Chinese Art at the Shenzhen Institute of Art Translated from the Chinese by Iris Wachs, Li Youchun, and Han Guotung.

Notes

1 Although this approach was new in woodblock creation, there is a precedent in Chinese aesthetics for using the marks made in the act of carving as a vehicle for expressing feelings and attitudes: the scholar-literati class saw the traces made by the knife when they carved their seals as an act of personal expression.

2 (b. Shaoxing, Zhejiang, his original name was Zhou Shuren.) The leading writer, critic, intellectual and revolutionary of the first half of the Republican Period (1912-1949). [The quotation (adumbrated), is taken from A Record of the Deve/opment of the Woodout, 1934, and is cited by Li Hua in Chinese Woodcuts, trans. by Zuo Boyang (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1995), p. 101. See also Zhang Wang (ed.). Lu Xun lun mei shu (Lu Xun on art), rev. ed. (Beijing: 1956) tr.]

3 (b. Shimenwan, Zhejiang) Writer, painter, cartoonist and woodblock artist, Feng studied traditional Chinese art in Shanghai and oil painting in Japan.

4 (b. Huaining, Anhui) Writer, editor and teacher, Chen led the attack on the Confucian organization of society and became, in 1921, the first secretary general of the newly created Chinese Communist Party. (b. Nanhai, Guangdong) Scholar, theorist and activist, Kang sought the authority for modernization in Confucian texts but attacked the state's Confucian organization. He proposed a utopian society where art would play a reformative role.

5 Lu Xun. "Xin e-hua xuan,"(New Russian prints), Vol. V. from Lu Xun and Rou Shi, eds. Yi yuan zhao hua (Moming flowers of the garden of art series) (Shanghai. 1930).

6 Quarry Workers and Chat may be the most poignant of Wang Qi's works, but if we look at his life's work we see that they are not the most representative. In fact, he is an artist who is quite interested in the craft of woodblock art and also in views of nature. In his later works he utilizes different carving methods to explore the relationship between black and white, and we can see how this enables him to convey a special empathy with nature in prints where trees are the central subject. He is not only an excellent printmaker, but some of his aesthetic ideas have considerably influenced new Chinese art creation not only through his works and as a teacher but also as an art activist, art critic and historian. (See his biography in the section "Catalogue Entries.")

7 "Letter of February 4, 1935." Xu Guangping, ed. Lu Xun shu jian.(Lu Xun's correspondence) (Beijing: People's Literature Press, 1953). Li Hua was Lu Xun's leading disciple in Guangzhou. In several of his letters to Li Hua, Lu Xun took up the question of national identity in the arts. We can see Li's response and efforts to give his work a "Chinese" character in prints like Old Fisherman and Roar China. But in my opinion his style reflects that of Japanese printmakers, and his works have less of a nationai manner than those of artists from the Yan'an era and are not as good as theirs.

8 For more on the contents of the Yan'an Talks, see the essay "Themes, Style and the Historical Background."

9 *Founded in Yan'an in October 1, 1938, it was named after the writer and patron of the Creative Print Movement. Cadres were taught the basic technio,ues of literature, art, music and drama, and how to use them to create effective propaganda for their largely-peasant audience (see also the essay "Information on Important Subjects").

10 In a letter to Li Hua, Lu Xun noted that the reaction of some villagers to an exhibition of the Europeanized style revealed that the prints were "beyond their comprehension. It had never occurred to them that solid objects could become two dimensional. So I propose that .... we should adopt more traditionai drawing techniques." The letter, dated June 29, 1935, is published in Xu Guangpin, ed., Lu Xun shu jian (Lu Xun's correspondence). For an English Version see"Letter to Li Hua," Chinese Literature 8, 1978, pp.105-108.

11 Yan Han's experience and art are special in the history of the new Chinese woodblock. He had professional training for three years at the National Hangzhou Art Academy before he went to Yan'an, and his mastery of Western techniques was the strongest of the artists working there. Aithough he carved many works with purely national stylistic traits in the nianhua style, nevertheless his chief works taken together have a combined Chinese-Western style. Typical works from these early years like When the Enemy Searched the Mountains, with minimized shadows and backgrounds as simple as possible, show that he had absorbed something of the native printmaking mode. But compared to other prints from the Communist base areas, which used traditional bai miso (pure white line; a single outline delineates objects), their drawing is complex. It is clear where his special artistic interest lies. Using Chinese-Western methods of woodblock creation, Yan Han was able to make a complicated drama quite clear in his illustrations for stories and create powerful character studies such as Old Shepherd, 1957 (cat. 37), in our exhibition. Among all the veteran printmakers, Yan Han's creative spirit is the most innovative. Even late in life he studied modern styles and also created abstract works. (Perhaps these interests were stimulated by his youthful studies at Hangzhou Academy.) From some perspectives his later works are not as complex and complete as earlier ones, but his questing spirit--never satisfied--has greatly animated the world of the Chinese print.

12 Li Qun, Li Hua and Wang Qi, Zhongguo xinxing ban hua wu shi nian (Fifty years of the new Chinese woodblock) (Shanghai: People's Fine Art Publishers, 1981).

13 It should be added that at the same time as they pursued the fine and detailed knife method of the Soviet style, with its rich tones, these artists also incorporated the characteristics of national art, both when dealing with contrast and with point of view. Feng's landscape pictures have the high point of view of traditional Chinese landscapes, and his numerous fine lines recall the cun (texture strokes) of the traditional style. None of these artists used, in their works from the 1950s, a fixed light source to create bright and dark tones in a picture.

14 Although his early works had depicted cartoon characters, exaggerated and slickly drawn, Zhang later paid much attention to subtle delineations; in particular, he used carving tools in many ways. His style developed away from the "Lu Xun mode" and, in the late 1950s, he even worked with blunt three-edged knives to file and chisel the wood. This gives his work the qualities of the jinshi carving style, with its deliberately fragmented edges and awkward effects. [jinshi literally means "metal and stone:" an artist working in the jinshi style aimed at reproducing the qualities found in ancient Chinese inscriptions cast in metal or carved in stone; the composition of such characters was straightforward and vigorous, and the edges of the iines composing the characters often crumbled with age. tr.] Describing how he dealt with Bringing Lunch to the Field, he said: "I wanted to learn the simple style of the traditional national 'stone carving art,'and took its images, including how they were affected by environment and weather for my models. I wanted my work to stay simple and yet express rich content. In my first draft I put into the field young wildflowers and willow trees waving in the wind; but after thinking it over, I daredto omit them, though I did use a swallow [symbol of spring,tr.] because that makes people think of the season." (from Preface to Yanyxi mu ke xuan ji [A collection of Yangxi's woodblocks] [Shanghai: People's Art Publishers, 1960].)

15 Zhao's designs are simple, and he is technically an extremely innovative artist. He files and gouges quickly with a flat-mouthed knife in gingko wood with loose texture, frequently changing the knife's angle of entry. He often uses mild angles because, when the block is canved this way, the oil-based ink is absorbed gradually from the block by the paper, and the picture thus develops a kind of middle tone, without a harsh quality. In his later works, his printing tries to be different and is quite different from that of others. He puts a special kind of leather paper on a carved board, which has been soaked in oil-based ink, and then he rubs and prints it slowly; because this kind of paper is veny thin, the ink can penetrate to the other side. Thus he can see the picture's effect directly as it comes through the paper; he does not need to carve a mirror image of the picture as other printmakers do. This technique can be called positive carving and negative print. That is, the front of Zhao Yannian's woodblock has the actual image, whereas for other printmakers'works the front is the mirror or reversed image.

16 Chao Mei's life and experience are very special. He was familiar with printmaking at the age of 14 or 15, but because of the call of the time, he joined the army and lost his chance to take an art academy entrance examination. In the begining of the 1 960s he again missed becoming a regular student, this time at the Lu Xun Art Academy in Shenyang. Two years later, because of his achievements, this same academy invited him to be a teacher, but he refused. He engaged in creation continuously with his colleagues in Beidahuang. Song Enhou became a capable artist by teaching himself. His formal education was minimal, and he did not even graduate from elementany school. Nevertheless, through his own efforts he rose to receive the highest professional title of National First Class Artist and became one of the leaders of the Hubei Industrial Printmaking Group. He succeeded in using huge industrial installations as subjects for very interesting designs, especially in late works such as Five Colors, Six Hues.

17 [The scholar-literati, who made up the bureaucracy in imperial times, were trained in the use of the brush for writing and often used it as amateurs painters, as well. An extensive literature, written by the literati themselves, argued that their high level of education granted their paintings moral superiority over those done by professional artists, who often had little education. Professor Yan sees a parallel to the argument that art produced by peasants and workers was superior to the work of professional painters because their class origin gave them moral superiority. In his opinion, both kinds of amateur art usually fell below the level of professional art. tr.]

18 As an artist of the vanguard Xu Bing occupies himself with problems that belong not only to the domain of the professional artist, but also go beyond them. For Tianshu, he spent several years carving some 2,000 cubes with what appear to be Chinese characters but, in fact, are meaningless designs. When he published them printed as a book that cannot be read it caused an uproar among viewers. If Xu's work is hard to understand, the way he exhibited it made the Chinese viewer tongue-tied. He unfolded the book and hung it from the roof of the Chinese Art Gallery. [The traditional Chinese form of binding permits a book to be "opened up" like an accordian. tr.] Xu himself doesn't give elaborate explanation for his work, saying only that he wanted to make his heart peaceful and aloof by a kind of pure creation: "I really want to carve the words again, so as not to think too much." (From an intenview.) The writer of "My Opinion of Tianshu" (in Meishu 12, 1990) thinks that Xu Bing's work "reflects the artist's very extreme and prejudiced sentiments," and that he "wants to curse all things and deny all history." People who approve of Xu's work, however, think that his kind of creation has the Buddhist spirit af xiu lian [Buddha's meditation of 40 days under the Boddhi tree, later performed also by his disciples, in order to gain enlightenment, tr.].