"Beiyang Pictorial" Advertising Art Research

The Peiyang Pictorial was founded in1926by Feng Wuyue and Tang Beilin in Tianjin French Concession. After all together1587issues, it went off the historical stage. At that period, it and the Friend, founded in the same year, came into the situation of North-South confrontation. As the longest solely-invested pictorial in North China and with the principles of "Spreading Current Affairs, Advocating Art and Imparting Knowledge", it was crowned as the "North Giant" in the pictorial circle, becoming one of the most influential pictorials in China in the1920s and1930s.This thesis mainly studied the advertisements in the Peiyang Pictorial. Section I of this thesis first introduced the situation in which this pictorial was founded and its development in Tianjin, and then, based on the generalization of the types of the ads in the pictorial, the writer pointed out its significance in the process of Tianjin’s modern urbanization and the promotion of Chinese modern industry and commerce. In section Ⅱ the writer mainly discusses the design elements of the ads such as the fonts, the graphics, and the layouts to analyze the art design features of the ads in Peiyang Pictorial with both western and Chinese elements formed in the specific geographic and historical background. Section III analyzes the factors affecting the art features ofPeiyang Pictorial, with the focus on the diverse artistic patterns of the ads in it appearing in the historical background of the transition from the old to the new and the introduction of the western knowledge to the East, which will help us further understand the role played by the ads in the transformation of the modern design. In the last section, the writer first points out the significance of the newspaper-advertising design in the period of the Republic of China by the analysis of the ads in Peiyang Pictorial, and future illustrates the influences of the Northern press, with Peiyang Pictorial as the representative, on the Chinese modern advertising development. This study will make up the gaps in the modern design research focusing on northern area design centered on Tianjin. It shows the important status taken by the Northern press in the development of the Chinese modern art design and it will enlarge and deepen the research scope of the modern design history, even the art history. In this aspect, this study is quite significant.