Chen Shizeng's "Reading Drawing" Research

Stored in Palace Museum of Beijing,Viewing paintings by Chen Shizeng was regarded as historical materials in many documents without specific studies on this painting itself.This thesis firstly identifies the painting time.Through analysis of style,it can be deduced that Chen Shizeng was influenced by Japanese popular visual culture,as well as his research into brick of portrait.From other materials,this paper then analyzes on the collectors and viewers of what Chen shizeng painted in this painting---"Paintings and Calligraphies Exhibition in Beijing 1917,".The historical position of this exhibition was established based on historical materials.In the third part of this thesis,based on the incident depicted in and clues from the postscripts,combining with the historical documents enabled us to see how severe the flood in Jingzhi was in 1917 and how Beiyang government and the art world took actions.In the end,lack of the visual experience of ancient paintings and calligraphies,Chen Shizeng thought highly of the cognition brought by this exhibition.Different from the painting in the same period by Wang Yiting which was trying to evoke the sympathy of the viewers to help disease relief through depicting the flood and refugees,Chen Shizeng was recording an instantaneous news to propagandize the political achievements of the sponsor,what’s more,he was recording a most valuable historic incident from his point of view.