The Spread Of Modern Western Woodcut Of The Early Republic (1912-1936) In China

The Communication of Modern Western Woodcut in China is an important factor that contributed to the birth and development of the New Woodcut Movement. This dissertation attempts to examine this form of Communication of Art between Cultures in the greater context of the Introduction of Western Learning to the East. The findings show that Local Communication of woodcut, as a result of the Ad Extra Communication, had started at least by the middle of the 1920s, when woodcut was presented as illustrations in Chinese periodicals and books, which accounted for the first appearances and later communication of western woodcut. This makes the communication of woodcut distinctly different from that of oil paint, also an alien art form, in two aspects: firstly, the communicators were mostly from the literature and publishing circles instead of fine artists, and secondly, the communication was realized via modern mass media as in periodicals and books, some with significant social influences, edited by those non-professional communicators. Those two characters underscore the important role of the mass media in communicating art.The communication of modern western woodcut in China between 1926 and 1936 saw three stages: 1. the use of woodcut as illustrations; 2. the introduction of woodcut as a pure art; 3. the advocacy of the localization of woodcut; each with different levels of understanding of the nature of modern woodcut, and with different purposes and contents of communication. The shift of Lu Xun from introducing woodcut to advocating the creation of woodcut took place around 1930, when he realized that woodcut could serve as a powerful propaganda tool for the Chinese revolution, and more importantly, woodcut is an art that is democratic in production, appreciation and subject matter, hence an art form that could also serve his Enlightenment ideas. It is argued that for Lu Xun, woodcut is not only a useful tool that could engage China's saving-the-nation-from-extinction cause, but more an Enlightenment-based project against the status-quo of the New Fine Arts.