The Research On Hang Zhiying

Hang Zhiying(1901-1947) is one of the most famous calendar picture painter and commercial artist in the Republican period. The "Zhiying Studio", which was founded by him, drew more than one thousand outstanding calendar pictures in the former half of the last century, and designed trademarks and product packaging for a large number of national industrial. Therefore, Hang occupied an important position in modern Chinese art history, especially in the history of commercial art.Hang Zhiying’s life went through five stages, the childhood in his hometown Haining, the apprenticeship in the Commercial Press, the early development stages of independent studio, the golden age of’Zhiying Studio’as Shanghai’s famous commercial art institutions, and the post-war short-term recovery. The formation of the Art of Hang School was impacted by shanghai social, economic and urban environment in the late1920s, also closely related with the development of the art of calendar picture. Zhou Muqiao, Zheng Mantuo, Hang Zhiying are representative figures in the three stages of the development of calendar picture, especially Hang and his studio lead the art of calendar picture to the peak. In the process of artistic creation, he made breakthrough based on the brush-rubbing painting method which was created by Zheng Mantuo. He not only optimized the shape and color, but also absorbed the nutrition of the emerging art in Shanghai, which initiated his own style. The images of women in his painting which were healthy and modern, were quite fashionable among the general public those days.Hang Zhiying started his own business since the early1920s. After nearly three decades of efforts, the’Zhiying Studio’created thousands of pieces of good calendar pictures, which made a lot of brands known by the masses. Many brands spread so far, as the old brands in Shanghai today. In addition to the calendar picture painting business, Hang Zhiying also extended the scope of business to the logo design and packaging, and a group of influential business brands were created. In this thesis, I have classification and statistics on more than300pieces of work of’Zhiying Studio’according to the creation time, theme, business, location, investors, product types, female characters and design layout etc. Through the analysis of successful branding case and packaging design business, I try to explore how the studio built up the commercial brand.By inviting partners and training apprentices,’Zhiying Studio’developed an efficient and skilled team with clear assignment of responsibilities. The complete vertical operation chain, the wide horizontal business network, as well as people-oriented management model made studio to be a successful example of modern commercial art.Using archival documents and interviews, this thesis is to complete Hang Zhiying’s life and art history, to analyze the background of the development of his arts, and to explore the innovation the process of artistic creation. Based on the works of’Zhiying Studio’, the thesis analyzes the functions of calendar pictures quantitatively and qualitatively on advertising and promotion and branding. Through the analysis of the studio’s operation and management mode, the purpose is to reveal the external and internal reasons of the success of the Art of Hang School.