Reflections On The History

Feng Zikai is a prominent artist with unique traits and pursuit in modern Chinese literature history. His"Zikai Caricatures"are the most inspiring art from in modern Chinese caricature history."Zikai Caricatures"reflect some social content. However, people have long been buried in exploring the sense of beauty and its aesthetic value, which ignored their content describing a certain period of Chinese history, and the reflections on that period of social life, which are all demonstrated in these caricatures.This thesis is designed to reexamine"Zikai Caricatures", to demonstrate what they may contribute to discovering more about Chinese history and to broaden the scope of study on"Zikai Caricatures".This thesis consists of 3 parts. Part I mainly demonstrates that Feng Zikai caricatures, as specialized pictures, can be utilized as evidences to examine a certain period of Chinese history, through claiming that Feng Zikai has created those caricatures with"truth"as the guiding principle, and with"real-life"as the main theme, and some of those caricatures and historical backgrounds are closely related. Part II presents the social scenes in Chinese history reflected in Feng Zikai's caricatures, with a theme of"everyday life"and"social problems", through the examination of the caricatures from three aspects. The first aspect is concerned with the praise and longing for towards children's living conditions; the second aspect is associated with lower working class's tortures and pressure; and the third aspect is related to the contrast and comparison between the coldness in city life and the warmness in the country life. Part III discusses the aesthetic ideas concerning"real-self and kindness","coldness and sympathy", and"mercy and calmness"disclosed by the social content of Feng Zikai's caricatures, and explains their significances and values today.Feng Zikai's caricatures not only represent a specialized form of drawing art, but also display some scenes in Chinese history. They are of great help for us to understand the social situations and the living conditions of the lower class in china, and they provide some new insights for our understanding of present social problems.