Fu Luofei (1897--1971): Art and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century China

This thesis is a monographic study on the artist Fu Luofei (1897-1971), aiming to reconstruct his life and art with textual and visual historical materials, with focus on the interaction between art and revolution in the twentieth-century China. The five chapters of this thesis examine Fu's artistic and social activities in Shanghai, Italy, Hong Kong and South China from the 1920s to 1960s chronologically, and mainly investigate how this artist, who had definite political belief and was willing to devote his art to social revolution, involved in and acted on the transformation of Chinese society in the twentieth century through continuously transforming his artistic styles.;As this study demonstrates, Fu brought back from Italy the representational painting style of the Neapolitan School and the achievement of his ink experiment in the late 1930s. However, his attempt on "saving the nation by art" did not succeed until mid-1940s. At that time, Fu established his signature style by absorbing the visual elements of German Expressionist paintings, one of the prevailing styles for cartoons and woodcut prints in the Kuomintang ruled areas. His signature style, which was strong in visual stimulation as well as in moral and emotional appeal, was developed through unceasing exchanges with the leftist critics and echoed with the political demand of the Chinese Communist Party. Meanwhile, as is rarely known, Fu also painted in the form of traditional guohua (Chinese national painting), which reveals a not-so-revolutionary side of the "revolutionary artist". His tragedy after the establishment of the People's Republic vividly illustrates the irreconcilable conflicts between the May Fourth tradition of intellectual independence and the political culture of the CCP.;Keywords: Fu Luofei; Art; Revolution; Twentieth-century China.