Modern Sculpture

Moden Sculpture

The history of China's modern sculpture started in the early 20th century when China's centuries-old traditional sculptures went down, and the Western style began to play a role. At the time, the Chinese intellectuals were trying to establish a new kind of culture with the attitude of "based on traditional Chinese values and aided with modern Western management and technology." And sculptors in the art world were also lingering between the Western system of "describing things in a strictly scientific way" and the Chinese system of "expressing the spirit by describing appearances.”

The period of 1949-1979 saw another phase of China's sculpture when the sculptures mainly reflecting revolutionary ideology prevailed in China. Shortly after the People's Republic of China was founded, Liu Kaiqu made the statue of Mao Zedong, which later became a piece of landmark artwork that marked the start of a time when sculptures expressing hero worship gained popularity. Those sculptures were full of passion typical of the revolutionary days. Many large-scale group sculptures, while designed to create a sort of optimism for the new life, satisfied the ideological needs at that time as well. After 1966, lots of statues of the leaders sprung up in many Chinese cities, which was one reflection of the "creation of immortals" at a particular time.

A wave of "building public sculptures" prevailed in Chinese cities after the 1980s. Various types of sculptures were shaped among urban squares and buildings, which were amazing either in styles or shapes and represented different levels of sculptural art. Afterwards, the passion for urban sculptures cooled. Since the 1990s, China's sculptures have experienced significant changes both in styles and concepts.

1911-1949: Western-style gradually played a role in the turbulent eastern world

Chinese urban sculptures started right after the Xinhai Revolution (1911). Outdoor sculptures were rare at that time, dominated by commemorative statues of early revolutionists and the statues of Sun Yat-sen were the most popular of all. During the 1920s-1930s, major sculptors included Jiang Xiaojian and Li Jinfa, as well as Liu Kaiqu, a pioneer in China's modem sculpture.

Jiang Xiaojian, as a Chinese artist who went to France for sculpture study in early days, returned to embark on sculpture art in the 1920s. He was best known for the bronze statue of "Premier Sun Yat-sen," which has been located north of the government complex of Jiangwan, Shanghai. Three meters high and over ten meters tall (including the base), the sculpture integrates French- style classical carving methods reproduces the great revolutionist in a vivid way and has become a landmark landscape in the new district of Shanghai.

Liu Kaiqu, one of the sculptors who went to France in early times, once studied in Paris Higher Fine Art School. Returned to China in 1933, he taught at Hangzhou Art College where he cultivated many sculpture professionals for the new China. Based on the western classical techniques, his sculptures combined traditional Chinese lines carving methods characterized by conciseness. What he sculptured presented a sense of affability by highlighting simple, precise and exquisite styles rather than exaggerated, passionate emotions or dramatic aroma. The "statue of Dr Sun Yat-sen" that he created in 1944 has been still placed in the Chunxi Road in Chengdu.

Due to turbulent Chinese social life in the past, only a few pieces of the artworks from the sculptors have been passed down. Their acute and deep insights, however, paved the way for the development of China's modem sculpture art and enriched the memories of the Chinese people for the past.

1949-1979 From revolutionary passion to formula-style art

China's sculptures have no longer been those placed in traditional temples and grottos since the 1950s. The main methods and techniques were introduced from the west, and such introduction, like that of the oil paintings, was a process that saw a gradual combination of the western and eastern cultures. Despite rich sculpture heritages, China was deeply affected by the Russian sculptural style in the 1950s when learning from the Soviet Union was widely encouraged. More than introducing lots of representative Russian works and sculpturing experiences, China's Ministry of culture also invited Russian sculptors to set up sculpturing training classes in China Central Academy of Fine Arts in early 1956, recruiting nationwide lectures and assistants in fine art schools as students.

The first big event in the sculpturing history of New China after 1949 was the establishment of the Monument to the People's Heroes. The Chinese government decided to erect a "Monument to the People's Heroes" at the Tian'anmen Square of Beijing to commemorate all the revolutionists who fought and sacrificed for the nation's independence during 1840-1949.

Work on the monument formally started on August 1, 1952. Numerous Chinese artists, including both sculptors and many painters, contributed to the design of the relieves on the monument and spent four years in the whole creative work. The eastern side of the relief shows the historical events of "Lin Zexu's burning of opium stocks in Humen Beach" and "Jintian Uprising;" The southern part represents the scenes in "Wuchang Uprising," "The May 4lh Movement" and "The May 30th Movement;" On the western side are the relieves of "Nanchang Uprising" and "Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War;" And the northern part includes three scenes known as "crossing the Yangtze River to liberate the mainland of China," "supporting the soldiers engaged in the front" and "welcoming the People's Liberation Army." The relieves are two meters high and 40.68 m long, with about 20 heroic figures in each relief that are the same size as real ones and have different appearances, looks, and postures from each other. The ten relieves, while demonstrating the merits of every sculptor, has a relatively uniform artistic style.

As the decoration for architectures, the relieves melt into the monument, which gives themselves a unique value for appreciation. A majority of the artists who created the Monument to the People's Heroes were those returned from Europe, the overall style of the relieves, therefore, mainly reflects the western techniques. Though some artists tried traditional sculptural methods, the features only display in the carvings of clothes veins.

Besides such huge relief work as the Monument to the People's Heroes, some important public architectures and the relief work that went with them appeared as well. For instance, the group sculpture of "Celebrating the Harvest" created by Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in 1959 received high praise from the sculptural world. Though the sculpture was somewhat intended to follow the fashion, it went beyond the profound influence of the western classical and Russian sculptural styles and demonstrated strong traditional features and cultural grandeur. That made it a "masterpiece combining both revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism." Concise in style, the group sculpture displayed a sense of strength that couldn't be checked.

The group sculpture of "Rent Collection Courtyard" was among the excellent sculptural works of the 1960s. The artwork gave rise to a very interesting phenomenon in the history of sculpture given great attention it received at home and the extreme passion the audience showed, as well as the disputes arisen from its use in modem art.

In June 1965, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts was designated by the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee to create the clay sculpture of "Rent Collection Courtyard." Then, the teachers and students of the sculpture department, as well as the team from the gallery, quickly initiated the work that later lasted for nearly four months. The group sculpture was arranged within the fences of a rent collection courtyard, which was 118 m in length and eight m in height. The contents of the sculpture included four parts— "forced to pay rents," "counting the rents," "press for rents" and "going to fight" and involved 114 figures.

The continuous plot was a typical feature of the group sculpture. The "Rent Collection Courtyard" was quite different from average sculptures. It resembled a series of pictures more than a single sculpture for pure entertainment or the group sculpture for commemoration. It has four parts, with each part somewhat independent but subject to the theme of the sculpture thanks to the elaborately designed transitions between the parts.

Another feature of the "Rent Collection Courtyard" was the ingenious use of the courtyard as a background. This helped create a sense of reality and further gave play to the realistic style. As for the sculptural techniques, the sculptors, on the one hand, expressed the traits of the sculpture based on the academic principle of art, and on the other hand, used the traditional Chinese sculptural methods for "day Buddha" for reference and adopted straws, rough clay and fine clay mixed with cotton and sand as basic materials.

Swarms of farmers came to visit from places miles away even when the work was under construction. And the group sculpture, after accomplished in October 1965, created a sensation in neighboring areas. The concerned authority quickly decided to make replication and send it to Beijing for an exhibition. When part of the replication and all the pictures of the original one were displayed at the National Art Gallery in Beijing on December 19, 1965, thousands of audiences went to visit every day. With influence totally beyond the boundary of art, it has won higher and higher praise.

In the 1960s, conceptual idealism began to emerge, and identical outer forms, single artistic style, and exaggerated techniques prevailed in the sculptural world. Due to the peculiar political and ideological factors, many sculptors had to follow such a sculptural way. Some artists, still "encouraged" by the excessive revolutionary enthusiasm, were extremely passionate about sculptural creation and were trying to pursue a sort of "revolutionary" beauty that was out of touch with reality. Such works become artistic forms that were formulary, conceptual or even ridiculous, and the trend peaked in the period of "cultural revolution": The "greatness" of leaders was exaggerated infinitely, and the hero-worship evolved into religious fanaticism. A great many sculptures of leaders were built in an instant. Huge sculptures of Mao Zedong, who was sanctified, could be seen everywhere from urban squares, parks to transport hubs and even schools. A movement of "creation of immortals" spread across the whole nation until the end of the "cultural revolution."

The group sculptures on the Monument to the People's Heroes and the sculpture of "Rent Collection Courtyard," and a large number of formulary sculptures that appeared afterward, respectively represented two aspects of Chinese sculptural art in that particular historical period. The significant changes in sculptural techniques and forms reflected a big change in social ideology. Such sculptures showing great revolutionary passion gradually faded away after the 1970s and became a special memory for the Chinese people.

From 1980-the early 21st century: Conceptual sculptural art showing public awareness

Since the 1980s, sculptures have been designed to be more and more plebeianized and diverse in contents. Sculptors started to pay more attention to real life as well as experiences and expressions. Public art began to rise; more materials were adopted, and expressive forms were diversified. In 1982, the National Urban Sculptural Planning Team and the National Urban Sculptural Art Committee led a nationwide campaign of urban sculptural creation, which marked that China's sculptural creation entered a new stage of official participation. The sculptors summarized the lesson drawn from the "cultural revolution" when a great many sculptures of leaders were made, and the quality of art was ignored and built a number of sculptures intended to beautify the urban environment, which included those for monuments and garden decoration. Urban sculptural parks of different sizes were also constructed in many cities, offering lots of works that represented the art of different levels. In 1984, the Sculptural Park of Shijingshan was launched in Shijingshan District, Beijing, which was China's first sculptural park and served as a reference for the establishment of sculptural parks nationwide.

As of the middle 1980s, excellent artworks that were well integrated with the urban environment included: i) The stone statue of "Fisher Girl of Zhuhai" erected on the coast in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. Taking the images in Dunhuang frescoes for reference, the sculptors created a fisher girl who holds a shining pearl high above her head, which symbolizes the beautiful city of Zhuhai; ii) The alloy group sculpture of "Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter" placed on the end of the Yangtze River Bridge in Chongqing in 1984; iii) The bronze sculpture of "Dove of Peace" built at Hepingli, Beijing, and the stone sculpture of "Reading" at Zhengyi Road; iv) The stone "Fable Group Sculptures" created in Donghu Scenic Spot, Wuhan, Hubei Province; v) The bronze sculpture of "the Willing Ox〃 placed in front of the complex of CPC Shenzhen Municipal Committee, which was once considered as the spiritual symbol of the emerging city and represented the pioneering spirit of the first batch of the city builders. Nowadays, it has become a symbol of Shenzhen.

A "frontiers" movement initiated by young Chinese artists who advocated western realism once appeared in the middle 1980s. With the passage of time, the Chinese artists, whose horizons gradually expanded, began to absorb the western style in a critical way rather than totally accept, and tried to introduce the western art based on their local culture. A contemporary Chinese historian in fine arts said, "The culture and art of any nation have its own 'feature of modern days' during its transition process from traditional forms to modern forms. China has entered a modern period since 1979, and it has its distinctive "features of the modem days/ too...But such features of China's fine arts were different from those of other western countries given their apparent Chinese characteristics known as reality.'"

Under the background, most of the sculptors have made a tentative effort to interpret traditional sculptural languages in a new way since the 1990s, hence the presence of contemporary conceptual sculptures reflecting public awareness. The language forms of the artworks turned out to be more and more novel and pioneering, and sculptors began to focus more on self-reflection and self-awareness as well. In the meantime, a sculptural wave called as "pop style" or "vulgar style" arose, which was not necessarily the feature typical of sculptural art in the early 1990s, but that of many kinds of contemporary Chinese art that includes painting and photographing. Most of the "pop" sculptors were not originally sculptors but painters, represented by Liu Jianhua, Liu Liguo and Xu Yihui. The porcelain sculpture of ''Treasurable Memory," created by Liu Jianhua, was among the representative artworks. He sculptured female bodies, dressed in bright Chinese Cheongsam, on colorful porcelain plates or sofas to symbolize the state of the post-colonial culture and reflect the problems arising from various sorts of lives in modern consumer culture as well.

Since the 1990s, some contemporary sculptural artists with certain international reputation have appeared at home, including Sui Jianguo, Li Xiangqun, Zhan Wang in Beijing, Zeng Chenggang in Zhejiang, Fu Zhongwang in Hubei as well as Huo Boyang and Wang Hongliang in Shenyang. Their sculptural works not only represents the high level of art in today's China to a certain extent but also manifests the fresh, diverse concepts manifested by contemporary Chinese sculptural art and the local cultural awareness that was being restructured.

The influence of conceptual art on sculptures started around 1992, when the young artists like Sui Jianguo, Zhan Wang, and Fu Zhongwang prefer to regard sculptures as carriers of the conceptual art while putting pure sculpturing in the second place. The sculpture of "Garment—Sun Yat-sen's Uniform" created by Sui Jianguo has been one piece of his representative works that was deeply rooted in public minds. He expressed the "Sun Yat-sen's uniform," a kind of garments towards which most modern Chinese have the deepest affection, in the form of a cultural sign that was insane but could naturally be associated with the "right center" in the time of Mao Zedong. The "Sun Yat-sen's Uniform" can be replicated in all sizes and placed in any place, and this renders the "Sun Yat-sen's Uniform" a special taste. The sculpture reflects the unique Chinese history and signals fetters that bound the social development of modem China.

Zhan Wang was one of China's most famous contemporary sculptors. He was first known for the sculpture of "Artificial Mountain Stone," which was created in 1997. It was the first piece of contemporary Chinese sculptural work collected by the American Metropolitan Museum of Art and the first piece of contemporary Chinese sculpture collected by De Young Museum that was newly built in San Francisco. In 2008, the British Museum placed his sculpture of "Artificial Mountain Stone" among the exhibition intended to celebrate the "Year of China" as a key item for the display of contemporary Chinese art. Zhan Wang ingeniously took the Taihu Lake Legacy Sun Yatsen's Uniform, Sui Jianguo, 1998. Stone in classical Chinese gardens as an element used in contemporary art, which was a conversion between time and space that demonstrated the cultural integration of modern society. He focuses more on artistic concepts and gradually probes into the problem concerning the relationship between sculptural techniques, materials, and concepts. As is shown in the artworks of "Artificial Mountain Stone" made of stainless steel, traditional sculptural concepts are dissolved and replaced by a new kind of artistic language that is something between sculptures and carriers. That exactly reflects the situation in which traditional and modem mix together in current China.

The works of Sui Jianguo and Zhan Wang shows the avant-garde concepts in the 1990s, which also brings contemporary Chinese sculptures into the global cultural background. Interestingly, such sculptors who prefer the creation with comprehensive materials in the early 1990s as Sui Jianguo began returning to traditional sculpture in forms in the late 1990s. Also, the themes of contemporary Chinese sculptures have been further enriched, including those on post-colonialism, feminism, criticisms about social consumption and the practice of neo-historicism.

Since the 21st century, contemporary Chinese sculptures have been more designed to cover such aspects as feminism, cartoon art, neo-historicism, and fable sculpture. The representative of feminism is Xiang Jing, whose works are mainly about females and highlight painting as a form of sculptural language. She uses female sculptures to describe the ridiculous society and the sense of nihility that commonly exists. Yu Fan is among the representatives of new- historicism. By creating historical figures, he brings the audience back to the history that the sculptural images belong to. His sculpture of the revolutionary martyr Liu Hulan is an example that historical figures are reflected and reproduced by ordinary people.

China's sculptures have undergone different stages of evolution over the past 20-30 years—from the enthusiasm about modernism in the 1980s to the calm pondering on the post-modernistic diversity in the 1990s and an even more mature attitude adopted today when the global vision is further broadened. That maturity right reflects the growth of certain strengths in contemporary Chinese culture.

Over the past century, China's sculptures have absorbed and integrated the sculptural styles and techniques of the west that have evolved for centuries. Meanwhile, the Chinese sculptors are also trying to seek for the style and concepts that truly belong to the local people. The sculptural concepts have changed quickly particularly over the recent two decades. Affected by contemporary art, China's sculptures grow more and more mature, with those focusing more on humanity, social issues, and connotation created by responsible sculptors who include young artists with global visions. The artworks, designed to be more open in both styles and contents, better serves as a bridge for communication between the east and west; the efforts of artists also helps promote the understanding of the world towards Chinese culture and China's current situation to some extent. In this sense, contemporary Chinese sculptors can be said to be disintegrating the "Tower of Babel" built among cultures through carving and creation.