Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Optical Vision and the Ocular Turn 4
Rethinking Modern Chinese Art 8
Materials, Methodology, and Chapter Summary 11
1 Open-Air Painting and the Modern Chinese Painter 16
"Sketching from Life" and Western-Style Painting 17
Scientizing Vision in China 21
The Rise of Open-Air Painting 28
Sketching the Homeland 35
2 Optical Vision and New Modes of Depiction 41
Qujing: View-Taking 43
Goutu: Composition 47
Toushi: Perspective 53
Shidian (Viewpoint) and Dipingxian (Horizon) 57
Guohua through the Optical Eye 60
Seeing Monumental Landscape at Mount Huang 65
Western-Style Painting and West Lake 71
3 Inventing Tradition through Open-Air Painting 80
Hu Peiheng and "Open-Air Painting in the Traditional Way" 82
Yu Jianhua and "Open-Air Painting in the Guohua Way" 85
Linear Perspective and "Sight" in Guohua Painting 89
Cun Models and the Prioritization of Perception 99
4 Open-Air Painting during the War 115
Guan Shanyue's Early Paintings and the Pursuit of Immediacy 117
The 1940 Guilin Exhibition and Debates on Wartime Art 126
Ten Thousand Miles of the Li River and Masculine Majesty 132
Heroism and the Northwestern Borderland 140
The Land of Production 150
5 Views of the Party-State 165
Open-Air Painting in the New China 167
Industrial Construction as Socialist Landscape 174
The Poetic Turn 182
New Look of Mountains and Streams 193
Beyond the State's View 207
Epilogue 221
Total Art: Perception as Critical Thinking 224
The Rise of Bases for Open-Air Painting and the Ossified View 228
Notes 235
Glossary 269
Bibliography 275
Index 305