Feng Zikai's art and the Kaiming Book Company: Art for the people in early twentieth-century China.

摘要

This dissertation focuses on the early twentieth-century Chinese artist Feng Zikai (1898--1975) and looks at the relationship between Feng's artistic career and China's new publishing industry, particularly the Kaiming Book Company (Kaiming shudian). Feng both taught art and worked as a cover designer and illustrator at the Kaiming Book Company as well as for other publishers. His artistic production includes traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy, woodcut prints, cartoons, illustrations, and cover designs. A crucial element in Feng's success was the development of the modern printing industry and the proliferation of publishing houses, which brought about the publication of books, urban magazines, and newspapers, and spread popular culture to the masses in China. In so doing, a new category of professional artists, such as graphic designer, was created.;To carve and profit from a new market niche in the booming publishing industry, the Kaiming Book Company seized the new popular trend exemplified by the new Japanese-influenced style Feng Zikai. Being an editor and committee member of the Kaiming Book Company, Feng was active in disseminating art and art education through the print media, like The Juvenile Student (Zhong xuesheng). Feng published many of his personal essays, books regarding art, and cartoons at the Kaiming Book Company. He also designed illustrations for many books published by the Kaiming Book Company, which was very uncommon in China at the time. More importantly, Feng utilized the print media to communicate with the growing young readers and disseminate his thoughts and aesthetics to the masses. Because of the circulation of books with innovative cover design and illustrations, art appreciation was no longer limited to a few private collectors. Not only did Feng's art reflect an important page of the Sino-Japanese relationship at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it also played a significant role in the flowering of graphic art in China.