Haihong Li is an associate professor of Radio and Television Broadcasting at Xiamen University Tan Kah Kee College in China. She received a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from University of Georgia. Her academic research focuses on Chinese visual culture, women’s studies, and video production. She has published a few articles in Chinese journals and American journals and presented papers at international professional conferences.
Authors | Haihong Li
Articles on Amodern by Haihong Li
THE SUBVERSIVE PRINT NIANHUA
Nianhua, a native woodblock print made with the technique of polychrome xylography, also known as “douban” (饾版), was invented by Hu Zhengyan around four hundred years ago, to celebrate the beginning of a new year. This paper focuses on nianhua print in the late Qing and early Republican periods, when the art’s popularity reached its peak, and on north China, where the most influential printing centers were congregated. It argues that the genre allowed artists to represent common people and their life in a pictorial art form customarily reserved for elites. It examines the revolutionary and subversive potential of the art through investigating the theme of human agency, the depictions of dissidents as social criticism, and the portraits of the “new women.” A close look at the prints shows that nianhua artists, who often came from humble backgrounds, used their cultural resources to actively interpret and participate in the social and cultural changes that took place in the cities. While late Qing-era Chinese intellectuals regarded the genre as vulgar and superstitious and the Nationalists tried to contain it through censorship, the Communists attempted to tap into its popularity.