| Abstract | This dissertation, which focuses on the late Qing and early twentieth century Chinese artist Wu Changshi (1844–1927), argues that fundamental changes took place in the economics of the Chinese art world at the end of the nineteenth century that led to basic shifts in the attitudes of artists and patrons to each other and to art itself. The remarkable career of Wu Changshi, China's most famous painter at the time of his death in 1927, makes possible a case study of the transformation of China's cultural world between about 1895 to 1905 and of the contradictions inherent in the life of a modern traditionalist artist. Born and educated into the Confucian literati class, Wu spent the first fifty-five years of his life seeking to become a scholar-official. Ironically, he failed at this traditional career path, and by 1900 found himself at the center of a burgeoning urban art world, where he became a great success in the highly commodified Shanghai cultural scene. The four chapters of this dissertation discuss the economic, cultural, and social background of Shanghai in the period; patronage of art in Shanghai, including the growth of art shops and art societies; Wu Changshi's biography, social network, and painting, with reference to his unpublished correspondence; and his modern legacy. Despite selling in an increasingly anonymous market, where buyers might include foreigners and uneducated merchants, Wu remained faithful, in many respects, to his scholarly ideals. Most significantly, he succeeded in bringing the aesthetics of ancient epigraphy (jinshixue ) into his painting, calligraphy, and seal carving. His fundamentalist reform of Chinese painting imbued it with an archaeological flavor believed to embody the most authentic qualities of China's ancient culture and aimed to rescue Chinese art from its late Qing dynasty decline. Ultimately, Wu's art came to represent for sympathetic critics the strength needed to prevail in the modern world against the invasion of Western culture. He was successful in his own work, but his achievements ultimately failed to survive his own lifetime. Despite many competing claims to this title, we consider Wu Changshi to be China's last great literati painter. |
