Binyon, Lewis and Nash: British Modernists’ Conception of Chinese Landscape Painting

Binyon, Lewis and Nash: British Modernists’ Conception of Chinese Landscape Painting

Date: 12 April 2011 (Tuesday)
Time: 5:00pm
Venue: Room 2.38, Main Building, HKU

Chinese landscape painting does not take up a large portion in national collections in Great Britain. Nor would it have adequately been shown to the public in art exhibitions in the first quarter of the twentieth century. At this time, pioneer Orientalists, such as Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), played an important role in introducing the historical development of Chinese painting to the general public through lectures and publications. British avantgarde artists, including Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) and Paul Nash (1889-1946), recognized Binyon’s expertise in Oriental art and learned from him about the aesthetic ideas and pictorial design of Chinese landscape painting, especially those of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279 AD).

Concerning the occidental way of seeing Chinese pictorial art, this presentation examines British modernists’ conception of Chinese landscape painting, with special reference to Laurence Binyon and his friends of British artists. Selected Song landscape paintings from museum collections in Britain and America will be evaluated. I will discuss the interpretation of Chinese landscape painting in Western literatures from the 1900s to the 1930s. I will also explore how the aesthetic and philosophical ideas of the Song art, such as rhythm, freedom, as well as the harmony of human and nature, inspired British avant-garde artists.

Speaker: Michelle Huang

Dr Michelle Huang is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong, offering courses on “Contemporary Chinese Art” and “Cross-Cultural Interaction in the 19th Century” in 2010-11. She obtained her PhD and MLitt degrees in Art History from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Prior to her postgraduate studies in the U.K., Michelle completed her BBA (Marketing) and MA in Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests include the transmission of East Asian art in the West, the collections and exhibitions of Chinese pictorial art in 19th and 20th centuries Europe and America, as well as the historiography of Chinese painting. She is currently working on a few publication projects, including her edited work, Beyond Boundaries: East & West Cross-Cultural Encounters, which will be published in late 2011.