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A defiant brush : Su Renshan and the politics of painting in early 19th-century Guangdong / Yeewan Koon.

by Koon, Yeewan, author.

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Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press ; Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2014.

Su, Renshan, 1813-1849? -- Criticism and interpretation.

Art and society -- China -- Guangdong Sheng -- History -- 19th century.

9780824841034 (cloth : alk. paper)

0824841034 (cloth : alk. paper)

xx, 228 pages : illustrations, maps ; 29 cm

Art and trade in Guangzhou -- Su Renshan: art in the delta hinterlands -- Art and war in Guangzhou -- Su Renshan: politicizing the vernacular -- Su Renshan: in the company of women.

As the Opium War unfolded in Guangdong Province, the painter Su Renshan (1814–c.1850)exploded onto the art scene with a bold, para-digm-turning new voice. 'A defiant brush' takesa fresh look at this underappreciated artist inthe context of a nascent Chinese modernism.In 1839, Guangzhou had shifted from a cosmo-politan trading center with a diverse art worldinto a place of violence. During the followingdecade, one voice of discontent and defiancerang out above all others: Su Renshan.His provocative, uncompromising, andsometimes ugly paintings berate Confuciusfor his hypocrisy. He turns his brush trace intographic lines that mimic the printed page, andhe depicts women as alternative exemplars ofa moral intelligentsia. It is believed that hisoutspokenness prompted his father to place himin prison for filial impiety, where he probablypainted his last artwork. During this turbulentperiod of incipient modernity, close readings ofSu Renshan’s paintings within the rich contextu-al history of art in Guangdong Province revealhow the trauma of war prompted a re-evalua-tion of social and political values, and indeedthe moral responsibility of a scholar-artist.

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