Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-197).

This thesis examines the digital photo composites of Chinese artist Yang Yongliang (b. 1980, Shanghai) from 2007-2012 by selecting three distinct series that focus on three cities. This thesis approaches Yang’s Shanghai-based digital landscape prints (shuma shanshui), his 2012 series A Bowl of Taipei, and his 2010 series Greece, Greece and investigates how they relate to Asian art history, contemporary art discourse, and urban theories, including Rem Koolhaas’s 1995 essay “The Generic City.” This thesis moves beyond the simple binaries with which Yang’s works are often described – past versus present, nature versus city, tradition versus modernity – dichotomies similar to those used to characterize recent urbanization in most major cities, as observed in Koolhaas’s writing. This thesis argues that Yang’s works inhabit multiple positions simultaneously and offer new potentials for expanding beyond the generic city.

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Chinese art songs—which are derived from over four thousand years of Chinese culture and combine unique Chinese literary and musical flavors with Western compositional techniques—remain largely unknown in the Western world. Chinese art song, a treasure of a genre, deserves more attention from Western singers and scholars. With a population of 1.41 billion, China has the largest potential market for bel canto singing. Not only will studying Chinese art songs enrich a singer's worldview and repertoire choices, doing so will also be advantageous when singing internationally. In order to assist non-Chinese-speaking singers overcome the difficult language barrier that often prevents them from studying Chinese art songs, I have chosen six songs by the renowned early twentieth century Chinese composer, Huang Zi (1904–1938) to analyze. Although he remains virtually unknown in the Western scholarly world, Huang's Chinese art songs, which include both ancient and contemporary Chinese poetry as well as Chinese and Western musical characteristics, are representative of this genre. By analyzing the poetry and musical settings of six Chinese art songs by Huang Zi, providing pronunciation instructions for Mandarin Chinese, word-for-word and poetic translations, practical International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) transcriptions from the Pinyin system, and creating an interpretive guide of these songs, this project aims to help singers worldwide to prepare and perform Chinese art songs in a more expressive and authentic way. Taking this project as the first step, singers and scholars worldwide will be able to study and research more Chinese art songs and explore a new artistic world.

本論文希望透過研究故宮博物院於1961年前往美國進行的「中國古藝術品展覽」，解釋今天故宮的特殊角色與定位。除了期望說明故宮代表中華文化的論述如何形成與建立，同時也解釋故宮如何透過展覽的陳列與解說，來呈現國家與國族的形象與想像。通過研究故宮發展、故宮藏品與國家政權之間的互動，對於文化藝術與權力之間的關係作更深刻的思考。 今天故宮不僅被視為中華文化的象徵，甚至將故宮藏品當成「國寶」。但是如果我們嘗試分析故宮藏品，不難發現這些文物僅是中國皇室收藏的珍奇異品。不過最近幾年，由於台灣社會、政治的變遷，故宮的獨尊地位開始受到挑戰。現任故宮院長杜正勝就質疑前任院長秦孝儀塑造故宮為華夏民族博物館的作法，否定台北故宮和北京故宮有前、後繼承的關係；並主張台北故宮的典藏政策不需要依循「國寶」的脈絡。由於這樣的質疑與轉變，使得故宮在中國文化上所代表的正統與典範地位，以及故宮和國家、政權之間的關係得以被重新思考。 今天，我們之所以認為博物館能夠傳達國族或文化的概念，主要正是因為博物館將收藏的文物「有意識」的重新加以排列展示，因而得以將國家、文化的發展脈絡，具體的呈現在人們眼前。國家對於藝術品的保存與展示，逐漸變成定義一個國家、文化傳統的重要媒介。展覽不僅呈現文化遺產，還進一步將國家發展歷史「展示」出來，經由重新脈絡化來宣揚國族與文化。例如日本過去經常藉由博覽會與展覽貶抑中國，並積極塑造日本成為「亞洲藝術遺產的守護者」。而故宮對外展覽，其實正是開始爭取中國對外形象的塑造以及發言權，甚至彰顯中國在東方藝術與文化上的重要地位。 因此本論文以1961年故宮前往美國五大城市舉行為期近一年的「中國古藝術品展覽」為例，探討故宮如何透過展覽的展示與解說，塑造中國國族的歷史與想像，同時建立中國藝術的「經典」，因此影響了西方對於中國藝術的論述與評價。這場展覽是中華民國政府播遷到台灣之後，國家級文物首次大規模的出國展覽。不僅由創辦《時代》（Time）、《財星》（Fortune）、《生活》（Life）等刊物的媒體鉅子亨利魯斯提出邀請，並出任贊助人。同時，中、美兩國元首擔任名譽倡導人，展覽期間更是備受官方與學術界的矚目。但此時世界局勢不穩，似乎沒有必要大張旗鼓安排故宮文物前往美國展覽。另一方面，由於中華民國與中華人民共和國政府互相爭奪正統，雙方都透過外交與司法途徑互相角力，爭取中國的代表權。如果中共借題發揮，這批參展文物極有可能被中華人民共和國政府收回，因此故宮赴外展覽的動作，格外引人矚目。 故宮博物院從建館以來，受限於經費及政治因素，對於收藏文物展示的時間並不長，研究工作也無從展開，只能偏重於清點工作。可是為了赴外展覽，必須編寫展覽目錄，勢必集合學者著手檢討文物的真假、年代與作者。也因為要對外展現「中國」，而必須對文物重新編排、解釋。因此，故宮赴外展覽確實是一個討論與觀察中國近代國族建構論述形成的特殊視角。故宮如何對外呈現、宣揚「中國」文化與藝術，其實正是具體展現故宮如何形塑與建構「中國」國族與文化的論述與想像。尤其是在前文所述的特殊歷史時空下，究竟展覽中呈現出怎樣的「中國」圖像，應該是一個相當值得探討的議題。因此，這個深受各方重視，又在敏感時機出國的展覽，如何選擇足以代表中國藝術與文化的作品，並以怎樣的方式展示，標示出民族國家框架下定義的中國，便是本研究試圖探討的議題。 本文希望強調故宮赴外展覽往往和國族形象的建構以及文化外交有密切的關係，因為展覽的特殊目的，因此影響了故宮在文化與藝術上的意義。也就是說，故宮今天獨特的地位和赴外展覽中的國族論述以及審美的展示方式有密切關係，而也正是因為故宮的特殊背景，賦予這些藏品更深的民族、國家意涵。 / The National Palace Museum has generally been considered as representing the culture of China and, for many years, the collection of the National Palace Museum was considered representative of traditional Chinese art. It has also been used by the Nationalist government in Taiwan as a symbol of legitimacy for the Republic of China. However, the society and politics of Taiwan have changed recently leading to an introspection for the foregoing opinions. The current director of the National Palace Museum, Tu Cheng-sheng, has questioned the transformation of the institution from the prototype of an imperial museum into a national art museum. Because attitudes about nations and cultures have changed, we can rethink why and how the National Palace Museum took on its role as representation of Chinese culture and the significance of its role in the history of modern China. Museums are important in shaping knowledge, in defining identities, and in representing culture. Since the late eighteenth-century in Europe, the modern museum has been a powerful apparatus for supporting the idea of the nation-state by exhibiting culture. Many recent studies on the establishment of the Louvre and other European national museums have demonstrated how these museums and their collection represent culture and establish canons through exhibitions. But in the past research, there has not been much discussion about how the National Palace Museum practices representation of culture through the images of art works displayed or exhibited in the museum. In 1961 The Chinese Art Treasures exhibition toured five major cities, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. This exhibition of works from the National Palace Museum was organized on the invitation of the United States government for the purpose of instilling cultural understanding. At the same time, the exhibition was organized with a clear political agenda—to counter the threat from the Communist government who wanted to take back the collection. This paper will discuss how the exhibition The Chinese Art Treasures was used to define the Republic of China’s national sovereignty and to represent Chinese culture. The exhibition was held during the period when the conflict between the Republic of China under the Nationalist (the KMT) and the People's Republic of China over political legitimacy was the most heated and tense. This paper hopes to illustrate how the KMT employed the exhibition to proclaim the Republic of China’s firm stance in its claim of sovereignty over China and to demonstrate how the exhibition solidified the National Palace Museum’s role as the representation of the five thousand-year cultural legacy of China.

This thesis examines the political pop art of contemporary Chinese artist Wang Guangyi in light contemporaneous shifts within the political, economic, and artistic space of China from 1978 until the present. Through an analysis of the work of art as an historically determined antagonistic aesthetic praxis, this thesis attempts to reveal the sedimented traces of the alternative modernity which the Chinese government is actively attempting to construct. With its evocative juxtaposition of contrasting ideological forms, the artwork of Wang Guangyi seeks to deconstruct the normative and teleological narratives encountered within the dialectic interplay between state sponsored transnational capitalism and Marxist-Leninist communism. An understanding of the discursive structure upon which these dual modernising narratives has been based, and of the fragmented artistic space they have engendered, should serve to enliven the debate concerning the role of cultural production in questioning and revealing narratives of the nation, of the Self, and of modernity.

This thesis examines the political pop art of contemporary Chinese artist Wang Guangyi in light contemporaneous shifts within the political, economic, and artistic space of China from 1978 until the present. Through an analysis of the work of art as an historically determined antagonistic aesthetic praxis, this thesis attempts to reveal the sedimented traces of the alternative modernity which the Chinese government is actively attempting to construct. With its evocative juxtaposition of contrasting ideological forms, the artwork of Wang Guangyi seeks to deconstruct the normative and teleological narratives encountered within the dialectic interplay between state sponsored transnational capitalism and Marxist-Leninist communism. An understanding of the discursive structure upon which these dual modernising narratives has been based, and of the fragmented artistic space they have engendered, should serve to enliven the debate concerning the role of cultural production in questioning and revealing narratives of the nation, of the Self, and of modernity.

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The research aims to provide an alternative working methodology from the perspective of a contemporary Chinese artist, not a calligrapher, to answer the research question: how does one create new works of calligraphy an art so burdened with historical tradition? This is practice based research; the designed pattern of study aims to test and to exemplify the relationship, and also most importantly based on the nature of the investigation and practical necessity, the strategy of the research project is implemented in a dialectical construction as the title of the thesis suggests.

This dissertation identifies a paradox at the heart of the visual culture of Song-dynasty (960-1279) Buddhism. On the one hand, as the celestial pantheon expanded, it was conceptualized in ever more bureaucratic ways, mirroring the growth of the terrestrial government itself. On the other hand, the boundary separating that supramundane realm from the human world became decidedly more permeable; ghosts and deities became an omnipresent part of daily life. How to treat these two contradictory phenomena--one pointing to rational orderliness, the other pointing to unpredictable unruliness--posed a distinct problem for Song visual artists, spurring the development of new strategies of pictorial representation and forcing reflection upon the nature of representation itself. Chinese Buddhist art was never to be the same again. I argue that the key to understanding these new forms of art lies in the Water-Land Retreat (Shuilu zhai), a massive, icon-filled ritual of decidedly cosmic pretensions. The patterns of practice and strategies of visual representation associated with this ritual constitute a system that radically broke with earlier Chinese tradition. Practitioners of the liturgy created an open ritual syntax that allowed it to take on myriad forms in accordance with its sponsors’ needs, while also allowing it to absorb deities and practices from non-Buddhist traditions. This dissertation examines these phenomena in three parts. Part 1 excavates the social place, methods of practice, and visual profile of the Water-Land Retreat in and around the Song. Relying extensively on paintings from the Jiangnan region, cliff carvings from Sichuan, and numerous liturgical manuscripts, I argue that image and practice are inextricably bound in this ritual. Part 2 focuses on the motif of the cloud in Water-Land-related images and texts. Through an examination of images of cloud-borne descending deities, I contend that this nebulous motif became the locus for reflection on the mediational nature of representation. Finally, Part 3 addresses the bureaucratization of ritual practice and pictorial production in Song Buddhism. I argue that practitioners of the Water-Land Retreat simultaneously embraced and transcended a bureaucratic idiom drawn from Daoism and contemporary government to create a new Buddhist vision of the cosmos. / History of Art and Architecture