Modern Chinese Ink Paintings: A Century of New Directions

'Forgery, perhaps, is the sincerest form of artistic flattery: Zhang Daqian s now-classic fakes are wonderfully fulsome in that regard. Yet this giant of 20th-century Chinese art created works of immense originality too and these are every bit as faithful to tradition in their way. Contact with the West; revolutionary tumult; war ... modern history has had its influence, yet so too do older cycles the seasons; passing generations; life and death. So, Fu Baoshi s figures give a 20th-century spin to those of the 1st millennium; Liu Dan depicts a regenerative self-reduplicating natural world in which rocks represent the stem cells of a living landscape. Eternal questions are forever asked; familiar answers given fresh interpretations with audacity and flair.' --Michael Kerrigan, Saturday Scotsman 'Modern Chinese ink paintings examines the world of China's twentieth-century artists... showcased throughout are the amazing works of artists whose styles adapted hugely in a century of great change... whether reacting to the West or to the country's shifting politics, or to nostalgia for the imperial dynasties, it's an intriguing and often beautiful period of Chinese art.' --Traveller Magazine --Traveller Magazine