Complete Collection of Marine Paintings

Author: Lu Fushi, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-12-01
Features: Since the mid-19th century, a group of painters known as the "Haipai" or "Shanghai School" has gradually emerged in the history of Chinese art. Centered in Shanghai, they absorbed and led artistic forces from larger regions such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui. The scale of their painterly roster, the diversity of their styles, and their prominent influence as pioneers of the times' transformative trends all surpassed those of all previous local painting schools. However, if one attempts to categorize this artistic landscape strictly by the concept of a "school," it raises perplexing questions: it is neither a traditional painting school nor geographically defined, but rather largely characterized by ambiguity, pluralism, and fluidity, leading to varied interpretations and evaluations of the "Haipai" concept. The emergence and development of Haipai painting are inextricably linked to Shanghai's rapidly developed commodity economy. As a hub in the Far East after the Opium War, Shanghai not only fostered a diverse environment with unprecedented openness, where foreign immigrants lived intermingled, but also differentiated itself from traditional Chinese urban forms. Its strategic location at the crossroads of north and south and within the economically prosperous Yangtze River Delta region created unparalleled social tolerance and cultural sophistication, providing abundant conditions in terms of talent, material resources, and ideological support for the nourishment of arts and culture.
From Zhang Mingke's Collected Notes on Artistic Discourses in Cold Birch Trees, which records that "those who earned a living from farming also came to reside and sell paintings," to Yang Yi's Shanghai Ink Forest, which includes a vast number of painters from outside provinces during the late Qing Dynasty, it is evident that many painters gathered in Shanghai for various reasons. For instance, during the Wuxing and early Xianfeng periods, many sought refuge from war, while others sold their skills for a living or moved their families for safety. Later, from the mid-Xianfeng period onwards, more and more people relocated to Shanghai with aspirations to forge their careers or establish themselves, using Shanghai as their primary stage of activity. However, economic factors played a significant role as a prerequisite for their decisions. Notably, unlike the traditional merchant culture that supported the "Eight of Yangzhou," the main force behind Shanghai's art consumption mechanism shifted from neo-Confucian merchants who combined scholarly and commercial values to capitalist-era Haipai merchants and citizens with a merchant-like character. The former's legacy of ancient gentry culture and the "nurturing scholars" tradition was replaced by personal dependencies between painters and their major patrons or by the parallel relationship between the two classes.
To promote research on Haipai painting and bring this historical process, which has and continues to influence the direction of Chinese painting, into broader visibility, we have compiled a chronology of Shanghai painting, published The Complete Collection of Shanghai Painting, and invited scholars from around the world to write papers from various perspectives. We have also organized international academic seminars on Haipai painting. It is our hope that these new intellectual contributions will enrich existing understandings, inspire and encourage deeper and more comprehensive reflections on the phenomenon of Haipai painting. Only through such reflection can a truly effective starting point be identified.