Lingnan School
They subsequently travelled to Japan, where they learned Western techniques of perspective and colour through the syncretic Nihonga school of painting, the influences of which remained throughout their lives.
Exhibitions and teaching positions allowed them to further promulgate their approach to art, and by the 1930s the Lingnan School had found broad acceptance and support with the Kuomintang government.
Arguing that complete Westernization was impossible, Gao called for a "universal syncretism" that took the useful elements of foreign art from all sources[6] – be it Egyptian, European, Indian, or Persian.
[7] Gao Qifeng understood the Lingnan School similarly, describing his approach in one lecture: I [...] picked out the finest points of Western art, such as the masterful strokes of the pen, composition, inking, coloring, inspiring background, poetic romance, etc.
[d][20] For these students, Japan offered insight into Western ideals and approaches to modernization, having adapted these throughout the Meiji era,[13] as well as freedom from traditional socio-cultural restrictions.
Their primary influences came from the syncretic Nihonga school of painting; Gao Jianfu is also reported to have joined more westernized Yōga organizations such as the White Horse Society.
[25] Croizier writes that the Shijō school and its syncretic influences, originating in Kyoto but promulgated throughout Japan by artists such as Takeuchi Seihō, was particularly influential.
Shijō-trained painters taught at several schools, including those attended by Chen Shuren and Gao Jianfu;[f][26] influence from Japan Fine Arts Exhibitions has also been noted.
[31] In the early years of the Republic of China, the Gaos withdrew from formal politics in favour of focusing on art, though they remained proponents of republican ideals, and became active in Shanghai; this city, a major cultural centre, offered the opportunity to promulgate their ideas.
[36] Through the Aesthetic Institute, the Gao brothers established The True Record in 1912, with Qifeng as editor-in-chief and Jianfu serving as editor alongside Huang Binhong.
[28] As a guest writer, Chen Shuren – still studying in Japan – serialized his translation of a book on painting methods derived from western traditions.
[43] Meanwhile, Gao Qifeng initially took a job at the Art and Printmaking Department at the Class A Industrial School,[44] also establishing the Aesthetics Museum on Fuxue West Street.
[14] Chen Shuren, having maintained close ties with the Chinese Republicans, left Japan in 1916 after graduating and travelled to Canada on government assignment; he only returned to China in 1922.
[54] Gao Jianfu enjoyed a solo exhibition in Nanjing in 1935,[55] which was widely praised; the May 4th Movement leader Luo Jialun declared his art to be "the hot blood of the revolution, refined and made into beauty".
[55] Chen Shuren, having spent much of the previous decade active in politics, likewise resumed painting extensively, travelling to Guilin in 1931 in search of material and holding a solo exhibition in Shanghai in the mid-1930s.
[58] He also undertook several trips to learn foreign art, including to Calcutta, Nepal, and the Ajanta Caves in 1930–1931, after which religious themes appeared in his works more frequently.
[59] Chen Shuren likewise travelled, visiting such popular vistas as the Great Wall of China, West Lake, and the Li River.
[77] No works of Gao Qifeng from this period are known to have survived, but Croizier notes evidence of Ju Lian's influence even in the paintings he produced after returning from Japan.
[76] Techniques advocated by Ju Lian, including controlling the flow of water to give form to "boneless" works and using white powder to produce a glossy effect, were adopted by his students.
[k][81] Works produced after the artists' Japanese studies continued to show these influences, giving what Grove Art Online describes as "strongly romantic yet realistic visions of storms, struggle, and heroic exertion.
[82] Despite similarities, the Lingnan masters differed in their techniques, such that Chen Shuren remarked to Gao Jianfu, "You partake of the strange and marvelous; I of the orthodox; Mr. Qifeng maintains a middle position.
[87] Paintings by Huang Shaoqiang are marked by bold outlines, with early works including colour usage that belie their Japanese origin.
[88] Portraits by Fang Rending, meanwhile, are marked by restrained outlines as well as what the critic Wu Zhao described as harmonious and innovative colour systems.
[89] Working through the 1950s, Chao Shao-an developed a style that placed less emphasis on realism, even as it continued the earlier tendency to use bright colours,[90] and used stronger brushwork.
[91] Li Xiongcai and Guan Shanyue, both of whom remained active in mainland China, expanded the Lingnan School with aspects of socialist realism.
After the Gao brothers and Chen Shuren studied in Japan, they expanded their subject matter to include larger animals such as tigers, lions, and eagles, as well as landscapes.
[99] Later, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Gao Jianfu produced several works that challenged the invading Imperial Japanese Army;[2] a 1939 exhibition in Macau with his students was permeated by such themes.
[100] Similarly, Gao Qifeng's student Huang Shaoqiang organized art exhibitions to raise money for the fight against the Japanese while also creating works that depicted the suffering of the common people.
The critic Wen Yuan-ning praised the school as breaking from "the same monotonous succession of birds on branches, tigers, eagles on rocks, lotus-flowers, pines, etc., drawn with very little variation from the manner of the ancients",[104] while Sun Yat-sen described their work as harkening a "new era of aesthetics that represents the revolutionary spirit".
[m][56] As relations between China and Japan soured in the 1930s, the Lingnan School's Japanese influences drew criticism that efforts to produce anti-Japanese art was unable to curtail.
