Cheng Man-ch'ing and the Shanghai Art College

The Modernization of Chinese Art: The Shanghai Art College, 1913-1937 by Jane Zheng

Leuven University Press, 2016

Hardcover, 416 pages

€69.50

ISBN: 9789462700567

Cheng Man-ch'ing (Zheng Manqing) was a well-known artist in his twenties when he became a professor at the Shanghai Art College in the 1920s. He taught in its Traditional Painting Department (his aunt, Zhang Hongwei, a highly respected painter, also taught at the school).

A new book, The Modernization of Chinese Art: The Shanghai Art College, 1913-1937, by art historian Jane Zheng, covers the period of Cheng's tenure at the school before the outbreak of war.
The world of art was changing as rapidly as everything else was in China: the traditional master-disciple training was supplanted by school instruction; art was exhibited and sold in galleries rather than through patronage and connections; and artists were training for new occupations such as art education and commercial art (advertising, illustration, scenery). One particularly controversial arena was the adoption of Western styles of art and modes of instruction such as life drawing (the school gained noteriety for its "Nude Model incident"), and use of oil paints and other non-traditional media.

While Cheng Man-ch'ing is not a main subject of this fascinating book, through it one can get a better picture of the huge societal changes that gripped China and the nuances, politics, and personalities of the art world that dramatically affected Cheng's life.

Cheng Man-ch'ing on Women's Health

Cheng Man-ch'ing was, from the 1930s on, a practicing doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. He wrote several books on Chinese medicine topics related to women's health, cancer, and orthopedics, as well as newspaper columns on meditation and tai chi. His books on medicine discuss theory, application, cases, and prescriptions, and give insight into how Cheng thought about medicine.
The complete Insights on Women's Medicine (女科心法Nu'ke xinfa) has just been released, translated by Douglas Wile, who also writes an extensive introduction to the work, giving the historical context of twentieth-century Chinese medicine and Cheng's place in it. The book is published by Sweet Ch'i Press (order through Redwing Books). Wile, formerly professor of Chinese at Brooklyn College, is a prolific translator, having previously translated and annotated several books: Thirteen Chapters, Cheng Man-ch'ing's Advanced Form Instruction, Zheng Manqing's Uncollected Writings, as well as Lost T'ai Chi Classics, T'ai Chi Touchstones: Yang Family Secrets, Tai Chi's Ancestors, and The Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics.