An enlightened man

At that time, it was a preparatory school for students who would later be sent by the government to study at universities in the US.

Wen Yiduo went on to study successively at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Colorado and the Art Students League of New York from 1922 to 1925.

Despite his outstanding academic performance, he returned home before his graduation and devoted his time mainly to theater, poetry and the study of Chinese ancient literature as he pondered China's future.

The renowned writer and historian Guo Moruo (1892-1978) once commented: "He studied history to criticize it and delved into the bowels of the past to sublate it. He continued to dig purposefully only to reach the other side with his aims still at the forefront of his mind."

Wen Yiduo made his first foray into art at Tsinghua in 1921 as a graphics editor of an oddly named yearbook titled, Tsinghuapper, where he drew 12 illustrations, the bookplate, an advertisement and most of the decorative patterns. He had yet to get any professional artistic training back then.

In one of his Beardsley-style illustrations, he drew a maiden dreaming of blossoms growing out of a pencil-mirroring an ancient Chinese fable-as she sleeps at a desk by candle light.