Drawn along cultural lines
From his observations of life in the Yangtze River Delta region, illustrations of classic poems to his famous interpretation of the Monkey King, Zhang Guangyu's artworks are finally collected in a new series of books, Fang Aiqing reports.
Zhang's comics and illustrations during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the following civil war in the late 1940s shone a light on a dark situation and offered encouragement to people at the time.
Xiyou Manji, comprising 60 comics, was completed and put on display in the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu in Southwest China in 1945. Its exhibition was banned in Shanghai the following year, however, as Zhang's work was seen to criticize the economic collapse and oppression toward intellectuals.
On the other hand, Minjian Qingge was one of Zhang's earlier representative works. It's a series of drawings based on ancient folk poems and songs collected by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) writer Feng Menglong.
By using clear, pliable lines, the paintings demonstrate the lively atmosphere of the countryside and small towns around the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, where Zhang was born and raised.
"It not only presents Zhang's deep understanding of Chinese folk woodblock printing, but also shows the influence of German painters' precision and the exaggerated style of Mexican painter Miguel Covarrubias (1904-57)," Ye Qianyu once commented on the work.
