Paris and the Art of Transposition: Early Twentieth Century Sino-French Encounters

During the cultural and political push to modernize China after World War I, a brief stay in France was a crucial stepping stone for Chinese workers and Chinese Communist Party leaders. Paris and the Art of Transposition explores previously marginalized archives to reveal the artistic strategies employed by Chinese artists and writers in the early twentieth-century transnational imaginary and why Paris played such a central role in the global reception of modern Chinese literature and art. Angie Chau argues that transposition is a fluid and strategic art practice that depends on the tension between foreign and familiar, new and old, celebrating both novelty and recognition.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 226 pages
Publication date: 31 January 2024
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

For many Chinese workers and Chinese Communist Party leaders, a brief stay in France was a crucial stepping stone for their careers during the cultural and political push to modernize China after World War I. For the Chinese students who went abroad specifically to study Western art and literature, these trips meant something entirely different. Set against the backdrop of interwar Paris, Paris and the Art of Transposition uncovers previously marginalized archives to reveal the artistic strategies employed by Chinese artists and writers in the early twentieth-century transnational imaginary and to explain why Paris played such a central role in the global reception of modern Chinese literature and art.

While previous studies of Chinese modernism have focused on how Western modernist aesthetics were adapted or translated to the Chinese context, Angie Chau does the opposite by turning to Paris in the Chinese imaginary and discussing the literary and visual artwork of five artists who moved between France and China: the painter Chang Yu, the poet Li Jinfa, art critic Fu Lei, the painter Pan Yuliang, and the writer Xu Xu. Chau draws the idea of transposition from music theory, where it refers to shifting music from one key or clef to another, or to adapting a song originally composed for one instrument to be played by another. Transposing transposition to the study of art and literature, Chau uses the term to describe a fluid and strategic art practice that depends on the tension between foreign and familiar, new and old, celebrating both novelty and recognition—a process that occurs when a text gets placed into a fresh context.

Chau's study is a valuable contribution to the field of Chinese modernism, as it challenges traditional narratives of cultural exchange and highlights the complex and multifaceted ways in which Chinese artists and writers negotiated their identities and artistic practices in the global context of the early twentieth century. By examining the artistic strategies employed by these five artists, Chau demonstrates how they used the concept of transposition to create works that were both deeply rooted in their Chinese cultural heritage and also resonant with the broader modernist movements of the time. This approach not only sheds light on the ways in which Chinese artists and writers responded to the challenges of globalization but also provides a new lens through which to understand the complex and multifaceted relationship between China and the West in the early twentieth century.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472056514