Chinese Graphic Design in the 20th Century - Hardcover

In the twentieth century, in the wake of the fall of the Qing dynasty, Chinese traditions were exposed to dramatic influences from outside the country, as well as rapid modernization from within. The book is built around an astonishing collection of graphics, brilliantly uncovered by the authors from long-forgotten sources, mostly in China itself, after surviving numerous upheavals, natural catastrophes, war and revolution. Using a wide range of media, from posters, advertisements and ephermera to book covers and magazine designs, Scott Minick and Jiao Ping surprise us with a dazzling panoply of images. Beginning with the basic traditions of Chinese graphics, they show how the writer and artist Lu Xun became the centre of cultural revival in the new China. Then we see Art Deco coming to China in the Shanghai Style, a mirror of the heady lifestyle of that great city in the Twenties and Thirties. Meantime, a dynamic national design style, born of Russian Constructivism and China's own drive for new technology, was soon to be forged. The Socialist Realist art of Mao in turn adopted folk art traditions to fuel the Revolutionary machine... And so to the present day, with the continuing search for a new identity seen in the graphic images of protest in the summer of 1989.Throughout, creative twentieth-century design ideas are expressed with a freshness and vitality that recalls the beauty and character of China's own traditions. The results are not only a clear commentary on China's recent history and culture, but a revelation for Western designers seeking to adapt traditional visual languages to the Postmodern world.