MISCONCEPTIONS OF CHINESE ART EDUCATION IN THE 20th CENTURY

ABSTRACT

The development of fine arts in any country finally extends to the main part, which is art education. And art education is divided into conceptual education and practical teaching. In the practical teaching of art education, many problems will inevitably arise, and most of these problems come from the classification of education, and the differences in ideas and concepts will inevitably cause teaching mistakes: people attach importance to the professional education of art and despise the art education in general education, and this will inevitably cause misunderstanding to the later art education.

АННОТАЦИЯ

Развитие изобразительного искусства в любой стране, в основном, связано с художественным образованием. А художественное образование состоит из концептуального образования и практического обучения. В практическом преподавании художественного образования неизбежно возникнет множество проблем, и большая часть этих проблем исходит из классификации образования. Здесь различия в идеях и понятиях неизбежно вызовут ошибки преподавания: люди придают значение профессиональному образованию искусства и презирают художественное образование в общем образовании, и это неизбежно вызовет диссонанс в дальнейшем художественном образовании.

Keywords: art education, educational misunderstanding, direction of art education

Ключевые слова: художественное образование, образовательное непонимание, направление, диссонанс, изобразительное искусство. 

Introduction：

Chinese art education in the twentieth century has gone through many important changes and developments. From the foreign affairs movement at the end of the Qing Dynasty to the rise of the New Culture Movement to the socialist transformation after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the change of the context of the times has had a far-reaching impact on Chinese art education. However, in this process, many misunderstandings have also emerged in Chinese art education, especially in the process of dual borrowing from traditional art education and Western modern art education, the problem of how to balance innovation and inheritance has gradually emerged. These misunderstandings have not only affected the creative direction of artists, but also affected the whole society's perception of the function of art education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss several major misconceptions in Chinese art education in the 20th century, analyze their root causes and their impact on art creation and the education system, with a view to providing reflection and reference for the development of contemporary art education. Before the term "art" was really introduced in China, all art teaching in China was basically a master-apprentice relationship, i.e., discipleship and continuation and inheritance, so that at that time all those who learned the art, including masters, learned to make drawings in order to pass on the craft. This also indirectly led to one of the important reasons for the existence of two types of disputes in art education after the founding of new China, these teachers and disciples have been to maintain the "original heart"^[1], only copying and inheritance, and there is no substantial artistic renewal, but only to add their own styles into the various schools, but they also have achievements. But there was no substantial epochmaking innovation in the long history of art. After this, art, the word proposed, including Mr. Cai Yuanpei's^[2] concept of aesthetic education, suddenly caused a burst of art and education forum disputes, and then art education was divided into two major categories of art (professional art) and folk art (art in the general education system), which are divided into two major categories of art and different levels, and the status of masters and pupils in these different levels are divided into different levels of different components. The two categories are divided into different levels, and within these levels, the status of masters and apprentices is divided into different components [10, p. 14-16].

With the gradual reform of China's education system, art education was gradually emphasized as the "moral, intellectual, and physical" curriculum of 1957 developed into the "moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic" comprehensive quality education of 1999 [8, p. 92-94]. In the beginning, art education was simply a part of the junior high school curriculum, but in 1997, art courses were gradually introduced in senior high schools, and with the further decision of the National Education Commission to require high schools and universities with the necessary conditions to offer art courses or majors in art, art education has become an important part of the education reforms. Behind these exciting educational reforms there are still some misconceptions, some misconceptions about art education. These problems can be traced back to historical residual problems, can also be found in the current education, and these problems mixed together, gradually became the complete development of China's art education obstacles, and at that time the most fatal educational problem is that educators are basically blind to the emergence of the problem and the development of the attitude of the problem, including today there are still residual problems have not yet been resolved, and I hope that the following points of view can be put forward so that it is hoped that the following ideas will be put forward so that all art education practitioners and art educators today and even in the future will pay attention to and should discuss with each other substantive solutions to this problem.

Materials and methods

Definition of one-sided thinking

The problem of art education in China in the 20th century was that it emphasized "pure art" at the expense of practical art. At that time, there were only a few arts and crafts colleges in China, but there were three times as many professional art colleges, and although these colleges had courses in practical art, the faculty and facilities were far from being as good as those of pure arts and crafts colleges. and purely arts and crafts colleges. The existence of this problem can be traced back to Chinese history, because in Chinese history there exists a tradition of "emphasizing cultural education", while the opposite of pure art education and pure art creation are dominated by scholars and writers, and the practical art (arts and crafts) belongs to the craftsmen^[3], and so has always been belittled [9]. This concept is not right, but so far there is still this serious problem, people are more aware of the exhibition hall painters or sales painters, and do not know the craft artists, and even do not know the craft. Seeing this situation, it has also been put forward to be emphasized, and some titles have been issued for some accomplished craft artists, but it has not shaken the deep-rooted stubborn ideas in people's hearts. The second reason was to learn from the Soviet Union's method of constructing many art colleges and universities mainly for pure art education and pure art creation, in order to strengthen the socialist ideology education with the political propaganda at that time, so there are a lot of political subjects or creative direction setting, but later this function was diluted, ⁷With China’s reform and opening up in 1978, the country’s center of gravity gradually shifted to economic construction, people need more goods, and professional art graduates, it is difficult to find employment after graduation, oversupply of this problem has existed until now. With the reform of the education system, the rapid development of economic construction, the country’s demand for more practical talents has become a surge, so leading to pure art learners have to consider spending money on professional art courses in the future, the development of the law of the market has an impact on art education, and even at that time has been made on the unreasonable proportion of the two warnings, but at that time did not get the importance of the time, if then the opening of the College of Arts and Crafts, compression and consolidation of pure art education colleges and schools. College of Arts and Crafts, compression and merger of pure art education colleges, rather than the current fine arts colleges at both ends, wanting to retain the pure art profession but also want to develop practical all right in order to comply with the social development of human resources training, which will ultimately lead to no long boards are short boards, and ultimately will be faced with the danger of being eliminated [9, p. 30-32]. 

Picture 1. The former site of Shanghai Fine Arts College

The former site of Shanghai Fine Arts College, the only site preserved to this day.

Emphasis on Professional Teaching and Neglect of General Art Education

Continuing to extend the topic just now, at that time in the whole of China’s art education, the best art education resources to ensure that the first professional colleges and universities, as well as talent and school hardware and software facilities first to professional colleges and universities, professional colleges and universities enrollment ratio is much higher than the general colleges and universities or teacher training colleges and universities, so at that time there were also professional art school teachers enjoy a variety of preferential treatment is more, and at that time the other general colleges and universities of the arts Educators do not have this treatment, so it leads to an imbalance in the heart of the educators, so it also leads to the tendency of brain drain, a lot of professionals from the ordinary colleges and universities into the professional art schools, while the ordinary colleges and universities and teacher training universities at the time of the second level of the art college, the loss of professional art talent, leading to another imbalance in art education.^[4]

Picture 2. Classes of Western Painting

Classes of Western Painting, Sculpture, Watercolor, Photography and Chinese Painting at Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts (Exhibits of ‘A Hundred Years of Witness: Liu Haisu and Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts Education Reform Research Exhibition,’ Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai) In the exploration of aesthetic education at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, the sensational ‘Mannequin Controversy’ is a landmark event. In China at the time, the hiring of mannequins was a gradual process: in March 1915, a 15-year-old child was hired as a model. After that, it took a long time to recruit adult male models. It was only in July 1920 that female models began to appear, and the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts became the first art school in China to employ female nude models.

Under the education system at that time, the state attached importance to teacher education and gave certain subsidies and support to teachers and students of teacher education, but the duration of teacher art education was only two years, which was a relatively short period of time, including in the universities nowadays it is still the same, only divided into majors such as Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, design and so on in the second year of the university or the third year of the university. These are far less than the four years that students in professional art colleges spend studying specialized courses. The professional level of the students who came out in this way was a little higher than that of the art students who were not divided into majors, but from the point of view of pure artistic talents, they were still much inferior to the talents of the professional art colleges. At the same time, the students who were trained or practiced in different specialties at that time further strengthened the idea of aspiring to pure art, and at the same time created the idea of "belittling the general art education" and aspiring to work professionally after graduation, and so these art students who graduated from the general universities were lost from the education system from the moment they left the school. 

However, the problem that exists to this day is that most of the art students who graduated from general colleges and universities are not comparable to those who graduated from professional colleges and universities in terms of their thinking and creativity, and for various reasons, it is not easy for them to become professionals, so there are many of them who have switched to other professions, and the teacher training that was initially given to them has not been continued, but instead has created the so-called "art practitioners" that are not in keeping with the society. Practitioners into the circle of early childhood art education, art education from the children have begun to show the wrong concept of art and art creation thinking, more children have a passive way of painting, passive way of creation in the early childhood once ingrained, to be difficult to correct and modify the child grows up, this batch of children grow up will be because of the narrow way of creation.  When these children grow up, they will enter nonprofessional colleges to study, forming a closed vicious circle. Therefore, the treatment and status of teachers in non-professional colleges and universities must be upgraded, so that they have a goal, something to aim for and a direction to follow. Only by doing so can we further ensure that there is no loss of talent^[5], and that the stability of talent and the balance of art education can be achieved, and that there will be a certain positive guidance on the cause of art education in the society [6, p. 15-27].

Emphasis on art theory education

All scholars must have a teacher, who preach and teach to solve puzzles. In the learning of all professional skills will encounter the so-called bottleneck, at this time you need to have a teacher to tell you how to get through, which is the significance of the existence of the teacher, but for example, if the teacher also encountered a problem, the teacher’s teacher also encountered a difficult problem, then this time is the need to study and explore the truth from the theory. At that time, including the current professional art colleges and universities, in order to cultivate artists as the primary goal^[6], generally set the professional skills course as a mandatory course, but the history and theory course is only for the cultivation of specific talents and opened, and the study time is limited, and can't learn a lot of profound history and theory of the cultural heritage, which led to the later encountered bottlenecks in the students, and will lead to the student's lack of cultural heritage, the creative work can’t go far [9, p. 100-112]. Deficiencies in historical and theoretical attempts, which are by far the most prevalent problem for students, including clerical errors, misspellings, and writing mistakes, are a problem of cultural underpinnings, as well as a problem of theoretical education. Students' responses to papers or expository questions are largely devoid of key words or clear logic. Therefore, it was difficult to find well-rounded talents as students with good professional grades failed in their cultural courses and students with good cultural courses failed in their professional grades. At that time, most of the graduates of professional art colleges and universities into the field of higher art education, certainly extended their own then hit the learning thinking, will bring the wrong thinking to the students, but also the formation of a vicious closed-loop cycle, do not pay attention to the study of theory, resulting in students frequently encountered the bottleneck of the creative process. In this problem, the first lack of art appreciation^[7] teachers, teaching a person to appreciate beauty, so that he has this ability is more important than letting him become a professional art talent, and at that time, no matter professional colleges and universities or teacher training colleges are unable to provide qualified teachers of art appreciation courses, so the art theory courses or appreciation courses in primary and secondary schools are all virtually non-existent; the art theory courses and history courses in colleges and universities are even more inadequate (were even more deficient).

Picture 3. The first academy magazine "Fine Arts"

Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts edited and published the first academy magazine "Fine Arts", which is also the earliest professional art magazine in modern China. From 1918 to 1922, a total of eight issues of the magazine were published, with the main focus on the history of Chinese and foreign ancient and modern art, the theory of painters, the theory of schools of painting, the study of art teaching and reporting on important art activities at home and abroad, supplemented by the publication of art works related to the text of the plate, which focuses on the introduction of Western art of color, perspective, composition, art anatomy, sketching, drawing and other disciplines and reporting on the domestic and international activities of the new art, as well as publishing current commentary on the current situation of the domestic art world. At the same time, it is important that it published current commentary on the current situation of the domestic art world. This is the cover of the first issue of Fine Arts.

Results

The misconceptions of Chinese art education in the 20th century are manifested in a number of ways, mainly including the following:

1. Blind imitation of Western educational models: During the early modernization and reform process, especially after the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement, Chinese art education borrowed excessively from Western artistic concepts and teaching models, neglecting the inheritance and innovation of local culture. Many art schools and teachers tended to regard Western art theories and techniques as the only standards, leading to the gradual marginalization of China's indigenous art styles and traditional techniques.

2. Politicized art education: In the twentieth century, especially during the Cultural Revolution, art education was overly politicized, and artistic creation was required to serve political propaganda. The function of art education changed from aesthetic cultivation and the teaching of creative skills to a political tool, resulting in the suppression of the freedom and diversity of artistic creation and the neglect of the cultivation of the spirit of innovation.

3. Neglect of basic training and inheritance of traditional techniques: With social changes and changes in educational thinking, basic skills training and traditional painting techniques have been gradually marginalized. Many art schools began to overemphasize ideological and expressive training, neglecting the systematic training of students' painting skills and in-depth understanding of traditional art.

Discussion

The existence of these misconceptions has profoundly affected the development direction of Chinese art education. First of all, blind imitation of the Western art education model ignores the uniqueness of traditional Chinese culture and art, resulting in the dilemma of the lack of cultural roots in Chinese art creation. Although Western art concepts have played a positive role in the formation of Chinese modern art, excessive imitation has caused Chinese art to lose its independent cultural identity and failed to effectively integrate and innovate Western modern art with traditional Chinese art.

Secondly, the politicized art education in the mid-20th century caused great suppression of art education, which not only stifled the free expression of art, but also limited the development of artists' individuality and creativity. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, the politicization and homogenization of art creation made art works become political tools, and the real function of art could not be effectively brought into play.

Finally, the neglect of basic training and the inheritance of traditional techniques has made many young artists fail to grasp the essence of traditional techniques and artistic thinking, resulting in a lack of technicality and expressiveness in modern art creation. At the same time, the lack of basic training has also caused art education to be detached from the relationship between "technique" and "art" itself, affecting students' overall understanding of art.

Therefore, recognizing these historical misunderstandings, Chinese art education in the future should pay more attention to the balance between cultural inheritance and innovation, borrowing Western artistic ideas and techniques without losing respect for and promoting local culture. At the same time, it should get rid of the fetters of politicized education, emphasize the free expression of artistic creation, cultivate students' individuality and critical thinking, and promote the overall development of Chinese art education.

Conclusion

A study of the misconceptions of Chinese art education in the twentieth century reveals that the blind imitation of Western art education models, the neglect of traditional art education, and the bias of education in the midst of political change have profoundly affected the direction and quality of Chinese art education. Especially in the context of "revolutionary" education, free artistic expression was often suppressed, and the overemphasis on political functions and formalism caused many artists and students to lose their pursuit of the true meaning of art. In addition, the lack of in-depth inheritance of traditional art techniques within the art education system has also caused many young artists to alienate themselves from traditional culture in their creative work. In order to avoid these misunderstandings, future art education needs to better integrate tradition and modernity, and combine theory and practice, while focusing on the development of students' artistic personalities, encouraging innovation and critical thinking, and promoting the development of China's art education system in a more diversified and open direction. In the current art education, we must pay attention to the historical problems, art does not distinguish between national boundaries, so does art, all of us art practitioners should discuss and deliberate on how to deal with and solve all the current educational problems, open up our minds, pay attention to aesthetic education, pay attention to and raise the importance of art education in general art colleges and universities, and pay more attention to the study and research of art theories, theories are generated from the historical theories, and should be synthesized to give the historical theories and theories. Theories are born from historical theories, and the residual problems given by historical theories should be synthesized to make a better revision plan, so that our future generations can learn and live in a correct, comprehensive and systematic art education.

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