Chinese Art and Its Encounter with the World

The book offers a bridge into the critical understanding of modern Chinese art through its encounter with the world beyond China’s borders. David Clarke demonstrates Chinese art’s interconnections with Western cultures while exploring its inherited cultural traditions and internal historical change.

The first section deals with the cross-cultural trajectories of individual Chinese artists who traveled from China to the West and then returned. The focus then shifts from the movement of individual artists between cultures to the process by which specific genres of Western art have been interpreted by Chinese artists. The final section illuminates the encounter of cultures via visual representations of Macau and Hong Kong.

David Clarke is Professor in the Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in 1983 and has lived in Hong Kong since 1986. He has written extensively on both Chinese and Western art and culture, with a primary focus on the twentieth century. Amongst Clarke’s books are: Water and Art (Reaktion Books, 2010), Hong Kong x 24 x 365: A Year in the Life of a City (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization (Duke University Press, 2002), and Modern Chinese Art (Oxford University Press, 2000).

“Flawlessly researched and offering a wealth of information on topics that have not been studies in depth before, it is an important addition for the understanding of Chinese art in general.” —Frank Vigneron, Chinese University of Hong Kong