Reflection B_FAH262H1-F 2024
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FAH262H1-F 2024
Art and Visual Experience of Modern and Contemporary East Asia
Art History, University of Toronto
Fall 2024, Thurs 5-7pm, Sidney Smith Hall 2135
Instructor: Gary Wang
Office Hours: Fri 11am-12pm, and by appointment via Zoom
Email: emailgary.wang@mail.utoronto.ca

Reflection B: Weeks 7 to 12

Length: Roughly 3-4 pages (750-1,000 words)
Citation Style: Chicago (footnotes/endnotes and Works Cited)
Due Date: Nov 28, 2024
(please note that we cannot accept assignments after Dec 5, when final exams begin)

**You may choose to work individually, in pairs, or as a group of up to 4 members for this
assignment. Please add yourselves to a group on Quercus, even if you decide to work alone.

Assignment Overview:

For this assignment, reflect on what interests you most in the second half of this course,
focusing on one object OR a juxtaposition of two objects that were discussed in class. You may
select these from the lecture slides or the Key Images lists on Quercus. Your reflection should
explore how your chosen object(s) relate to the topics and themes from ONE or more of weeks
7 to 12. Consider how the readings from that week have helped you interpret and understand
your object(s) and their historical context and conditions of creation? Has learning more about
these contexts changed your response to the works? Are there aspects of the object(s) that
remain unclear or particularly intriguing to you? If you have encountered the object(s) before,
reflect on how you responded to and interpreted them initially, and how your perspective has
evolved in light of the course content from your selected week.

Depending on what objects you choose, you may want to draw connections to what we covered
in the first half of the course, which focused on Japan. How have developments in Japan since
the Meiji period remained relevant to our focus in the second half of the course on the art and
visual culture of modern China and modern Korea?

The following are some possible topics and themes you

Reflection B_FAH262H1-F 2024
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• Chinese and Korean artists who trained at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts

• Nihonga “Japanese-style painting” as a mode of “East Asian” painting adopted
and practiced by Chinese and Korean artists

• The social role of art and aesthetic education according to Cai Yuanpei’s
“Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education” (1917)

• The formation of “national painting” (guohua 國畫) as a new category

• Calendar posters (yuefenpai 月分牌) as urban popular imagery

• The formation of the Modern Woodcut Movement (xiandai banhua 現代版畫) in
Republican China and a.) its relationship to calendar posters, or b.) its connection
to Japan’s “Creative Prints” movement (sosaku hang)

• “War Painting” (sensōga 戦争画) as a new category during Japan’s expansionist
period from the mid-1930s to mid-1940s, and/or what constitutes a “war
painting”?

• The role of propaganda posters (xuanchuanhua 宣傳畫) during the Mao years
(1949–1976) in China, as informed by Mao’s earlier Yan’an Talks in 1942

• Dansekhwa 단색화 “Monochrome Painting” as modern and contemporary
Korean abstraction

• Paintings of women and paintings by women

• Takashi Murakami’s concept of “superflat” and the relationship between
“modern” and “contemporary” art and visual culture in historical perspective
Submission:
Please submit your assignment online via Quercus by Nov 28, 2024. Make sure to include
Chicago-style footnotes/endnotes and a properly formatted Works Cited list. Only ONE member
of a pair or group needs to upload your completed document.