Features of the Interpretation of Social Issues in Chinese “New Regionalism” Painting: Visualization of Oral History

The relevance of analyzing the specificity of artistic thinking of contemporary China is underscored by practical considerations within Russia’s strategic course for the development of the Far East and the further advancement of constructive dialogue with China. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to explicate the defining ideas and key motifs of socially oriented painting in China, i.e. painting that reveals the deep experiences of social memory through artistic means. To achieve this aim, the following tasks were addressed: to identify the characteristics of social painting in China and trace its genesis; to establish the connection between social painting and the phenomenon of “New Regionalism”; to highlight and describe the most important aspects that attract representatives of this school; to clarify the terminological features of naming this school “the Art of Northern China”; to briefly characterize the works of the most prominent painters representing this movement. The materials of the study included paintings by “New Regionalism” Chinese artists, as well as works by Russian and Chinese authors devoted to the topic of identity construction through artistic means. The methodological basis of the study was a historical and cultural approach to comparing the specifics of the evolution of social art from servility to the problematization of the goals of constructivist artistic practices. The study employed the biographical method to consider the socio-cultural background of “New Regionalism” and to identify conceptual narratives embedded in the depictions of contemporary socio-cultural reality. In addition, thematic analysis was applied to identify the priority themes of “New Regionalism” as represented in the works of Chinese scholars. As a result, it was established that the artistic expressions of “New Regionalism” can be viewed as a continuation of early social art of the 1950s — an innovative reinterpretation of the relationship between the unique and the universal, the social and the individual, and the regional, national and global. In conclusion, a key feature of Chinese social painting is its connection to the paradigm of social constructivism revealing the problematic nature of contemporary social relations. At the same time, the paintings show a genetic connection with the tradition of analyzing sociality as the unity of the individual and society, which allows for a more precise periodization within the historical periods of the PRC in the 20th–21st centuries. An important conclusion of this study is the clarification of the term “Art of Northern China”: Chinese authors use this concept metaphorically, exceeding the scope of a specific region. Further research on “New Regionalism” could trace the peculiarities of the reception of this movement in the West, as well as in Russia, both within the professional critic community and among the general public.

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