西洋繪畫的中國再詮釋－－由申報資料看中國現代化的一些視覺面向

Chinese Reinterpretations of Western Painting: Visual Trends as Seen through Shen-pao

比較1870年代與1930年代上海的轉變，最顯著的轉變因素來自於現代化的過程與西方的影響。由數十年的申報中篩檢出的藝術活動條目所呈現的，是中國現代化過程中視覺文化的某些面貌。本文企圖引用文化生態圈的概念，指出生態圈中的各階層常環環相扣，彼此牽動，任何一個環節的變動都將反饋到相鄰接的環節，進而衝擊整個生態圈。在視覺文化方面，當中國為新的西方觀念尋求相應的視覺圖像時，西方圖像隨之流入。西式的生活方式與商業行銷形態產生新的美術需求時，這個新的範圍也很快地接納西畫，而當西畫的範圍越來越廣，從事西畫的人口越來越多時，便自然產生了為西畫定義與分類的需求。在上海所觀察到的西畫引入現象，呈現的最大特徵是與物質生活密切相連的自發性，西畫在混亂中發展並自行尋找秩序。

The most obvious changes in Shanghai between the 1870s and 1930s derived from the process of modernization and the influence of the West. Articles on art activities that were printed in Shanghai's Shen-pao through the intervening decades shed light on certain aspects of visual culture through China's modernization process. This essay aims to use the cultural ecosphere concept and point out how, given the linkages among various levels in this ecosphere, any change in one link will affect all of the adjacent links and eventually have an impact on the entire ecosphere. In the area of visual culture, when China was searching for visual images that corresponded to new Western ideas, Western images began to flow in. When Western lifestyles and forms of marketing produced new demands in art, Western painting found ready acceptance, and as the scope of Western painting expanded and more and more people got involved in it, the demand for definitions of Western art and its categories also developed. The most distinctive aspects of the introduction of Western painting to Shanghai were the spontaneity of its close links with material life and the way Western painting found its own order in the midst of chaotic development.