| dc.description.abstract | This paper studies the life and works of Yu Ming (1884-1935), a painter living in the transition period from the Qing dynasty to the Republic. Based on in-depth historical research, it uncovers Yu Ming’s activities; it also collects a large number of images of Yu Ming’s works for stylistic analysis, so as to delineate changes in his artistic style through his career, trace the different visual resources that Yu Ming used in his works, and figure out how he formulated his unique figure painting style.
Apart from the introduction and conclusion, this paper is divided into three chapters, chronologically arranged, based on Yu Ming’s main activities: Shanghai in his youth, Beijing in his prime years, and then back to Shanghai, where he lived in seclusion. In Chapter One, by sorting through historical materials on Yu Ming’s uncle, Yu Yuan (俞原, 1874-1922), and on the artists’ guild “Haishang Tijinguan” 海上題襟館, in which Yu Ming participated, we can understand the advantages that Yu Ming had when he started his career, e.g., getting advice from the famous Shanghai calligrapher Chu Deyi (褚德彝, 1871-1942), who knew Yu Ming via his uncle, being invited by Jin Cheng (or Kungpah T. King金城, 1878-1926) to see the “Antiquities Display Hall” 古物陳列所 in 1914-1915. The second part of the chapter analyzes some of Yu Ming′s early works—a series of magazine covers for the literary journal Novel Daily News 小說新報—in order to understand the Western painting techniques that Yu Ming had mastered. The first section of Chapter Two discusses Beijing art circles in the early Republic era and the important figures, associations, and cultural activities related to Yu Ming. The second part, which analyzes Yu Ming’s works from this period, shows that they may be divided into three categories: imitations, collaborative works, and Yu Ming’s own creative works. The first part of Chapter Three sorts through historical materials in order to shed some light on Yu Ming’s living situation after he returned to Shanghai. He resumed contact with his old Shanghai acquaintances while keeping in touch with his friends in Beijing. The second part categorizes Yu Ming’s works in this period by theme: beauties, historical figures, hermits, and Buddhist figures. Through stylistic analysis, we can understand how the characteristics of his past experience with imitations reflect on the works of this period, and how the originality of Yu Ming’s work is manifested. | en_US |