This engrossing book, a brilliant blend of biography and criticism, tells the story of Feng Zikai (1898-1975), one of the most gifted and important artists to emerge from the politically tumultuous decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Barme provides a closely woven parallel history, that of the life of writer-artist Feng, who was also an essayist and a translator, and that of China's turbulent twentieth century. He investigates Feng Zikai's aesthetic vision, its development, and how it relates to traditional and contemporary Chinese cultural values and debates.
Although Feng was known for his...