ABSTRACT
This chapter examines China’s art reform in the initial decades of the twentieth century from the angle of intellectual history. Cai Yuanpei, Minister of Education of the Republic of China, was the primary reason that art reform was a state priority. He personified the crucial link between the European influences and legacies in China. One of the transformative implications of the conceptual change about art was the connection between artistic creativity and nationhood and nation building. Art exhibitions were an aspect of art practice China adopted as a result of European influences and had considerable impact on China’s development of modern art practice. The first “art exhibition” open to the Chinese public appeared in 1910 in Nanjing, which was part of the International Exposition organised by the Qing government. Coinciding with the rapid development in the education and production of art was the increasingly prosperous printing industry, which encouraged and stimulated the establishment and wide circulation of newspapers and magazines.
