Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 8, 31 October 2023
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The Formalism Issue of Catholic Iconography in China
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Abstract
During the Republican period in China, the Catholic Church gradually developed and grew in China and made attempts to localize itself in different fields, one of which was the promotion of localized Catholic icon painting in the field of art. Due to the problem of divergence between Chinese and Western cultures and styles, formalistic expressions of these paintings emerged. As a representative practice of Catholic painting in China, Beiping Fu Jen Catholic University, with Chinese painting style as its main focus and Western style as its auxiliary, consciously innovated the expression of Catholic icon painting in China, however, in the expression of content and selection of subject matter, excessive emphasis was placed on Chinese visual language to cater to the tastes of Chinese audiences, and as the edifying function of Catholic painting failed to be exercised to a certain extent. There is still a certain degree of formalism. The development of Catholic painting in China needs to find a balance between the spirit of doctrine and Chinese visual culture, integrate Catholic aesthetics into the Chinese painting tradition, and create a new form of painting language, rather than the migration and appropriation of visual symbols.
Keywords
Catholic iconography, formalism, east-west art exchange, religious indigenization
References
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-039-4
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-040-0
- Published Date
- 31 October 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/8/20230985
- Copyright
- 31 October 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited