The influence of the Itinerants' creative ideas on Chinese realistic painting

The article analyzes the influence of the Itinerants' creative ideas on Chinese realistic painting, the development of which is inseparable from the study of the Itinerants. The article examines how the painting technique and ideology of the Association of Itinerant Art Exhibitions founded in the late 19th century are relevant to many 20th-century Chinese artists. The authors identify the ideological principles of the Itinerant movement that have influenced different generations of Chinese artists (rejection of the “art for art's sake” principle, emphasis on national characteristics of painting, responsibility for reflecting the life of people in the country, advocating the spirit of critical realism as the only true way to reflect life in art) and prove that without Russian Itinerants there would be no Chinese realism in painting and modern Chinese realistic painting. The article identifies and characterizes three stages of adopting the Itinerant creative ideas in China: the period of the Republic of China (acquaintance of the Chinese public with the Itinerants' paintings and understanding the Itinerant ideology at the time of the “Movement for New Culture”), the beginning of the PRC foundation (the period of comprehensive study of realist painting, training of talented Chinese artists in art educational institutions of the USSR as part of the cultural exchange and mastering the principles of Soviet realist art) and the first decade after the Cultural Revolution (a critical “painting of scars” reflecting the experiences and fates of people during the Cultural Revolution). The authors conclude that the study of the Itinerants' creative ideas from the point of view of cultural studies in the context of the Chinese realist art school development is important for understanding the Russian- Chinese cultural dialogue.