Matisse and the modernity of Yan’an woodcuts

This article opens up the question of modernity in relation to Yan’an woodcuts by recounting the Matisse debate among artists in Yan’an circa 1942, during the War of Resistance against Japanese occupation. Yan’an woodcuts did not move in a direction akin to the stylistic reform engaged by Western modernism; instead they pushed modern Chinese woodcuts to develop according to the requirements of ‘national form.’ Yan’an woodcut artists’ exploration of ‘national form’ involved a synthesis of folk aesthetics and woodcut techniques with the creation of modern‐style woodcuts, and a synthesis of revolutionary content with the artistic expression of national form. In this way a new kind of artistic ideal was realized. Compared with contemporary artistic questions in the West, the formal questions of Chinese revolutionary art surpassed the artistic as such to support rich social content and revolutionary discourse. The establishment of national language in art accords with the desire and imagination to con...