This article uses the example of Professor Lin Gan (1925–2023) from the Central Academy of Fine Arts as a micro-case to examine the process of establishing a system of art education in New China. It analyzes how individual pedagogical practice responds to the dialectical tension between state will, borrowed foreign models (primarily the Soviet system of art education), and the ontology of art – the internal laws of artistic creation. It shows that the formation of the new Chinese oil painting system was not merely a simple copying of Soviet experience, but rather a complex process of constant negotiation between ideological requirements, academic standards, and national aesthetic traditions. The historical logic of the evolution of Chinese education in oil painting is revealed – from politically engaged instrumentalism, through the stage of normative-scientific assimilation of the Soviet realistic school, to subsequent pluralism and organic localization of Western and Soviet techniques in the Chinese cultural context. A micro-historical and archival analysis is combined with visual analysis of images, comparison of teaching methodology documents, and processing of oral historical sources; systematic interpretation and in-depth study of pedagogical archives, artworks, and materials on Lin Gan's curriculum reform. The scientific novelty lies in the introduction of a three-level analytical framework of "knowledge transmission – institutional rooting – subject adaptation," allowing for the overcoming of the limitations of a macro-political approach. The micro-case of Lin Gan systematically reveals the path of endogenous modernization of Chinese art education: the Soviet plastic system was not mechanically copied but transformed in dialogue with the Chinese aesthetic of free style and calligraphic line. New archival materials (curricula from the Fourth Studio, authors' reflections) are introduced into circulation. Conclusions: Lin Gan's pedagogical practice demonstrates that modernization does not require a break with tradition or blind westernization. The success of the Fourth Studio disproves the binary opposition between academicism and contemporary art. Lin Gan's experience serves as a historical reference for constructing an independent Chinese system of art education in the context of globalization.
Tszyun'yui Vei (Sun,) studied this question.