Jingwei Zeng

Abstract
This paper explores some factors that gave rise to the modernity of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chinese calligraphy and painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Special Collections. The art in this period has long been signified as a cultural stagnation. However, its modernist tendency is demonstrated here, bringing the overlooked subjects to the forefront of twenty-first century scholarship. By establishing a broad stylistic spectrum characteristic of its calligraphy and paintings, this paper challenges the long-established terms of “tradition” and “modernity” used to define Chinese fin-de-siècle art: instead of seeing these artistic creations as mutually exclusive concepts with fixed characteristics, it recalibrates and redefines them as modern categories influenced by literary innovations, vernacularization and westernization, and iconoclasm from the late Ming Dynasty.

Key Words
Late Qing, early twentieth-century, modernity, calligraphy, painting