Articles

The Propagandist’s Palette: The Art of Manhua Magazine (1950-1960)

September 4, 2022Articles, Research Center

By Kelly Reiling In June of 1950, the magazine Manhua yuekan 漫画月刊 published its first issue in Shanghai. During the magazine’s lifespan, which lasted until 1960, Manhua yuekan and its cartoonists underwent periods of artistic suppression and expression, enacted by the newly-established Chinese government through a series of political campaigns. The consequences of these campaigns … Continue reading The Propagandist’s Palette: The Art of Manhua Magazine (1950-1960) →

The Artisanal Sensorial, or Lei Lei’s Geometrical Regime of Animated Images

August 9, 2022Articles, Research Center

Download PDF By Dong Yang The aura of contemporary art is a free association. –Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics In one of his later essays “Spinoza and the Three ‘Ethics,’” composed around 1990 and collected in the book Essays Critical and Clinical, Gilles Deleuze offers a mature and profound reading of Spinoza’s Ethics as a composite … Continue reading The Artisanal Sensorial, or Lei Lei’s Geometrical Regime of Animated Images →

CGI Ink-Painting Animation in Contemporary China, 1989-2019

July 24, 2020Articles, Research Center

Download PDF By Chen Hailu; translated by Yixing Li From 1961 to 1988, Chinese animators at the Shanghai Animation Film Studio produced four traditional ink-painting animated films, winning numerous accolades at home and abroad. No new ink-painting animation had been produced since 1989. It was not until 2003 that ink-painting animation resurfaced in China with … Continue reading CGI Ink-Painting Animation in Contemporary China, 1989-2019 →

The Urban Fringes of Contemporary Chinese Animation

March 13, 2019Articles

Download PDF By Isabel Galwey In the first two decades of the twentieth century, animation in Mainland China (and, indeed, the world over) has seen a remarkable efflorescence, as advances in digital technology and diversification of viewing platforms have allowed for an unsettled, shifting multiplicity of animated expression. Through examining the work of several contemporary … Continue reading The Urban Fringes of Contemporary Chinese Animation →

An Etymological Study of the Terms Dongman, Donghua, and Manhua

February 2, 2019Articles

Download PDF By Yan Chen Since 2004, the Chinese government has been gradually implementing various policies to support the development of a domestic dongman industry. The year 2016 marked the 90th anniversary of Chinese animation, and numerous commemorative celebrations and exhibitions were launched, using phrases like “the 90th anniversary of dongman.” The use of the … Continue reading An Etymological Study of the Terms Dongman, Donghua, and Manhua →

Animating Science and Technology: From Little Tadpoles to the Space Monkey (1950s–1980s)

September 1, 2017Articles

Download PDF By Hua Li Why does a school of tadpoles keep mistaking other water creatures for their mama? Why does a cuckoo arrive late to remind farmers it is time to sow their seed grain? What makes the arrogant Monkey King admit his incompetence? These questions are beyond the moral lessons provided in animated … Continue reading Animating Science and Technology: From Little Tadpoles to the Space Monkey (1950s–1980s) →

The Pictorial Turn and China’s Manhua Modernity, 1925-1960

February 10, 2017Articles

Download PDF By John A. Crespi Defining manhua—usually translated as “caricature” or “cartoon”—is like trying to put spilled ink back into the bottle. [1] The word should be warning enough. Where the second character for the second syllable, hua, refers to pictorial art in general, the first character, man, connotes several situations: a state of overflow … Continue reading The Pictorial Turn and China’s Manhua Modernity, 1925-1960 →