A1 Journal article (refereed)
Fashioning Chinese feminism : Representations of women in the art history of modern China (2021)
Wang, S. (2021). Fashioning Chinese feminism : Representations of women in the art history of modern China. Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 12(2), 207-227. https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb_00027_1
JYU authors or editors
Publication details
All authors or editors: Wang, Shuchen
Journal or series: Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty
ISSN: 2040-4417
eISSN: 2040-4425
Publication year: 2021
Publication date: 01/12/2021
Volume: 12
Issue number: 2
Pages range: 207-227
Publisher: Intellect
Publication country: United Kingdom
Publication language: English
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb_00027_1
Publication open access: Not open
Publication channel open access:
Abstract
Artworks record history. The images of women’s fashion and beauty presented in the art history of modern China illustrate explicitly the challenging, changing and circuitous development of women’s rights and feminism in the country. In this study, I analyse and contextualize the most widespread representations of Chinese ‘modern women’s fashion’: (1) the geisha-like ladies of news illustrations before the 1911 Revolution, (2) the poster-calendar girls in the republican aesthetics of an early commercial society, (3) the papercutting folk art that profiles ‘half the sky’ in the uniform aesthetics of Marxist‐Leninist‐Maoist propaganda, (4) the gender-specific art themes and materials applied by female artists after the opening-up policy and (5) the feminist art in the Chinese contemporary art world. The resulting analysis helps to elucidate the interconnections among fashion, art and women’s status in China, in pursuit of modernity, the radical expansion of western colonization, domestic political turmoil and, in particular, longstanding patriarchal cultural norms and values.
Keywords: art history; women; femininity; Chinese identity; fashion; representation (mental objects); modern; modernisation; woman's status; feminism
Free keywords: Chinese female artists; Chinese feminism; geisha; modernity in China; poster-calendar girls; uniform aesthetics
Contributing organizations
Ministry reporting: Yes
Reporting Year: 2021
JUFO rating: 1
