cover image Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State, and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng

Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State, and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng

Jerome Silbergeld. University of Washington Press, $50 (242pp) ISBN 978-0-295-97155-1

Chinese painter Li Huasheng's dramatic, pure landscapes and realistic depictions of dingy towns are far removed from hydroelectrified socialist realism. Infusing a new subjectivity into the traditional ``literati'' style of Chinese painting, which is steeped in Confucianiam, Li (b. 1944) was vilified during the Cultural Revolution. Trumpeted as a rising ``youth artist'' of his native Sichuan province in the early 1980s, he was condemned in the anti-Western campaign of 1983-1984 but had his laurels restored in the late '80s. Now a salaried, state-sanctioned painter, this outspoken, chain-smoking, opera-loving individualist views success as a pitfall that could obstruct his artistic progress. In a profusely illustrated biographical study, Silbergeld, an art historian at the University of Washington, and doctoral candidate Gong Jisui provide a rare peek inside China's fiercely politicized art world. (Mar.)