Brushes with Power

Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy

Richard Curt Kraus

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Hardback

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English

University of California Press
24 July 1991

Lettering & calligraphy

Chinese calligraphy has traditionally been an emblem of the ruling class and its authority. After a century of mass revolution, what is the fate of this elite art? Richard Kraus explores the relationship beween politics and the art of writing in China today to explicate the complex relationship between tradition and modernity in Chinese culture. His study draws upon a wide range of sources, from political documents, memoirs, and interviews with Chinese intellectuals to art exhibitions and television melodramas.

Mao Zedong and other Communist leaders gave calligraphy a revolutionary role, believing that their beloved art reflected the luster of authoritative words and deeds. Calligraphy was joined with new propagandistic mass media to become less a private art and more a public performance. It provided politically engaged citizens with subtle cues to changing power relationships in the People's Republic.

Claiming neither that the Communists obliterated traditional culture nor that revolution failed to relieve the burden of China's past, this study subtly examines the changing uses of tradition in a modernizing society.

By: Richard Curt Kraus
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 278mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780520072855
ISBN 10: 0520072855
Pages: 220
Publication Date: 24 July 1991
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard Curt Kraus is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He is the author of Class Conflict in Chinese Socialism (Columbia 1981) and Pianos and Politics in China (Oxford 1989).