EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 7 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 81 In my speech I would like to discuss the history of one of the most significant works of “the Great Pro- letarian Cultural Revolution” period (1966–1976)  — the painting called “Old party secretary ", made by unprofessional peasant artist Liu Zhide. I will examine his biography and answer a series of questions related to the above-mentioned work, which was positioned as an exemplary display of creativity and ideological purity of an ordinary Chinese peasant. Liu Zhide (b. 1940) works in the genre of nongminhua (peasant painting) — amateur peasant art that emerged and flourished during the political campaigns of 1950–1970s. Nongminhua, which initially had emphasized propaganda content, suffered some substantial changes during the period of “Reform and Open- ing Up” of the 1980s., and by now turned into a new kind of handicraft. It is a well known fact among the researchers of the “Cultural Revolution” art that professional instruc- tors introduced some corrections into the works of peasant artists. The author of “Old party secretary” did not escape the suspicion of partial authorship of his main works. By styding the data set forth in Chinese- language biography of Liu Zhide published in 2011 and analyzing the artist's works dated by various periods, the author came to the conclusion that such a hypothesis is practically groungless. Komissarov Sergey (Novosibirsk State University), Kudinova Maria (Novosibirsk State University) The Image of Divine Dog in the Ritual and Myths of Ancient China Key words: Chinese mythology, folklore of South China, Panhu, Celestial Dog, cultural hero Recent results of paleogenetic researches reveal that the dog was firstly domesticated in East Asia (including the territory of South China) not later than 15000 BP. The most ancient fossils were found there at the Nanzhuangtou site, Hebei Province (10000 BP). Dogs’ remains fromNeolithic sites (burials in human tombs, sacrificial pits, ash-pits etc.) prove its ritual use. Three main types of this kind — accompanying burials, sacrifices connected with mortuary practices, and building sacrifice—were formed and spread over the territory of historical China. In Bronze Age the use of dogs in sacrificial and funerary rituals became more widespread and standardized. F. e., burials of dogs in yaokeng (waist-pits) of Shang tombs are one of the differentiae of that culture. The dog as the first domestic animal played an important role in mythology of ancient peoples inhabited the territory of China, especially in the southern region. The image of ancestor Panhu plays a key role in mythology of Yao, Miao and She peoples. Throughout the period of more than 2000 years a large variety of myths about Panhu were fixed in written sources and folklore. The earliest mentions are contained in “Shi ji” by Sima Qian and “Fengsu Tongyi” by Ying Shao. Panhu acts as Yao people’s ancestor and culture hero who invented a plough and a loom, taught people to cultivate rice etc. The image of Sky Dog (Tian-gou) was of composite origin; hence the name of Tian-gou has many incarnations (functions). This mythologi- cal creature was the most completely represented in solar and lunar myths and presumably connected with Hero of archery (such as Hou Yi) as protector against malign forces. Report was prepared with the help of RSCF, grant No. 14–28–00045. Koort Jekaterina (Tallinn University) Nature as Language: Examining the Origins of Xu Bing’s Landscape Landscripts Key words: contemporary art, Xu Bing, landscape studies, the Book of Changes One of today’s most widely recognised contemporary Chinese artists Xu Bing has been focusing on writ- ten language and experimenting with the possibilities of interplay with images and words. The objective of Xu’s numerous art projects has been defining and shifting the boundaries between visual and verbal ways of expression. Balancing at the intersection of ancient and modern, East and West Xu Bing destroys these classical dichotomies and creates unexpected connections within new semantic contexts.