Julia Andrews's extraordinary study of art, artists, and artistic policy during the first three decades of the People's Republic of China makes a major contribution to our understanding of modern China. From 1949 to 1979 the Chinese government controlled the lives and work of the country's artists—these were also years of extreme isolation from international artistic dialogue. During this period the Chinese Communist Party succeeded in eradicating most of the artistic styles and techniques it found politically repugnant. By 1979, traditional landscape painting had been replaced by a new style and subject that was strikingly different from both contemporary Western art and that of other Chinese areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Through vivid firsthand accounts, Andrews recreates the careers of many individual artists who were forced to submit to a vacillating policy regarding style, technique, medium, and genre. She discusses the cultural controls that the government used, the ways in which artists responded, and the works of art that emerged as a result. She particularly emphasizes the influence of the Soviet Union on Chinese art and the problems it created for the practice of traditional painting.
This book opens the way to new, stimulating comparisons of Western and Eastern cultures and will be welcomed by art historians, political scientists, and scholars of Asia.

本书是美国著名中国现代美术史学者安雅兰1998年在纽约古根海姆博物馆策划的大型展览“危机中的一个世纪:20世纪中国艺术中的现代与传统”的展览图录。该展览试图对一个世纪以来的中国艺术作一次概括性的回顾和总结。在书中作者把现当代中国美术划分为四个时期，即“中国画的革新，1850一1950";“现代主义者，1920-1950";“新中国艺术，1950-1980";以及“传统的改造，1980至今”，并分别描述和分析了各个时期的风格特点以及其时代特征。
Between 1850 and today, China has undergone an unprecedented series of shocks and transformations. This dramatic period -- which has seen urban industrialization, conquest by foreign powers, civil wars, changing governments, and, more recently, a gradual opening to the international community -- has also marked an explosion of artistic experimentation and innovation. Spanning 150 spectacular years of artistic production, A Century in Crisis -- which accompanied a landmark exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in early 1998 -- offers the first systematic exploration of modern and contemporary Chinese art.
Essays by leading scholars show the ways in which Chinese artists have grappled with modernity, tradition, self-definition, and the adoption and rejection of Western conventions. Sumptuous colorplates showcase a dazzling array of achievements -- including Shanghai School paintings, modern calligraphy, commercial art, 1920s and '30s woodblock prints, modern guohua (traditional ink and color paintings), socialist realist paintings, and other contemporary works.