Chinese and Other Asian Modernisms: A Comparative View of Art-Historical Contexts in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. Using a comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism.