The Cult of Happiness
Subtitle: Nianhua, Art, and History in Rural North China (Contemporary Chinese Studies)
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: April 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780295984087
Subjects: Asian; Folklore & Mythology - Folklore; History - Modern (Late 19th Century to 1945); Asia - China; Art; Art & Art Instruction; 19th century; 20th century; China; Narrative art; Wood-engraving, Chinese
Description: "History and art come together in this definitive discussion of the Chinese woodblock print form of nianhua, literally "New Year pictures." By analyzing the role of nianhua first in the home and later in commercial and political theatres, James Flath relates these artworks to the social, cultural, and political milieu of North China as it was between the late Qing dynasty and the early 1950s. Among the first studies in any field to treat folk art and folk print as historical text, The Cult of Happiness offers original insight into popular conceptions of domesticity, morality, gender, society, modernity, and the transformation of the genre as a propaganda tool under communism. An extraordinary account of the cultural life of rural North China over the period."--BOOK JACKET.