Back to the future? Chinese artistic tradition and topologies of urban modernity

The radical nature of China's urban transformation has become a key subject in contemporary Chinese art. The ruthless eradication of material remnants of the past, moreover, has reinvigorated an urgency in Chinese art to look to the past for inspiration in the envisioning of a better future. This article examines three works that combine these two important strands of artistic production in China as they negotiate contemporary urban transformation via a return to China´s artistic tradition. This article will look at the imaginary and fantastical topologies of modernity in both analogue and new media, including the installation and oil painting of Shen Yuan and Wang Mingxian, respectively, and the digital ink painting of Miao Xiaochun. In examining closely the artists' choices of medium and their representations of architecture and urban space, this article probes some of the key social, environmental and aesthetic predicaments that underlie China's developmental process. It will argue that responses in Chinese art counter the officially sanctioned grand narrative that equates urbanization, urban renewal and modernization with unequivocal social betterment. Instead, these works create in-between spaces that lie between the material and the idealistic.

Representations of Architecture in Lucas van Leyden’s Prints

Categorization of Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533) is a matter of defining modern at the turn of the sixteenth century. His depiction of Late Gothic and Classic architectural forms in his prints shows an interaction between the Italian Renaissance and the Netherlandish traditions. The use of urban setting is to familiarize the viewer with the story. This technique of grabbing the attention of the viewer by situating him within the audience in the image is a traditional characteristic of medieval art. On the other hand, he employs the new method of Renaissance spatial perspective in order to create the three dimensional effect in the print. Ornaments work as metalingual elements giving away subtle information on the subject. A symbol exists by being a reference to a former incidence, which adds to the discussion of whether Lucas van Leyden was a Renaissance or an early modern artist. His concern is with the narrative rather than the idealistic illustration of architecture. His German contemporary Albrecht Dürer also appears to come and go in representing two styles of architecture. Therefore there will be a comparison between Lucas van Leyden, Albrecht Dürer and Italian contemporaries such as Perugino and Raphael. Yet it is still a question to where to position Lucas van Leyden.

Collective individualities: cultural and political reception in Taiwan's history, architecture and cities

Reception is an idea which deals with the reinterpretation of knowledge. Reception therefore appears as an important issue in studies of historiography that see textual forms of history as representations of the past. Reception in history varies from agent to agent: different subjects who hold different ideological positions, in different positions with respect to power relations, receive the same object differently. Public reception, for instance, plays an important role in shaping the spatial representations of architecture and cities, which can be regarded as textual forms of history and therefore as a form of historiography which reinterprets and integrates the facts of the past. The work of Ackbar Abbas, in his depiction of the skyscrapers in Hong Kong which inscribe capitalism in the fabric of that city, offers a remarkable example. He illustrates how Hong Kong's spatial routine plays out in the reception of styles; for example, design oriented towards economy, the phenomenon of constant building and rebuilding, and the pursuit of hyper-density in Hong Kong's built environment. In different time periods, locations and cultural-political contexts, therefore, the public reception of architecture and cities differs. This paper takes Taiwan as an example. It examines a transformational period – from Taiwan's post-Second World War development to the present – scrutinising the reception of its history, architecture and cities.

Founder’s model: Representation of a maquette or the church?

The text deals with some terminological problems concerning the so-called founder?s model. Although it is commonly used to designate the depicted architecture in the hand of the church founder, the expression 'founder?s (ktetor?s) model' is often confusing and misleading. The main question is whether the Byzantine architects used actual model/maquettes for constructing their churches and if so, could these models/ maquettes have been used for the architecture depicted in founders? portraits? In other worlds is the representation in the donor?s hand the image of a built church or its maquette, produced as a project model? The different aspects of the problem we analyzed - the legal, technical and symbolic functions of these representations support our assumption that the architectural design model/maquette did not serve as a specimen for representations of architecture on founder?s portraits. This specific type of architecture depicted was created after the building itself was completed.