Thirty years after Greenblatt proposed “cultural poetics”, the influence of New Historicism in art history has transcended mere methodological application, evolving into an epistemological revolution that deconstructs the certainty of history. Long confined to stylistic genealogy and the ontology of brush and ink, Chinese calligraphy and painting studies have revealed theoretical poverty when addressing topics such as the collection and transmission context of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains or Shi Tao’s declaration that “brush and ink must keep pace with the times”. Guided by New Historicism as a methodological framework, this paper constructs a dual-dimensional analytical model of “power networks-material culture” to explore classic propositions in the history of Chinese calligraphy and painting. Examples include re-examining the historical context of Zhao Mengfu’s archaist movement and deconstructing the discursive strategies behind Dong Qichang’s “Southern and Northern Schools” theory, thereby revealing the complex power coordination mechanisms underlying changes in artistic forms. The research shows that Zhao Mengfu’s practice of “archaic flavor” was not merely a stylistic innovation, but a defensive negotiation strategy to maintain the orthodoxy of Han culture under the foreign rule of the Yuan Dynasty. In contrast, Dong Qichang’s “Southern and Northern Schools” theory represented an active theoretical construction by literati groups in the late Ming Dynasty to compete for cultural discourse power. Meanwhile, the paper analyzes Craig Clunas’ material culture research, T.J. Clark’s social history of art, and Shih Shou-Chien’s “theory of stylistic change with the times”. It attempts to break through the limitations of traditional stylistic analysis, explore effective paths for cross-cultural interpretation, and demonstrate the complementarity and tension between these theories from a New Historicist perspective. Ultimately, this study aims to reconstruct the historical agency of calligraphy and painting aesthetics amid the material turn, providing a new methodological perspective for the study of Chinese calligraphy and painting.
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Wang, Y. (2025) Power Networks and Material Culture: A New Historicist Interpretation Approach to the Study of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting. Journal of Social Development and History, 1(4), 31-38.