Authors

Discussion

The narrative of Sino-Soviet artistic exchanges in the 1950s has traditionally centered on Mao Zedong’s call to “learn from the Soviet Union,” suggesting that the fledging People’s Republic of China would wholeheartedly embrace the Soviet artistic legacy. However, recent research reveals that these artistic exchanges were far more complex and rich with tension. When Soviet art practices, theories, styles and techniques arrived in China as part of the broader project of socialist internationalism in a largely imposed manner, Chinese artists and scholars, rather than passively accepting the models, critically scrutinized and selectively rejected them in the shadow of the Sino-Soviet split.  

This essay examines the disruption of Soviet artistic influence in China, focusing on the Peredvizhniki, a nineteenth-century Russian school of painting. By exploring how Chinese artists and scholars engaged with Soviet interpretations of the Peredvizhniki’s style and technique, this essay demonstrates that Chinese art professionals found the the Russian oil painting practices incompatible with Chinese art traditions and moved away from them. It challenges the dominant view that the Russian oil painting practices dominated the Chinese art world for decades, even after the fall of Sino-Soviet friendship. The disruption of the Peredvizhniki’s transmission in China reflects a broader pattern of local resistance to the top-down imposition of Soviet cultural dominance. Rather than being an obedient periphery, the Chinese art world actively challenged Moscow’s cultural hegemony and found ways to protect its own artistic heritage. This case highlights how disruption became a tactic for preserving national artistic identity within the framework of socialist internationalism in the 1950s.