Abstract
The two historical narrative approaches to Qi Baishi's “late-life transformation” could be referred to as “the Sovietperspective” and “the non-Soviet perspective”. The former is characterized by “framing history with theory” and “substitutinghistory with theory”, while the latter “confirming theory with historical facts” and “constructing theory with historical facts”. Following the thread “constructing theory with historical facts”, one must valorize The Autobiography of Qi Baishi, because itssimple summary of “late-life transformation” is reliable as “history”, and as theory it is also superbly profound, which can shedlight on the absurdity of the Soviet perspective “framing history with theory”. Likewise, by following the principle of “confirmingtheory with historical facts”, one can even alert the academia to the fact that the Soviet perspective “substituting history withtheory” has deeply distorted the understanding of “late-life transformation” in art history theory for nearly 70 years.
Keywords
historical narrative, Qi Baishi, “late-life transformation”, two approaches
First Page
105
Last Page
115
Recommended Citation
Xia, Zhongyi. 2021. "A Comparison of the Two Historical Narrative Approaches to Qi Baishi's “Late Life Transformation”." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 41, (1): pp.105-115. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol41/iss1/10
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