3—
Cartoons

The resistance political culture was not confined to the cultivation of female symbols, staging of street plays, or rewriting of costume dramas. It also included the creation of simple but powerful images of the war by Chinese cartoonists. Rather than using past events or historical allusions to present a contemporary message, political cartoons commented directly on the present. They became an indispensable medium of communication during the war, swaying the attitudes and beliefs of the mass audience. The ideas underlying them might be complicated, but as pictures they were unambiguous and potent.

The struggle against the aggressors, many resistance intellectuals argued, must be waged not only on the battlefield, but on every conceivable front—including the field of cartoons. In an influential article published in the inaugural issue of National Salvation Cartoons (Jiuwang manhua) in September 1937, the cartoonist Wang Dunqing raised the banner of what he called "cartoon warfare" (manhua zhan) urging his fellow artists to join hands "to score the final victory against the Japanese."^[1]

The National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps

Like other patriotic Chinese, cartoonists responded with enthusiasm to the government's call for national defense. Perhaps more than others, though, they realized that they possessed a unique weapon: a brush capable of producing powerful graphic images. Such a weapon, if used with skill and ingenuity, could have enormous impact in a land of widespread illiteracy. The cartoonists' increasing awareness of the importance of their craft crystallized in the founding of the Shanghai

National Salvation Cartoon Association (Shanghai manhuajie jiuwang xiehui) soon after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in early July 1937. To bring patriotic messages to the people through a host of drawings, the association formed a propaganda team, known officially as the National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps (Jiuwang manhua xuanchuandui), and published the journal National Salvation Cartoons. In September, after a brief period of intense activity, the corps, led by Ye Qianyu and including such figures as Zhang Leping, Te Wei, and Hu Kao (1912-), left for Nanjing. It soon moved to Hankou, where it joined the Third Section under the Military Affairs Commission of the GMD government. Using newspapers, posters, and other media, cartoonists continued to wage an art offensive throughout the war. From 1937 to 1945, in fact, cartoons, like spoken dramas, were more than an art form: they were an effective educational tool and a potent agent for political indoctrination. They also served as a major chronicle of the age, bearing witness to a devastating conflict. Of all forms of propaganda, the cartoon can be the most persuasive.

When the National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps left Shanghai and headed for the interior in September 1937, its leader, Ye Qianyu, and the other seven members had little idea what lay ahead. But as work got under way, their task became increasingly clear: to drive home to every citizen the urgency and importance of resistance and to raise the soldiers' morale at the front.^[2] The War of Resistance, destructive as it was, seemed to give those involved inner strength and a sense of mission. This saga of "cartoon warfare" created a new chapter in the history of Chinese popular culture.

Like the drama propaganda campaign, the process of spreading patriotic sentiments to the people and bringing issues into focus through cartoons was a complicated one, both physically exhausting and emotionally taxing. But it also proved to be intellectually invigorating, involving constant movement and the creation of visual images comprehensible to country folk. Xuan Wenjie, a member of the corps, years later recalled the experience:

The corps left Shanghai in September and headed west. On our way to Nanjing, we joined hands with the drama corps to stage propaganda shows on the streets of Zhenjiang. The simultaneous appearances of cartoon shows and street plays created a furor in this centuries-old city on the banks of the Yangzi River.

From Shanghai to Nanjing, the enemy planes tailed us and bombed trains and people, leaving seas of fire and a land of moaning. I will never forget these terrifying, tragic scenes. Zhang

Ding and Lu Zhixiang joined us in Nanjing. We worked day and night to draw propaganda cartoons on pieces of huge cloth, recording enemy brutality that we had just witnessed. We put on "Anti-Japanese Cartoon Exhibitions" despite constant air raid sirens. These exhibits were received with enthusiasm, drawing a large crowd and reflecting people's interest [in cartoons] and their confidence [in us]. Despite enemy planes hovering overhead, they were engrossed in each and every cartoon on display.

When the Japanese troops occupied Nanjing in December 1937 we withdrew to Wuhan…. During our stay in Wuhan we concentrated on the following: First, drawing a large number of big propaganda cartoon posters and showing them in Hankou, Wuchang, and Qiaokou. This was our major assignment…. We also mobilized citizens to donate gold and money to help the war cause. Second, designing printed materials for anti-enemy propaganda. Many of us were involved, and the results were considerable…. Third, editing Resistance Cartoons [Kangzhan manhua ]. The magazine, which was the official publication of the corps, published a total of twelve issues in Wuhan (three more issues came out in Chongqing, making fifteen issues in all). Besides paying tribute to the people's heroic resistance effort and hammering away at enemy brutality, a large number of pages were devoted to reporting resistance movements in other parts of the country.^[3]

The corps left for Changsha when Chinese troops evacuated Wuhan in the fall of 1938, and soon headed for Guilin when Changsha was threatened. In Guilin, the corps decided to form two teams in order to reach more people. One team, with Zhang Leping as its leader, went to the southeastern battlefronts. The other, headed by Te Wei, stayed behind in Guilin. Te Wei's group arrived in Chongqing in early 1939. They put on street shows and held exhibits in nearby villages.^[4] But the Nationalist government now viewed their activities with increasing suspicion, believing they were under the ideological sway of the Communists. In 1940, when the GMD reshuffled the Third Section and forced Guo Moruo out, it also discontinued funds to the Cartoon Propaganda Corps. The corps was soon disbanded, and its members scattered to various cities in the interior, especially Chongqing. "In its more than three years of existence [1937–1940]," recalled one member, "the corps traveled to places like Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Guilin, Chongqing, Tunxi, Shangrao, held more than one hundred exhibits, edited numerous magazines and journals, and produced thousands of cartoons."^[5]

The corps was of course not the only such group engaged in anti-Japanese campaigns. Other cartoon propaganda teams were active in the Guangzhou and Xi'an areas, for instance,^[6] and numerous shows were mounted by local artists.^[7] Provincial officials also launched their own exhibits, including a highly successful one held at a Confucian temple in Liancheng, Fujian province, in the spring of 1940.^[8]

In 1938, the National Association of Chinese Cartoonists, which was formed before the war in Shanghai and whose members included artists from the Cartoon Propaganda Corps, resumed its work in Wuhan, setting up a special committee to coordinate different kinds of propaganda drives throughout the nation. A flurry of activities followed: cartoonists established training classes in Guilin and Xi'an, held individual exhibitions (such as those of Ding Cong [1916-] in Chengdu and Zhang Wenyuan [1910-] in Kunming), and launched various magazines, including Cartoon and Woodcut (Manhua yu muke) in Guilin and Anti-Enemy Pictorial (Kangdi huabao) in Xi'an.^[9] In south China, Guangzhou became an active cartoon center; a host of talents gathered there to form a regional branch of the National Association of Chinese Cartoonists, with Yu Feng (1916-), Zhang E, and Huang Mao as its leading members. When the city fell into the hands of the Japanese troops in late 1938, Hong Kong replaced Guangzhou as the leading cartoon center in the south.^[10]

When the First National Cartoon Exhibition was held in Shanghai in November 1936, China boasted about two hundred cartoonists.^[11] The number increased during the war—to some five to eight hundred, according to Hu Kao.^[12] Though the figure is not large given a population of 460 million, Chinese cartoonists nevertheless played a key role in the wartime propaganda movement.

To be politically productive, cartoons had to be capable of rapid production and dissemination. A variety of methods were used. Besides putting on numerous shows, for instance, cartoonists joined hands with dramatists to put on exhibits.^[13] They also produced a deluge of images, which appeared on posters and in newspapers, pamphlets, books, and leaflets. When zinc plates were unavailable owing to supply shortages, artists resorted to woodcuts to produce cartoons in newspapers, establishing a new genre known as "woodcut cartoons" (muke manhua).^[14] Cartoonists used street corners, signboards, poles, walls, huge banners, or whatever visible spots they could find to display their patriotic sentiments in drawings. They also painted pictures on huge white cloth banners, which were more durable and made transportation less difficult. They showed these repeatedly, ex-

plaining them to their audiences—a popular mode known as "picture storytelling" (jiehua).^[15] Magazines such as Resistance Cartoons also enjoyed enormous popularity. In essence, cartoons became one of the most effective rallying tools for the war cause.

Patriotism notwithstanding, cartoonists did not blind themselves to the government's failings. As the GMD became increasingly mired in bureaucratic disarray and corruption in the later phases of the war, the cartoonists—most notably Ding Cong, Zhang Guangyu, and Liao Bingxiong—began to aim their barbs in that direction. Under the watchful eye of the censor, however, the criticisms tended to remain veiled and allegorical.

Images of War

In the West, war cartoons and etchings have a long history, dating back to before the days of medieval woodcuts. Goya's Disasters of War, for instance, was preceded by the terrifying scenes of Jacques Callot's (1592–1635) famous Miseries of War (1633). Later, during World War I, the Dutchman Louis Raemaekers (1869–1956) conveyed the outrages of that conflict through the use of cartoons, and Käthe Kollwitz, as we have seen, produced remarkable portraits of the anguish of wartime misery and hunger by means of various graphic arts techniques.

Chinese war cartoons have a shorter history. They began to appear sporadically in the late 1910s and early 1920s, at a time when conflicts between China and foreign powers were intensifying. Shen Bochen's "Qingdao, Shandong province" (1919) (fig. 5), for example, depicts Japan's imperialist intentions in China: while a skull with a rising-sun emblem on its forehead is ready to gobble up Qingdao City and Shandong province, the Chinese people fight gallantly to save their land. The cartoon reflects foreign aggression on the one hand and the soaring nationalist fervor in China on the other. Indeed, it accurately expressed the feelings of the young May Fourth generation, who, on that memorable Sunday of 4 May 1919, took their anger to the streets of Beijing to protest foreign encroachment on China's sovereignty and the ineptness of the Beijing warlord government. Predictably, Chinese war cartoons did not appear in profusion until the formal conflict between China and Japan erupted in mid-1937, but then they started streaming forth, forming a powerful visual narrative of modern Chinese history.

Chinese wartime cartoons relied heavily on directness and common imagery to achieve their effect. Like David Low's devastating exposés

Fig. 5.
Shen Bochen, "Qingdao, Shandong province." From Bi Keguan and
Huang Yuanlin, Zhongguo manhua shi (Beijing: Wenhua yishu
chubanshe, 1986), pl. 66.

of fascism, Chinese wartime cartoons focused not on the abstract inhumanity of war, but on the physical concreteness of the crisis. In both cases, the images were solid and the lines sure, leaving no doubt about who the villain was. But there were distinct differences between Western and Chinese cartoons as well: while the former occasionally delivered their message with a light touch, Chinese cartoons were deadly serious. They also tended to be simpler in design and less fluent in artistry; the novelty of the craft in China and the exigency of the

time precluded sophistication. As a result, one saw few bold symbols like the American cartoonist Daniel Fitzpatrick's (1891–1969) tumbling swastika,^[16] nor did one encounter the exquisitely delineated details of the Polish artist Arthur Szyk's (1894–1951) anti-Nazi drawings.^[17] What they lacked in artistic subtlety and refinement, however, they more than made up for in their robust vitality and compelling images.

The power of images in art has been much studied.^[18] The image—or what it represents—can easily arouse anger, sympathy, desire, or myriad other emotions. Very often cartoon images communicate ideas that are too abstruse for verbal expression. But for images to be effective, they must be grounded in concreteness: they must have their source in real life. Unlike fine art, which tends to have a relatively complex and layered motivation, political cartoons by definition are simplistic and very often combative. They rely on popular sources for their appeal, and their context is often overlaid with rich emotive signs; this gives them a strong sense of familiarity and directness. Like their Western counterparts, Chinese cartoonists were concerned primarily with political and psychological expression. "In comparison with literature, which uses abstract language to express ideas," observed Feng Zikai, "the propaganda effect of the cartoon is definitely faster and more powerful."^[19]

To have the maximum impact, many Chinese cartoonists argued that they had to carefully compose appropriate images and present them creatively and systematically, with participation from both artists and audiences. But could cartoons, a modern urban art, command universal appeal? Or should different types of cartoons be addressed to different people? Liao Bingxiong warned that illiterate peasants did not necessarily understand cartoons. Formerly an elementary school teacher, Liao was particularly concerned with how to communicate with the less educated. Although a member of the Cartoon Propaganda Corps, Liao criticized his fellow artists for failing to present simple enough images to the masses. "Their works were not popularized enough," he said.^[20]

Since individual pieces with complicated artistic designs could be confusing, "picture storytelling" might help. But what if no one was around to explain the cartoon? Like Hong Shen with spoken drama, Liao suggested that images were most compelling if presented in a serial story format. As such, they were coherent, featuring sequences of simple, realistic pictures and facts interspersed among the stories. A Cantonese who came under the influence of storytelling and other folk

arts in his early years, Liao believed that cartoonists could use the mode of traditional storytelling to establish a rapport with the people, and then allow the images to work their magic. Such a combination of a traditional performing art and modern drawing was one of many ingenious tactics advanced during the war. Liao's highly popular wartime cartoon serials, including "The War of Resistance Is Bound to Be a Victory," certainly bore this fact out.^[21]

Although the cartoon changed during the war in terms of technique and imagery, its themes and messages remained remarkably the same. In general, Japan was depicted as an aggressive beast, a culture turned barbaric and committing atrocities on its neighbor from whom it once borrowed invaluable cultural and intellectual treasures. The frequent repetition of certain motifs suggested not a rigidity of approach but the desire to create a lasting impression on viewers. Japan's thrust into China, for example, might be portrayed as a venomous snake forcing its way through the Great Wall (fig. 6). But it was the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937 that truly shocked the world. The enemy's behavior in this notorious incident was partly captured by Li Keran's (1907–1989) "Killing Contest" (fig. 7), based on an actual incident in which two Japanese soldiers engaged in a "friendly Contest" to cut off the heads of 150 Chinese.

Among thousands of cartoons produced during the war, several important themes emerge. First is the forced separation of mother and child. In a cartoon entitled "Feeding on Blood" (fig. 8), which bears an unmistakable Groszian imprint in technique, Cai Ruohong depicts a scene after Japanese planes have bombed a Chinese city: a baby sucking at his dead mother's breast, her body, still bleeding, lying amid the rubble. A bundle wrapped in cloth just beside the woman's body indicates that she is a refugee, her attempt to flee the war having proved futile. The child is cradled in her left arm, suggesting the poor mother's desperate effort to protect her baby before her death. Meanwhile the infant, innocent and incapable of knowing the terrible fate that has befallen his mother, sucks hungrily for nourishment. In its dramatic portrayal of the moment when death abruptly severs the intimate bond between mother and child, leaving the infant unprotected and helpless, Cai's cartoon, based on an actual Japanese air raid in Shanghai in the fall of 1937, is one of the most shocking images of Japanese wartime violence. It was widely reprinted and left an indelible impression on all those who saw it.^[22]

In an equally forceful cartoon, Feng Zikai presents a similar but even more graphic scene: a mother meeting a horrible death while nursing her baby (fig. 9). Feng Zikai accompanied this frightening

scene, which occurred in 1937 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, with a moving ci poem:

In this aerial raid,
On whom do the bombs drop?
A baby is sucking at its mother's breast,
But the loving mother's head has suddenly been severed.
Blood and milk flow together.^[23]  

In this cartoon, images and words blend to register a most appalling sight. Unlike the Western practice, where the commentary is printed either below a drawing in caption form or coming out of the mouths of the subjects in balloons, Feng Zikai's method here was to use a conventional Chinese form: poetry. A silent poem describes the incident with great poignancy and yet speaks loudly of the artist's pain and anger. Although such a juxtaposition of visual representations and poetry is familiar in Chinese art, Feng's technique—the cartoon—is new and his messages contemporary.

The separation of mother and child was, however, but a small part of the larger human tragedy that was unfolding. There were other incidents: reducing villages to ashes, ravishing women (in Hu Kao's "Japanese Soldiers' Bestiality," fig. 10), committing random massacres, and torturing prisoners—"rape, obscenity, looting, and slaughter," as Lu Zhixiang summed it up.^[24] For Chinese cartoonists surveying the Japanese destruction, indiscriminate killings were perhaps the most condemnable. Scenes of enemy planes dropping bombs on innocent people were abundant in Chinese cartoons (as in Zhang Leping's "Basic Training for the Enemy Air Force").^[25] In "Bombing" (fig. 11), Feng Zikai paints a picture of impending doom: a school for the blind and the mute is about to be hit by bombs. No one inside the school will be spared; but more appalling is the fact that these handicapped students have no way of knowing about the imminent catastrophe.

With their villages devastated, loved ones killed, and property lost, those who narrowly escaped death managed to grab a few belongings and flee the yoke of Japanese occupation. The result was endless treks of refugees—another perennial theme in wartime cartoons. Ye Qianyu, for example, tells the story of one family's ordeal in "Living for Vengeance" (fig. 12).

Japanese cruelties were regarded as so gruesome that they could be compared only to the acts of beasts. Cai Ruohong's "Eastern Pirate's Specialty" depicts Japan as a monstrous ape mutilating innocent Chinese people and then devouring them (fig. 13). Reptiles were another common negative image (see fig. 6), for in Chinese folklore the

Fig. 6.
Mu Yilong, "A Viper Wriggles Southward." From Bi
Keguan and Huang Yuanlin, Zhongguo manhua
shi, pl. 183.

Fig. 7.
Li Keran, "Killing Contest." From Wenyi
zhendi 2.6 (1 January 1939): n.p.

Fig. 8.
Cai Ruohong, "Feeding on Blood." From Fenghuo 1 (5 September 1937): n.p.

Fig. 9.
Feng Zikai: A mother's head severed. From China
Weekly Review 88.6 (8 April 1939): 177.

Fig. 10.
Hu Kao, "Japanese Soldiers' Bestiality." From
QGXJ, p. 85.

Fig. 11.
Feng Zikai, "Bombing (Scene No. 4)." This
cartoon depicts bombs descending on a school
for the blind and the mute. From Feng,
Zhanshi xiang (N.p.: Kaiming shudian,
1945), p. 12.

Fig. 12.
Ye Qianyu, "Living for Vengeance." From W. H.
Auden and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a
War (New York: Random House, 1939)
(reproduced by permission of the publisher).

Fig. 13.
Cai Ruohong, "Eastern Pirate's Specialty." The
bodies on the ground are labeled
"people." From QGXJ, p. 84.

snake is regarded as "clever but wicked and treacherous"^[26] —an adequate description of the invading Japanese. Cartoonists also portrayed Japanese soldiers as pigs and dogs, animals that behaved in a most deplorable way.^[27] The use of bestial imagery, of course, is common in wartime propaganda.^[28] In Charles Press's words, as a form of psychological warfare it is "meant to be cruel and to hurt…. The hate shines through, uncontrolled and slightly insane."^[29] By dehumanizing the enemy, propagandists could justify the armed resistance as a crusade against barbarism and evil. By the same token, the Chinese were themselves depicted as lions or tigers, symbols of courage, pride, and steadfastness. The imposing presence of the majestic big cats expressed the country's resolve to resist and to win, thus stimulating the flagging spirit of the Chinese people.^[30] Such an approach set up an opposition of subhuman and human, evil and good, in which the viewer was clearly aligned with the latter.

The root cause of the war lay in Japanese militarism, and it was at that militarism that Chinese cartoonists directed their heaviest attacks. Wartime cartoons showed Japan as a nation stymied by internal conflict and mired in economic and political crises. But the major threat to Japan's welfare, as the cartoonists correctly suggested, came from the military. In general, they assumed that aggression occurred when internal checks were absent and the military was allowed to overwhelm the civilian government. Japan faced just such a dilemma. The country, wartime cartoons tell us, was the victim of unbridled military power. Its emperor had become powerless, and the high officers of the army and navy, like a colossal monster, manipulated Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro.^[31]

Japan was also portrayed as a nation that showed little respect for international law. Zhang Ding, for example, pictures a Japanese soldier disemboweling a woman with his bayonet (fig. 14) to satirize Japan's unilateral abrogation in 1938 of the Nine-Power Pact (signed sixteen years earlier at the Washington Conference). In addition to their routine defiance of the international community, the Japanese had more ominous designs abroad. The military leaders presented themselves deceptively as men of peace, proffering an olive branch to make "cooperation" between China and Japan palatable, or promoting cordial understanding between Japan and its Asian neighbors with its "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." This was a huge ruse, cartoonists warned, nothing but a dangerous trap. Japan, Gao Longsheng (1903–1977) cautioned, was like a two-headed man: one half

held out a gun while the other half toasted with a glass of champagne; his ultimate intention, however, was clear for all to see (fig. 15).

But Japan was not the only country with malicious designs. As another cartoon by Gao Longsheng showed, Japan together with Hitler formed an awful alliance aimed at conquering the world (fig. 16). The image of a mask, a familiar motif in Western and Soviet art,^[32] was now adopted by Chinese cartoonists. Zhang E's "A Nazi Soldier," for example, depicts a trooper with a swastika on his helmet removing a mask labeled "Peace" from his aggressive face. The German invasion plan, Zhang cautioned, included annexing Austria and attacking the Soviet Union.^[33] The emphasis was thus not on Japan's invasion of China alone, but on the danger of the spread of fascism throughout the world and its threat to civilization and peace. Like Low and Fitzpatrick, Chinese cartoonists warned that Japanese fascism was no local phenomenon; it was part of an international conspiracy that threatened the very survival of the human race.

Chinese artists also made careful attempts to distinguish between the Japanese people and their aggressive military leaders. The assumption was that war was created by the machinations of ambitious warlords, who dreamed of foreign aggrandizement and military glory. Like the Chinese under enemy occupation, the Japanese people at home faced coercion. Their leaders extorted money from them and compelled them to submit to harsh labor so that the militarists could maintain their war machine abroad, continuing their dream of conquering China. Zhang Ding, in a cartoon entitled "Unbearable" (fig. 17), portrayed this exploitation, which was pushing the nation to the brink of social and economic ruin, as being like loading a heavy cannon on the back of an emaciated donkey. Of course, the idea that the Japanese army did not enjoy popular support at home overlooked a strong right-wing, militaristic sentiment in that country. Nevertheless, the portrayal of a powerful military was correct: in the late 1930s it indeed controlled the government and every facet of society.

The threat to China's stability and survival as a nation came not only from outside, but also from within. The killing and plundering by Japanese troops required accomplices in China. Hence the War of Resistance was more than just a defense against outsiders; it was also a civil war against China's internal enemies, the hanjian (traitors). By clearly differentiating between patriots and hanjian, the intellectuals in a sense affirmed their own morality. Attacking hanjian thus became a ritual of self-justification, an act that reassured upright citizens about

Fig. 14.
Zhang Ding: The destruction of the Nine-Power
Treaty. The characters on the woman read,
"Nine-Power Treaty." From JWMH 10
(5 November 1937): 3.

Fig. 15.
Longsheng (Gao Longsheng), "United." From
Yue bao 1.3 (15 March 1937): 474.

Fig. 16.
Gao Longsheng, "'De' bu gu, bi you lin." The
original quote from Analects (IV, 25) means
"Virtue never dwells in solitude, it will always
attract neighbors." Here, however, the term de
stands for "Germany" (Deguo) rather than
the original "virtue" (de). The cartoon depicts
Hitler holding a head labeled "Austria." The
characters on the skull held by a Japanese
general read, "Puppet organization." From
QGXJ, p. 61.

Fig. 17.
Zhang Ding, "Unbearable." The cartoon is labeled "military expenses for
China invasion"; the donkey is the "Japanese people," and the man
is identified as "Japanese warlord." From QGXJ, p. 39.

the correctness of their behavior and conferred honor upon those who embraced the same view.^[34] Like the Yang Wencong type in Chinese wartime dramas, the hanjian is ubiquitous in Chinese cartoons, diminutive, cringing, outrageously shameless, and despicable in his obsequiousness. In the eyes of Liao Bingxiong, an early follower of Covarrubias who later became known for his distinctively original and thought-provoking works, a traitor is willing to do anything for his foreign masters (fig. 18). Liao used dramatic geometric lines and distortion to portray a most ignominious act: a master, with a glass of champagne before him and his muscular right hand under his chin, glows with delight and pride as his lackey, kowtowing at his feet, offers up his most precious belonging—his head.

When Wang Jingwei became head of a puppet government in Nanjing in March 1940, he instantly emerged as the embodiment of base servility. As the news of his submission to the Japanese spread, cartoonists wasted no time in unleashing a barrage of scathing attacks on China's Number One Traitor. To them, the capitulation of Wang, the former disciple of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian, 1866–1925) and an erstwhile revolutionary leader, was repugnant and intolerable. In the eyes of Te Wei, the setting up of a new government under Japanese aegis was nothing more than a farce played to its fullest extent.^[35] And indeed, Wang's regime was precisely as Feng Zikai's cartoons depicted it: "a monkey show," an ignominious puppet performance that cost untold lives.^[36] Still, Chinese collaborators were not confined to political figures like Wang Jingwei. As Gao Longsheng and Lu Zhixiang pointed out, a collaborator could be any one of any number of people—warlords, frustrated politicians, spineless men of letters, coldblooded youths, or hatchet men.^[37] The image of the treacherous, furtive traitor was so prevalent in Chinese wartime cartoons that it served as a constant reminder to the people that they must always be on the alert: the evil ones could destroy them if they allowed their defenses to slip.

According to Chinese wartime cartoons, however, the greatest danger to the nation's survival was neither the ferocity of the enemy and their military superiority, nor the havoc caused by traitors, but a weak will to resist. War could easily spread despair and create disorientation among the people. To win the war, and ultimately to save the nation, the Chinese people had to be transformed from unconcerned onlookers to active participants.

In Ye Qianyu's "Abandon the Civilian Life, Join the Army" (fig. 19), the famous cartoon character Mr. Wang (see fig. 2) has assumed a

Fig. 18.
Liao Bingxiong, "A Typical Lackey." From Bi Keguan and Huang Yuanlin,
Zhongguo manhua shi, pl. 184.

Fig. 19.
Ye Qianyu, "Abandon the Civilian Life, Join the Army."
From Xin dongxiang 2.10 (30 June 1939): 751.

new identity. No longer a petty bourgeois indulging in a decadent life in a corrupt city like Shanghai, Mr. Wang has donned a military uniform. He is wearing a helmet, carrying a gun, and marching to the battlefront. The transformation of Mr. Wang from a typical middleclass Philistine to a resolute patriotic soldier worked as a compelling call to arms, underlining the urgent need for every citizen's participation in the struggle against the Japanese. The ultimate strength of the resistance lay at the grass-roots level: a successful war against Japan could only be a people's war. The heroic struggle waged by common civilians against the invaders is vividly captured by Liang Baibo in "Let's Hand the Enemy an Even More Deadly Blow Following the Victory in Southern Shandong" (fig. 20). A man, filled with anger and standing upright like Hercules, is about to focus all his might on pounding a Japanese soldier with his mallet. The aggressor, defeated and fallen to the ground, shakily raises his crooked, blood-stained sword as he looks helplessly at impending doom. The gigantic stature of the hero contrasts dramatically with the diminutive villain. The outcome of the battle, as this cartoon clearly tells us, is decided not by the type of weapon used, but by the people's determination to fight. The first critical acts of resistance are therefore shown to be those of individuals, common men and women who dare to stand up and fight.

The people's power can be awesome, Lu Shaofei pointed out. In his "The Strength of the Armed People" (fig. 21), Lu depicts a Japanese soldier surrounded by raging peasants, who are determined to use every conceivable means to crush the invader. Again, the vivid contrast between the immense size of the Chinese resisters and the smallness of the intruder has a far greater impact on the audience than would subtle nuances. Such a device, of course, enjoys a long tradition in the West—consider James Gillray's famous series of cartoons about Napoleon, which ridiculed Bonaparte ("Little Boney") as a dwarf in military attire, or pieces by cartoonists such as Daniel Fitzpatrick during World War II. And as we have seen, it was also put to vigorous use by various Chinese artists. Part of the effectiveness of the device lies in its suggestion of Chinese superiority, spiritually if not militarily—though ironically, when the enemy was presented as the beastly aggressor, it was he who was huge and towering; only when the focus was on the valiant resistance of the Chinese people did he appear as diminutive and petrified.

In Lu Shaofei's piece, the sheer number of the Chinese people involved in the battle was shown to be a deciding factor in the final outcome. To defeat the enemy, the Chinese people must unite together.

And the unity of the will to resist, as Te Wei's cartoon indicates, is just like building an iron wall that will hold back the enemy's incursion (fig. 22). Besides symbolizing unity, the wall stood for something tangible: hard labor and war bonds. The contrast between the one (a lone Japanese soldier) and the many (a multitude of Chinese), along with the opposition of high (Chinese on top) and low (Japanese at the bottom), conveyed the same kind of optimism about the outcome of the war. The title with its familiar phrasing, "Mass will forms an impregnable wall" (zhong zhi cheng cheng), appealed directly to patriotic sentiment. To ignore the strength of the masses or to fail to mobilize them would be the gravest mistake that any government could make. If the masses were left unattended, as Zhang Ding's cartoon "The Abandoned and Unorganized Masses" cautioned, the country would face grave consequences: there would be no logistic support to soldiers at the front, hooligans and local tyrants would betray their country because of lack of internal constraint, and women and children would be molested and slaughtered by the enemy troops.^[38] Zhang's piece served as a somber admonition to the government.

Women and intellectuals also figured prominently in wartime cartoons. Like Hua Mulan in spoken dramas, the women depicted in cartoons display not only beauty and charm, patience and care, but also valor and resolve, virtue and strength.^[39] "I hope that every baby girl born will grow up like Hua Mulan," Feng Zikai said, thereby expressing his hope and admiration for the woman warrior (fig. 23).^[40] But unlike Hua Mulan, who joined the army on behalf of her ailing father (thus not totally of her own will) and whose identity was concealed until the very end, the modern-day Hua Mulan went to the battlefront voluntarily and had the full support of both her family and her country. With the revival of the Hua Mulan image in cartoons, a familiar experience of the past was given a new visual interpretation and a new context.

Two women cartoonists were particularly well placed to capture the thoughts and sensibilities of women in wartime China. In her "Sharing Equal Responsibility" (fig. 24), for instance, Liang Baibo shows how women assumed a multitude of important roles during the war—as nurses, as suppliers of munitions and medical aid, as members of the "battlefront visiting teams," and as soldiers. Against the background of a huge national flag, the young women in the cartoon exhibit confidence and optimism: their gaze focused, their heads held high and expression animated, they display utmost determination. Like the female symbols of resistance in the spoken drama, the figures

Fig. 20.
Baibo (Liang Baibo), "Let's Hand the Enemy
an Even More Deadly Blow Following the
Victory in Southern Shandong." Chinese
soldiers scored a victory against Japanese
troops in Taierzhuang, Shandong province, in
April 1938. From QGXJ, p. 26.

Fig. 21.
Lu Shaofei, "The Strength of the
Armed People." From QGXJ, p. 100.

Fig. 22.
Te Wei, "Mass Will Forms an Impregnable Wall." The cargo is labeled
"war bonds." From JWMH 8 (25 October 1937): 3.

Fig. 23.
Feng Zikai, "I Hope That Every Baby Girl Born
Will Grow Up Like Hua Mulan." From Feng,
Zhanshi xiang, p. 5.

in Liang's piece remind us that in comparison to men, women can contribute just as much, if not more, to their country. Yu Feng's "Let the Gunfire of National Salvation Smash This Pair of Shackles," portraying a woman breaking off her handcuffs in a battle (fig. 25), is an even more forceful statement. The piece, though lacking in artistic refinement, nevertheless evoked a passionate response. To Chinese women, the War of Resistance may have meant more than just defeating the enemy; it also meant liberation from all kinds of suppression, including Confucianism, which relegated women to an inferior status. The title of the piece plays on this sentiment: it is a call to resist all oppression, be it foreign or domestic.

What about the role of intellectuals? More than any other citizens, cartoonists argued, Chinese intellectuals should assume a greater burden of responsibility in time of war. As guardians of moral rectitude and social truth, as well as the embodiment of knowledge and wisdom, they served as important role models for the common people. The catastrophe that had engulfed the nation demanded immediate action. Failure to take a stand was not just a sign of weakness; it was a disgrace and a moral crime. When the survival of a nation is at stake, neither passivity nor dispassionate inquiry should be tolerated. "Let's Change into New Uniform," Ye Qianyu urges, calling on his comrades to join the resistance movement (fig. 26).

Like their civilian countrymen, Chinese soldiers were portrayed as selfless and valorous. They were professional men who were ready to take up arms to defend their homeland. Chinese cartoons, however, featured no individual soldier heroes like Bill Mauldin's (1921-) "Willie and Joe"; neither did they carry the satirical and critical tone of Mauldin's pieces.^[41] Mauldin prowled World War II foxholes to uncover a realistic, personal picture of war, his unshaven and sunkeneyed American GIs summing up the predicament of battle-weary infantryman. Chinese cartoonists, however, penned their soldiers in a more idealistic and abstract fashion—as heroic and resolute, always ready to lay their lives on the line. Zhang Ding's "Recover Lost Territory" (fig. 27) is a case in point. Depicted again in colossal size, the soldier stands upright, holds his head high, grasps his gun and sword firmly, and, exuding an air of self-confidence, calls on his countrymen to join hands to recover lost territory. The Great Wall reemerges not only as the ultimate line of defense but also the starting point for recovering land from the enemy. Besides bravery, the idea of self-sacrifice, of dying a heroic death, was also frequently invoked.^[42]

Images in that vein, though, represented not the grim reality of the battlefield, but the imaginations and wishful thinking of patriotic artists. It is therefore not surprising that much of wartime art was exhortatory.

Nevertheless, to present a convincing picture, images must be grounded in real-life events. The Battle of Taierzhuang (April 1938) provided a rare opportunity to do so in a positive manner. That battle was the first major victory registered by Chinese forces since the outbreak of the war. After repeated defeats and humiliation at the hands of a better-equipped Japanese army, the victory could not have come at a better time. It was more than a morale booster: it shattered once and for all the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese war machine. Predictably, the victory quickly found its way into pictures and images. Te Wei, for example, recorded the euphoria in his "Warriors at Taierzhuang" (fig. 28): a soldier, a grenade in his left hand and a bloodstained sword in his right, charges fearlessly toward the enemy's encampment, followed by his comrades.

Without downplaying the importance of conventional warfare, Chinese cartoonists also placed increasing emphasis on guerrilla warfare, especially after the second alliance between the GMD and the CCP was announced. Perfected by Mao Zedong, guerrilla warfare is characterized by surprise and deception, together with extreme mobility of troops. Liao Bingxiong's "Guerrillas"^[43] and Ding Cong's "How Come I Still Haven't Met an Eighth Route Army Soldier?" (fig. 29) reflected this strategy well. The increasing recognition that cartoonists accorded guerrilla warfare reflects the approval that Chinese artists in general felt for Mao's unique military approach.^[44] Indeed, the Communist tactics won the praise even of Western cartoonists, including David Low.^[45]

The second alliance between the GMD and the CCP, in 1937 in the wake of the Xi'an Incident (December 1936), was hailed by most Chinese as an epoch-making event. It was, in fact, a crucial step toward reunifying China after decades of chaos and incessant civil war. Pushed by the political exigencies of the time, warring factions resolved to set aside their differences and face their common foe. Continued partisan wrangling, both sides realized, would only paralyze the country further, presenting the enemy with an easy prey. Cai Ruohong's cartoon "A Sacred Handshake" (fig. 30) perhaps best expressed the sentiments of the time: a strong desire to end the bitter civil war and to see a grand alliance between the GMD and the CCP—

Fig. 24.
Baibo (Liang Baibo), "Sharing Equal
Responsibility." From QGXJ, p. 8.

Fig. 25.
Yu Feng, "Let the Gunfire of National
Salvation Smash This Pair of Shackles.
" From QGXJ, p. 103.

Fig. 26.
Ye Qianyu, "Let's Change into New
Uniform." From T'ien Hsia Monthly 7.4
(November 1938): n.p.

Fig. 27.
Zhang Ding, "Recover Lost Territory."
From JWMH 3 (30 September 1937): 3.

and against the invaders—finally materialize. The alliance, however, turned out to be short-lived, and the two parties soon renewed their old animosity.

To instill an optimistic spirit, Chinese cartoonists presented a bright future: the War of Resistance might be protracted and bitter, but if the Chinese people could join together as a single unit, they would triumph in the end. Such a notion was repeatedly cultivated. Cai Ruohong's famous cartoon "Surges of National Resistance," for instance, depicts the whole nation under arms: like roaring waves, the Chinese people will drown the invaders in the sea (fig. 31). Japan's penetration into China's interior, this cartoon also shows, is like sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire. It is doomed to failure. The China quagmire became one of the most popular images used in Chinese wartime cartoons.^[46]

In sum, wartime cartoon images were nationalistic, emotional, and idealistic. Using visual rhetoric, they portrayed a besieged nation fighting not merely for survival, but for justice and peace. The majority of cartoons were strong and spirited political statements, resting on the simple assumption that the current conflict was caused by Japan's unbridled imperialism—a theme designed to rekindle the bitter memories of repeated foreign encroachment on China in the past century. To repel the invaders and to rebuild China, nothing short of total unity was required. Unity was thus the cartoonists' battle cry.

For many cartoonists, the decision to participate in the resistance movement was an act of patriotism and a realization of their role as responsible citizens. But patriotism did not mean blind loyalty to the government. In fact, as the war progressed, cartoonists became increasingly critical of the GMD.

By the early 1940s, the excitement and high morale of the early war years had eroded as the economy was ravaged by inflation and the political climate became more oppressive. Initial support for the Nationalists had given way to alienation and disillusion. Cartoons critical of the government began to appear, mostly of an allegorical sort. For example, such images as "A Rich Man's Air-Raid Shelter" in Ye Qianyu's series "Wartime Chongqing" (1941), behind their humorous facades, condemned the extreme inequality that existed in the wartime capital.^[47] And Ding Cong's (Xiao Ding) "The Social Phenomenon" (1944) painted a gloomy picture of society plagued by social ills and economic dislocation.^[48] In Ding's piece, Guomindang society was a world populated by ruthless officials, profiteers, and penniless intellectuals. Liao Bingxiong's "A Professor's Meal" (1945) spoke

Fig. 28.
Te Wei, "Warriors at Taierzhuang." From QGXJ, p. 19.

further of the intellectuals' ordeal: dressed in tatters and with empty bowls, an enervated teacher and his family are eating his Western book to fill their empty stomachs.^[49] The scene was an embarrassment to the teacher, but more important, it was a disgrace to the Nationalist government, for it pointed out its inability to feed the Chinese people. Zhang Guangyu's colorful series "Journey to the West" ("Xiyou manji," 1945) made similar charges; here we find the pilgrimage of Tripitaka and his three disciples from the Ming novel being used as a backdrop,^[50] though instead of monsters and deities, the pilgrims now encounter bribery and government demoralization on their journey to

Fig. 29.
Ding Cong: Japanese invader says, "How come I still haven't met
an Eighth Route Army soldier?" From JWMH 8 (25
October 1937): 4.

Fig. 30.
Cai Ruohong, "A Sacred Handshake." The characters on
the left read, "Chinese Communist Party," and on the
right, "Chinese Nationalist Party." (According to the
artist, the question mark after the title "Sacred
Handshake" was a misprint; letter to the author, 26
July 1992.) From QGXJ, p. 17.

Fig. 31.
Cai Ruohong, "Surges of National Resistance."
The characters in the middle read, "United
resistance." From JWMH 1
(20 September 1937): 1.

Fig. 32.
Liao Bingxiong, "Mouse Bribery." The characters on the document read,
"Passed." From Liao, Bingxiong manhua (Guangzhou: Lingnan meishu
chubanshe, 1984), n.p.

the Buddha's paradise. Cartoon criticism intensified during the civil war period. Liao Bingxiong's "The Cat Kingdom" ("Maoguo chunqiu," 1945–1946), a devastating series on the dictatorial rule and corruption of the Guomindang, set the tone for what would follow in the ensuing years. In "Mouse Bribery," Liao painted a cat bearing the GMD emblem being plied lavishly with fish; in return he allows the mice's smuggling activities to continue unrestrained (fig. 32).^[51] This visual assault no doubt further undermined the public support for the government.

A New Form of Art

The wartime cartoon movement brought both artistic innovation and political radicalism to China. This campaign made concerted use of visual propaganda addressed to the common audience. But to Chinese cartoonists, the cartoon was more than a transient propaganda tool; it was a subtle blending of genuine art and pressing politics. The men and women who joined the cartoon movement before and during the war struggled to combat the Japanese with their drawing pens. They also wished to make a strong statement about the importance of their new craft, one condemned by traditional-style artists as inelegant. Thus another theme of central importance in the modern cartoon movement emerged, focusing on the tension between modernism and traditionalism in Chinese art.

For many cartoonists, the War of Resistance marked a radical departure from the past. Not only did it inspire a search for new means of expression to rally support, but it also triggered an intellectual quest for a new identity. "The war," one artist argued, "is a turning point in the history of Chinese painting…. [The new art] reminds us of the urgency of national survival, registers protests, and insists on [the necessity of patriotic] education."^[52] The war created a sense of transition that inspired innovation, and it offered cartoonists an opportunity to see China in a new light and to reflect upon the meaning of their art. Cartoonists dismissed conventional painting as obsolete. For them, making art was not a mere act of combing color and form, but a social and political activity with an immediate powerful impact on reality. Cartooning was not a solitary exercise, but a constant dialogue with life. Wartime cartoonists consciously sought liberation from the prevailing academic constraints, seeking instead a more open, bold, realistic, mass art geared not to a select few but to the common people at large. Their new art called into question all kinds of old forms and traditions, and ultimately the theoretical and moral justifications

behind them. Thus began what they called the "New Art Movement" (Xin meishu yundong).^[53] Woodcut artist Lai Shaoqi described three significant changes that characterized this new trend in art: an end to vulgar, erotic drawings (or what Lai bluntly called the art of "women's butts"); a shift toward realism; and an unprecedented unity among Chinese artists.^[54] The war not only made old ideas obsolete, but it also demanded a fresh look at the meaning of art.

The potential for conflict with established art circles became apparent as soon as young cartoonists began to show their work, attempting at the same time to redefine the conception of art. Predictably, traditional-style artists had harsh words for the young cartoonists. In their eyes, cartoonists were unwelcome intruders who not only borrowed arbitrarily from the West, but also willfully challenged established artistic standards of good and bad. Conservative painters dismissed the cartoon as "lowbrow," "vulgar," and too "plebeian" to qualify as art; at best it was a form of casual drawing (manbi), lacking substantial content, and "not even worthy of being hung on the wall."^[55] As for cartoonists, they were shoddy artists who indulged in crass commercialism and lacked any individual creativity. To traditional painters, wartime posters and mass graphic art were nothing more than tasteless "advertisement art" (guanggao hua).^[56] One old-style artist even went so far as to condemn cartoonists as the "scum of art" (yishu de bailei).^[57]

The condescension with which conservatives approached cartoons received a speedy rebuttal. Such charges as the traditional-style artists were making, the cartoonists said, revealed nothing but their deeprooted biases and their utter ignorance of the spirit of the times. Here again, the Western tradition came to the cartoonists' aid. As Hu Kao noted, "The fact that the work of the great German cartoonist Grosz is included in The Complete Works of World Art attests to the importance of the cartoon in Western society."^[58] Grosz, of course, was not the only cartoonist in the West to be awarded such respect: the French cartoonist Daumier, another art critic added, enjoyed celebrity status in France's academic circle just like Victor Hugo.^[59] The contrast between the West's tribute to the art of the cartoon and China's contemptuous treatment of cartoonists was, Chinese cartoonists believed, a clear indication of the narrow-mindedness and conservatism of Chinese art circles. They argued that the cartoon was a serious and opportune art whose value should be accorded the highest respect. "Wartime art wields enormous influence," one claimed.^[60]

For young cartoonists, the West was an important resource, helping

them both to defend their art and to escape the restrictions of tradition. But the West also created problems of identity. In the 1930s cartoonists enthusiastically imitated foreign masters, whom they believed to be the best models for their art. But did their passion for all that was new and foreign go too far? The undiscriminating introduction of Western concepts, some critics charged, was tantamount to blind worship of foreign ideas. It had a deleterious effect on Chinese art because it caused artists to abandon tradition altogether; as a result, their works were unoriginal if not totally uninspiring. Te Wei's cartoons, for instance, were criticized as being "too Europeanized" (tai Ou hua), lacking a clear identity and therefore "difficult for Chinese readers to accept."^[61] If cartoonists relied wholly on the West, one observer warned, "the [new art] movement was doomed to failure" because "it was not rooted in the soil."^[62]

Soon a heated debate on "national form in painting" erupted in Chinese cartooning circles. The war, as we have seen, created a wave of nationalism in China. And cartoonists were not immune to this upsurge of emotion. No longer content to view everything through a Western lens, cartoonists attempted to establish a distinctly Chinese style. As ardent nationalists, many now felt a strong desire to defend their Chineseness. Good cartoons, they argued, like literature or any other art form, must be closely linked with China's own culture and its people's life; they must be "sinicized" (zhongguohua), as Shen Zhenhuang (d. 1944) suggested,^[63] the goal being what Huang Shiying called a unique form of "national cartoon" (minzu manhua).^[64] But how could Western methods be blended with unique, Chinese conditions? How could cartoonists develop what one critic called "an artist's true self"?^[65] And what exactly was "a national cartoon" or "a sinicized cartoon"? Huang Mao attempted an answer:

The sinicized cartoon … does not disregard the merits in Chinese traditional painting…. We must retain the marvels of brush and ink in Chinese art. But we also lack a scientific approach to drawings and are short of basic sketching techniques. By combining these with Western perspective devices and the art of human anatomy, we can create a new style. In brief, Western techniques must be expressed through our national forms…. If we can blend Chinese reality with our national forms, sinicized cartoons [zhongguohua de manhua ] will emerge.^[66]

There is no question that Chinese cartoonists were profoundly influenced by Western techniques. The rich black-and-white contrast of

pen and ink was a hallmark of Shen Bochen's and Huang Wennong's works, and Western perspective devices were commonly used by Te Wei and others (see figs. 28 and 33). Perhaps the most visible Western impact, however, was in the area of figure drawing. In general, although Chinese painting has a long tradition of human subjects, it is weak in subtle facial and bodily expression. Both Daumier's rich repertoire of figure drawings and Kollwitz's acute grasp of pose and gesture proved deep inspirations to young Chinese artists, cartoonists and woodcut artists alike. The cruelty of war could never be captured if human suffering and agony were not rendered fully. Often a simple facial expression or stance can reveal human folly in its most painful and tragic way. In opposition to traditional landscape painting, which championed abstract ideals and was commonly associated with a small group of literati or eccentrics, Ye Qianyu argued that a new national cartoon art must be established based on human sketches, which could convey a powerful sense of "strength" and "realism" to its readers.^[67]

The late 1930s saw a move away from the old emphasis on foreign influence to a cultivation of a native style of art. That move, however, should not be interpreted as a turning away from the West. Rather, it was an effort on the part of Chinese cartoonists to develop their own sense of style and to raise national consciousness. Exposure to foreign contacts kept them abreast of new developments in the Western art world; it also forced them to reflect upon their own role as Chinese cartoonists. The concern for sinification thus symbolized their increasing awareness that this largely Western-inspired art form would not be fully accepted by the Chinese unless it was very carefully transplanted into Chinese soil. It also revealed the deep sensitivity of many Chinese cartoonists and their desire to demonstrate to their Western mentors that the transplanted art not only had come of age, but it had also developed a distinct personality of its own. Sinification did not mean exclusion of the West, cautioned Huang Mao. On the contrary, "To successfully create a national style, we must work Western ideas into our art."^[68] The emphasis was thus on creative adaptation, as opposed to blind imitation. ding Cong's use of the traditional handscroll for his cartoons (for example, "The Social Phenomenon")^[69] is a case in point. Zhang Guangyu was successful in blending Western techniques with Chinese traditional decorative art in his works, especially "Journey to the West." And Liao Bingxiong integrated folk arts smoothly into his provocative drawings, notably the "Cat Kingdom" series. Liao, a great lover of Cantonese songs and folk arts, had a knack for adorning his works with local rhymes and idioms.^[70] Thus, although their tech-

niques might be Western, the meaning they wished to convey was definitely Chinese. Perhaps the best-known practitioner of this hybrid art is Feng Zikai, who used a traditional Chinese brush to paint some of the most memorable cartoons in modern Chinese history.

The wartime cartoon movement owed much of its spiritual élan to its skirmish with revered conventions. In their attempt to find a new direction for their art, young cartoonists came to view detachment from reality and abstraction in art with considerable distrust. The feeling that they were not welcome within the art establishment only added to their discontent—and was perhaps added to by a sense of inferiority resulting from the fact that few cartoonists had proper artistic training. In their eyes, traditional-style artists with their outdated practices offered little guidance for China's future; excessive emphasis on high art at the expense of other areas of visual culture, moreover, nurtured a marked insensitivity to change. Huang Mao put it bluntly: "Among all kinds of intellectuals, traditional-style painters probably make up the one group that remains the most detached from the people." Worse still, Huang Mao continued, old-fashioned artists regarded themselves as "talented scholars" (mingshi), looking contemptuously on the people and "indulging in constant self-admiration in their ivory towers."^[71] Because of their stubborn adherence to archaic ideas and strict rules, they tended to produce mediocre, uninspired pieces, devoid of creativity and timeliness. According to cartoonists, the traditional landscape and flower-and-bird paintings, painted for and comprehended by only a select few, induced insensitivity, invited escape from social realities, and dampened the revolutionary ardor so needed in this critical time. As one put it, "[At a time of national crisis], the great masters of traditional schools are still wrapping themselves up in their 'literati painting' [wenren hua ], leisurely enjoying their flowers and birds. Do they remember what Goya, an aging nationalistic Spanish painter, did a hundred years ago?"^[72] In the eyes of young cartoonists (with but a few exceptions such as Zhang Shanzi [1882–1940], Xu Beihong [1895–1953], and Guan Shanyue [1912-]),^[73] the majority of the traditional-style painters—or what one young artist sarcastically dubbed "aloof painters" (chaoran huajia)^[74] —had withdrawn into a small world of resignation and cynicism.

To move from the margin to the mainstream of Chinese art, however, cartoonists had to do more than criticize the traditionalists and sinicize Western influences. They had, in a word, to revolutionize the meaning of art by bringing it to the people. This new breed of artist

believed that cartoons were a special form of expression that faithfully reflected the rhythm of the people's life and related art to struggle. Thus cartoonists were laying the groundwork for a future great Chinese art—easily accessible, stylistically vivid, and socially responsible. Their works extended beyond an interest in painting and drawing to include commitment and participation. This conception signified a fundamental change in the way artists lived, a recognition that the arts had to align themselves with reality if they were to prosper.

These ideas were fully evident in cartoonists' efforts to formulate a new theory. Many artists felt that a new technique, no matter how good, should be grounded in a sound theoretical framework. Cartoonists were eager to prove that their craft was more than just a visually exciting medium, that it was a superb art with profound intellectual implications and strong involvement in life as it is lived.

The search for a theory, to be sure, did not begin during the war. Modern Cartoons is a showcase of some earlier energy spent on the topic. Throughout its existence from 1934 to 1937, the influential Shanghai cartoon magazine devoted pages to discussion of the nature of the cartoon. Japanese and Western theories (such as those of Kuriyagawa Hakuson [1880–1923] and William Gropper [1897–1977]) were introduced and debated.^[75] A cartoon, the new artists maintained, might appear simple in technique, but it was never short of artistry and was always rich in aesthetic appeal. To strengthen their position, cartoonists painstakingly tried to clarify the term for cartoon, manhua, and the nature of their craft. Lu Shaofei contended that although the word man singularly could mean "romantic" as in the term langman, the term manhua (cartoon) meant something entirely different, incorporating spontaneity and playfulness, a kind of free-flow drawing that nevertheless demanded mastery of sophisticated technique.^[76] Lu Shaofei also reiterated a point made by Lu Xun in an article written in 1935, namely, that it would be a grave mistake to interpret the character man to mean "casual jottings" (as in manbi), like the writings of the traditional literati.^[77] A good cartoon, Lu Xun and Lu Shaofei both contended, could easily display a level of artistic adroitness equal, if not superior, to any other polished art. "Looking at cartoons is like sipping good wine or enjoying a cigarette: it brings a sense of excitement," Huang Miaozi added.^[78] Yet the novelty and value of the cartoonist's craft came mainly from its rich contents and unique purpose. A good cartoon never failed to convey the artist's sincerity and was capable of providing a sense of immediacy to readers. "Cartoons are not jokes," one cartoonist wrote. "They are not de-

signed to curry favor or seek laughs unrelated to life. On the contrary, they strive to reflect life. They are the life sketches of the people, revealing their pressing needs and desires."^[79] It was this new realism that set cartoonists apart from traditional-style painters, they insisted.

The cartoon, argued Wang Dunqing, "is rich in propaganda value and can promote social change. It is a much superior tool [to traditional-style painting] in expressing ideas."^[80] "Cartoons," Hu Kao echoed, "must be in close communication with the common people. They must merge with them."^[81] The fact that Wang Dunqing and Hu Kao did indeed define their art partly on the grounds of its propaganda value rekindles the old debate over the precise nature of the cartoon as an art form. Does propaganda art, for example, have intrinsic value? Should it be considered a worthy endeavor, as cartoonists claimed? Or were the traditional artists correct when they disparaged the cartoon as a "vulgar" form? It is true that propaganda art, which tends to be time-specific and politically motivated, usually has little lasting value. It is also true that many wartime artists, trapped by the official line, lacked originality and subtlety. Most of the drawings produced during the war were hastily dashed off and technically rudimentary, hence of short-lived interest. Still, it would be erroneous to assume that all wartime cartoons were simply one prolonged cliché. Many, such as those of Ye Qianyu and Liao Bingxiong, showed considerable ingenuity and poignancy. More important, the strong emphasis Chinese cartoonists placed on bringing their art to the people made their undertaking unique. Cartooning, as Hu Kao and others argued, was no longer an individual activity; it was a joint venture involving both the artist and the audience. This audience-oriented perspective lay at the heart of wartime popular culture.

To Hu Kao, cartoons were an effective political vehicle that could sway public opinion.^[82] The force of a cartoon, echoed the artist Xinbo, was just like "a silent bomb," which, if detonated at the right time, could have an enormous effect.^[83] In the early years of the war, as young propagandists roamed the countryside attempting to arouse patriotic feelings among the country folk, it became clear that cartoons, posters, and other graphic media reached the audience more easily, quickly, and far more widely than books or other types of printed material. One artist related his own experience in late 1937:

As a member of the Sixth National Salvation Drama Propaganda Team, I spent a whole month doing propaganda work in more than ten villages in Zhejiang province. Everywhere we visited we

used songs, dramas, speeches, and drawings as our main propaganda tools. But no matter where we were, the only thing that could draw a large peasant crowd and really arouse their interest was the huge drawings we brought along!

Although songs could also interest them, a large portion of the songs were not popularized enough. Furthermore, we sang in Mandarin, which was largely incomprehensible to them.

Staging dramas also proved problematic. First, it was often difficult to find an ideal location to put on the show. Second, audiences did not always behave in an orderly fashion. They talked and yelled freely so that actors' lines were largely inaudible.

As for making speeches, often because of the unpolished oratorical skill of the speaker, the talk quickly became dull and dry, and many listeners left halfway through…. Among the four [propaganda methods], the one that proved most understandable to and welcomed by the peasants was drawings.^[84]

Clearly, relatively simple materials and speed of production were beneficial in making cartoons widely available. The best type of wartime cartoon for stirring up patriotic feelings, according to Hu Kao, was what he called a "reportage picture" (baodao hua), an easily reprinted drawing that employed simple brushstrokes and described real happenings.^[85] To reach as many people as possible, Huang Mao proposed that political cartoons appear in different forms and in every conceivable place: exhibitions (including indoor, street, mobile, and window displays), huge banners hung across the streets, signboards, wall posters, mimeographed material, magazines, packaging, postcards, and touring cars.^[86]

To produce maximum impact, cartoonists often reduced the complex issues to a number of readily identifiable visual signs. The slogan "Japanese imperialism," as many resistance intellectuals had pointed out, was too abstract for peasants to understand. But the image of a snake was not: it was an ominous sign of catastrophe. Cartoonists also employed polarized stereotypes to stress the differences between Chinese and Japanese. The enemy was identified as a torturer, rampantly insensitive to suffering and death. The Chinese, by contrast, were victims, which made their armed resistance a justifiable act. Killing for them was a means of survival, the only way to restore order and peace. The invaders were also portrayed as loners, whose deplorable acts were condemned not only by the invaded but also by their own people and the world community at large. The Chinese resisters, meanwhile, appeared in abundance and in different forms. The quan-

tity and variety indicated more than just a large, diverse population: it signified the will of the majority and unity against aggression.

The impact of an image, however, tended to be instantaneous and fleeting; cumulative results were in no way guaranteed. Here Liao Bingxiong's suggestion proved most useful: a storytelling format had the best chance of turning a visual representation into an unforgettable icon. Nonetheless, there were other problems, the most serious being the ambiguity of images. A visual sign, no matter how simple, can be invested with a variety of meanings. Messages can also be decoded by readers in ways different from what the cartoonist originally intended. As Cao Bohan observed, not every peasant understood cartoons, and many came away with conflicting interpretations.^[87] The ambiguity could be resolved by supplying the cartoon with a simple text. While Feng Zikai's poems were no doubt too literary for the general public to grasp, the majority of cartoons used simple, direct language to achieve three key functions: summation, anchorage, and relay.^[88] That is, the text sums up, usually in a very few words, a particular situation depicted in the picture; it then directs viewers to read the visual image and steers them to grasp the intended message. Cartoonists also frequently used easy-to-understand titles or proverbs—such as "The mass will forms an impregnable wall" (Zhong zhi cheng cheng) and "Bogging down in the quagmire" (Ni zu shen xian) —to make their points even clearer.

Chinese cartoonists called on fellow artists to get involved, to "open their eyes to see the real society."^[89] Young artists were urged to forsake their sheltered city life and go to the villages and battlefronts to paint the lot of common peasants and foot soldiers. Shen Yiqian (1908–1944) and Zhao Wangyun (1906–1977) heeded the call. Shen was the first Chinese cartoonist to go directly to the front to record the war. After first visiting the northern front (the Chahar-Suiyuan area) when the war erupted, he later formed a battlefield artist team and traveled from one battlefront to another, capturing the bravery of Chinese soldiers and the horrors of the war in his works.^[90] But the artist who perhaps best symbolized a new type of traveling cartoonist was Zhao Wangyun.

Coming from a poor peasant family in Hebei province, Zhao first made his name as an illustrator for the Tianjin-based Dagong bao. His early paintings such as Countryside Sketches (Nongcun xiesheng ji, 1933) provide a rare, intimate look into the life and people of a northern Chinese rural community—a peasant relaxing after a demanding day of work, a night soil man, and a sweating ox laboring in the

fields.^[91] His friend General Feng Yuxiang (1882–1948) and his colleague Xiao Qian hailed him as one of the few artists whose works genuinely reflected the hardships of the people.^[92] Although Zhao's early pieces showed many unsettling scenes of the deteriorating rural community, his cartoons after the eruption of the war presented an even grimmer picture of peasant life. Filled with patriotic passion and what journalist Cao Juren (1900–1972) called "a rare feeling of sincerity,"^[93] Zhao traveled from one village to another, producing some of the most disturbing pictures of a countryside suffering from war and governmental ineptitude: houses on fire after air raids, refugees running away from war-torn villages.^[94] Zhao used traditional Chinese landscape painting techniques in his cartoons, breathing life and pain into the scenes he portrayed. But what made his paintings unique was his emphasis on rural China, on the painful life of peasants and their struggle against disintegration and total disillusion. Ye Qianyu sums up his work well: "From Zhao's brush, Chinese peasants—the symbol of China's sufferings—emerge."^[95]

Like many of his contemporaries, Zhao's wartime cartoons exude the people's determined spirit to fight against foreign aggression. In "Country Warriors" (fig. 33), for example, an old peasant stands with majesty in the foreground, his eyes glaring fiercely and his hands grasping a tasseled spear: he is ready to take on the enemy. And he is not alone. In the background, in a unified phalanx, stand equally determined countrymen eager to join him in battle. The picture clearly conveys the determination and enormous strength of rural China. Their weapons might be obsolete, but their spirit is definitely new. Likewise, though the idea of close peasant ties and community spirit was old, the emphasis on military heroism was not.

Zhao Wangyun's focus on country life and the spirit of the peasantry was more than an expression of personal style: it was another indication of how urban popular culture assumed a new look during the war. In a country marked by broad illiteracy, a visual propaganda tool relying on simple images and easily learned slogans could play an important role in garnering peasants' support for the war effort. Like dramatists, cartoonists were fully aware that China's countryside was an untapped source of resistance force. As the cartoon critic Shen Zhenhuang put it in 1939:

The mainstay of a protracted war of resistance lies in the villages. But the strength must be nurtured early so that it can grow and yield positive results. In the countryside, where illiteracy is

Fig. 33.
Zhao Wangyun, "Country Warriors." From KDD 10 (16 May 1938):
n.p.

widespread, cartoons can play a crucial role in disseminating ideas and educating the people. They are not just an effective propaganda weapon but also an ideal tool for organizing the peasants…. Let's sincerely call on cartoonists…. Go to the front! Go to the villages!^[96]

This appeal reflected a new direction in the art of cartoons. No longer was the targeted audience the urban middle class; rather, cartoonists now made a conscious effort to reach the peasantry specifically, to encourage their participation in the resistance movement. Zhao Wangyun's "Country Warriors" (fig. 33) and Lu Shaofei's "The Strength of the Armed People" (see fig. 21) are but two of many examples of such works.^[97] Zhao's "Country Warriors," for one, no doubt sparked more recognition and excitement among peasants than Ye Qianyu's new Mr. Wang, who was now in uniform (see fig. 19). Moreover, cartoon magazines were no longer published to entertain urbanites or for artistic experimentation; they now had the clear goal of inculcating the rural masses. National Mobilizers Pictorial (Guojia zongdongyuan huabao) is a case in point. Edited by Lu Shaofei and Zhang E in Guangzhou in 1938, the magazine was carefully designed to serve as a mass propaganda tool. Huang Miaozi wrote:

Unlike previous cartoon publications published in the cities and geared to the taste of the petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, this pictorial was launched to bring pictures to the masses as propaganda messages. It concerned practical topics, and its styles are both realistic and easily comprehended. And because of its unique distribution network, the whole endeavor was such a big success that it had to change from publishing every five days to every three. It circulated throughout Guangdong province and developed a cordial bond with the people. Total sales ran as high as fifty to sixty thousand copies. It was truly unprecedented!^[98]

Ye Qianyu summed up this important shift of cartoons thus: "During the war, … cartoons moved from magazines to banners and street walls, and from printings to street exhibitions."^[99]

But what impact did political cartoons have on the populace? How far did they actually reach into the countryside? These questions are difficult to answer. Wartime cartoon magazines were certainly few in number (not more than a dozen) and mostly limited in circulation.^[100] Many of them were also short-lived. Resistance Cartoons, for example, lasted only fifteen issues. The cartoon exhibitions, though enormously popular, were largely confined to interior cities like Guilin and

Changsha and their suburbs. And the small number of cartoonists involved would seem to suggest a meager impact. Yet political cartoons appeared not only in cartoon magazines, but also in profusion in newspapers and literary magazines throughout the war years; many were also widely reprinted, as in the case of Feng Zikai's depiction of a mother meeting a tragic death (see fig. 9).^[101] As a visual art and through various printed media, therefore, cartoons were able to reach a wider audience than spoken dramas.

Not every cartoonist was happy treating cartoons as a propaganda art. Feng Zikai, China's foremost philosophical cartoonist of his time, was among the dissenters. Feng saw cartoons as a pure art form; but more important, his strong concern with human fate took precedence over his interest in art. He succeeded in raising his art to a level of universality and timelessness unparalleled in his generation.

War and Peace in the Cartoons of Feng Zikai

Unlike many of his fellow cartoonists, Feng Zikai viewed the War of Resistance with mixed feelings. He realized that the war was a matter of survival for his country. A nation under siege and occupation had every right to defend itself and ultimately to defeat the enemy and reestablish peace. But war inevitably led to untold human suffering and death—a direct assault on Feng's own firmly held Buddhist beliefs. His wartime cartoons vividly reveal his ambivalence: even as he appeals to his fellow countrymen to resist the enemy's aggression, at the same time he presents a powerful indictment of the senseless waste of human lives. It is not violent death and the desolation of the survivors alone that make his cartoons memorable and thought-provoking. Underneath them lie more fundamental philosophical questions: Why should there be war? Why can't humans stop killing one another? And why is there so much suffering in life?

Feng Zikai, a multitalented artist and scholar, towers above his contemporaries as a first-rate cartoonist by virtue of his imaginative power and warm touch.^[102] A native of Shimenwan (Tongxiang country, Zhejiang province), Feng received his training in Japan and was well informed about both Asian and Western art. He produced some of the most influential works on art theory in China in the 1920s and 1930s.^[103] His superb personal essays (xiaopinwen), characterized by a blending of human warmth, poetic beauty, and philosophical touches, won high praise among literary luminaries of his time.^[104] Feng was also a musician, calligrapher, and religious artist. Under the influence

of his famous high school mentor, the artist-turned-teacher Li Shutong (who later took the tonsure to become the monk Hongyi), Feng produced several volumes of religious cartoons entitled Paintings on the Preservation of Life (Husheng huaji), dealing with the Buddhist teaching of nonkilling and releasing life.^[105] Indeed, Buddhist thought is a constant undercurrent in Feng's cartoons.

Feng's numerous contributions to Chinese art notwithstanding, he is best remembered for his role in the modern Chinese cartoon movement. One of the three most influential cartoonists in the Republican era (the other two being Ye Qianyu and Zhang Guangyu), Feng almost single-handedly established cartoons as a respected art form in China. It was he who first introduced the term manhua from Japan in 1925; and it was he who first contributed cartoons regularly to such esteemed literary journals as Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao) and influential newspapers as Shanghai's Shen bao.^[106] Feng, along with such men as Huang Mao and Wang Dunqing, was also one of China's few cartoon theorists. His pioneering book Cartooning Methods (Manhua de miaofa, 1943) outlines the technical aspects of the cartoon and provides a detailed, sophisticated theoretical justification of its importance in Chinese art.

Feng Zikai initially gained acclaim as an artist with his series of cartoons of lovable, mischievous children. Like many of his contemporaries, Feng had a rather romantic view of children.^[107] He believed that a child's mind is innocent and sincere, neither constrained by worldly conventions nor driven by evil thoughts. Only children, according to Feng, seem able to comprehend the fundamental Buddhist belief that life should be filled with love and hope rather than prejudice and hypocrisy.^[108] Feng spent a large part of his early career drawing children, often using his own offspring as models. His children are always innocent, happy, enchanting, and sometimes mischievous (as in "When Father Is Away," 1926).^[109] Feng's drawings of children reveal the unmistakable imprint of the work of Takehisa Yumeji, a noted Japanese painter and poet known for his portrayals of children and women.^[110] Like Yumeji, Feng captured charmingly both the movements and feelings of children. Also like Yumeji, he often accompanied his drawings with a song or verse, giving them a distinctly poetic flavor uncommon in his generation. Despite these influences, Feng developed a style and approach all his own by combining traditional Chinese brush strokes with contemporary social settings, often lacing them with humor and religious purport. This original look set Feng

apart from such contemporaries as the political cartoonists Cai Ruohong and Te Wei, whose works are strongly reminiscent of the Western satirical caricature.

Although the cartoon is a modern urban phenomenon, Feng's early work seems curiously traditional, in mood if not in content. Steeped in classical literature, he had a predilection for adorning cartoons with famous poems from the Tang and Song dynasties. Consider, for example, his collection Old Poems in New Paintings (Gushi xinhua).^[111] Using a traditional brush and modern cartoon techniques, Feng painted a series of smooth, lyrical pieces, but ones that often convey a melancholic, pathetic mood. Thus "How Wonderful Is the Setting Sun" (fig. 34, from the poem "Mounting Leyouyuan" ["Deng Leyouyuan"] by Li Shangyin of the Tang) is tinged with a sadness at the passing of time, underscoring the Buddhist notion that impermanence is the inexorable law of all existence. Far from being satirical and entertaining—two characteristics of many modern-day cartoons—Feng's works were often thought-provoking and illuminating. His philosophical touch elevated his cartoons to a religious level unique in his generation.

Feng Zikai was no traditionalist, however. He was inspired more by the mood and rich symbolism of classical poetry than by its outmoded ideas or its strict rules of prosody. Feng's artistic outlook was thoroughly modern, inspired by direct observation of the world around him. "My drawings are closely related to my life," he once said. "As in the keeping of accounts, I record only what I feel in my daily life."^[112] Feng was also highly critical of traditional-style painters for painting only "recluses and ancient beauties" but not "workers and rickshaw men."^[113] True to his words, Feng himself focused on the people he saw and met in the streets and on events happening around him, portraying a kaleidoscope of activities in Chinese society, both urban and rural. His cartoons, as he put it, are like being on a train, for they detail the myriad events that unfold in "compartment society."^[114]

Unlike Cai Ruohong or Hu Kao, Feng Zikai was neither a satirist nor an activist who wished to use his cartoons to foster social change. His prewar work had been largely apolitical: he merely recorded what he saw and heard in his life, painting with a gentle, sympathetic touch. The Buddhist ideas of nonaggression and withdrawal that appear in his work also made him seem more like an aloof observer than an active participant. This attitude did not sit well with activists who believed that artists should take a positive, involved role in reforming society and focusing readers' attention on current political problems,

Fig. 34.
Feng Zikai, "How Wonderful Is the Setting Sun." From Feng,
Gushi xinhua (N.p.: Kaiming shudian, 1945), p. 68.

especially at a time of potential outside aggression. For some critics, Feng's subjects were "far removed from China's reality," failing to inform the public about the seriousness of the national crisis.^[115] Feng's style, Huang Mao complained, exhibited a detached, elegant mood totally divorced from real life.^[116]

The war, however, changed Feng's attitude toward art profoundly. He quickly became active in the resistance movement and began to draw patriotic cartoons, using them to arouse nationalistic passion; yet remarkably, his faith in humanity did not waver—indeed, it may have been strengthened by adversity.

In late November 1937, after his hometown, Shimenwan, had been attacked in Japanese air raids, Feng and his family fled into the interior, starting a long and painful ordeal as refugees. Following brief sojourns in places like Guilin, Liangjiang, and Zunyi and enduring all kinds of hardships, the family finally settled in Chongqing, where they stayed until the end of the war. Feng was never a detached loner; he was foremost a family man, pleased when his children surrounded him and when his wife greeted him at the door as he returned from work. But the war uprooted his family and brought ruin and destruction to his country, causing him to change his artistic focus dramatically. Even before the war erupted, Feng saw the impending catastrophe. Before he fled his hometown, appalled by the rapidly spreading chaos, he decided to recount the turmoil and misery in a series of drawings to be entitled Cartoons on Japan's Invasion of China (Manhua Riben qin Hua shi). Japanese air raids, however, aborted his plan. As the war dragged on, he became more involved. In March 1938 he added his name to the newly founded All-China Resistance Association of Writers and Artists and joined the editorial board of Resistance Literature and Art (Kangzhan wenyi), the official publication of the association. His drawings on war began to appear widely not only in that journal, but also in various magazines and newspapers, condemning Japanese brutality in China.

There is no question that Feng Zikai was bitter about the war. "For eight years," he wrote in 1947, "I have been wandering constantly on the road in Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces. As I gaze into the distance in the direction of Jiangnan, I am truly heart-broken. I pray to heaven, wishing that China can turn defeat into victory."^[117] His family was uprooted, his livelihood threatened, and his beloved Yuanyuan Studio, where he drew his cartoons and stored his precious books and other mementos, including the monk Hongyi's calligraphy, burned down. In a moving article called "Commemorating the Spirit of the Yuanyuan Studio," Feng poured out his anger against the enemy.^[118] Feng Zikai now argued that some things were more important than life itself, "not to become a conquered people" being one of them.^[119] Although the Chinese people had long been accused of behaving like "a heap of loose sand," lacking the necessary unity to resist outside aggression, Feng contended that the War of Resistance was like a sandbag that bound together all Chinese.^[120] As an artist, Feng now believed that art could and should play a major role in saving China.^[121] When the survival of a nation is at stake, Feng re-

peatedly argued, every citizen should heed the call to fight—an attitude that won Feng praise within the literary circle.^[122]

On the surface, Feng Zikai's wartime cartoons resembled the work of many of his contemporaries. Determined to record the bestialities of aggression and the ensuing human suffering, he portrayed Japanese brutality (see figs. 9, 11), ridiculed traitors, depicted soldiers leaving for the front, showed the ruins of war, and demonstrated the people's determination to defend their nation.^[123] In his wartime cartoons, even the innocence of his beloved children had disappeared. Like adults, children are now painted as patriotic and strong-willed in their desire to help defend the country, donating money to the war cause (fig. 35), forming the "Youth National Salvation Army,"^[124] and writing patriotic slogans even in occupied territory.^[125] Feng's children have "grown up"; they live in a cruel world where killing is common and where survival depends solely on one's determination to fight back. Children are not ill-natured nor aggressive; they are simply self-defensive.

Feng Zikai also had a knack for using symbols in his works. He could create powerful images with a few deft lines, skillfully summing up a complicated situation. Two cats playing havoc with objects on top of a desk implies Japan's repeated tramplings on China's culture.^[126] The notion of giving one's life for one's country is symbolized with blood and flowers: "From the Pool of Blood Grows the Flower of Freedom,"^[127] and "Let the Blood of the Martyrs Nourish the Flower of Freedom" (fig. 36). The images are familiar and the message simple: without sacrifice there can be no liberation. Feng was confident that his country would eventually prevail. China was like a tall tree, Feng wrote; although it had been chopped down by the enemy, when the spring came, new buds would emerge (fig. 37). A tall tree was an important sign of hope and vitality. "It symbolizes today's China as a single entity," and with constant rejuvenating efforts China would become an even stronger country.^[128]

The difference in tone and mood between his prewar drawings and his wartime cartoons is striking. Unlike his lyrical and graceful pieces of the early 1930s, many of which praised common and modest things, Feng's later cartoons were highly passionate and permeated with strong nationalist sentiment as he urged his compatriots to rally behind the government. Feng became an ardent patriot who believed that the best way he could contribute to the war effort was by drawing cartoons and recording faithfully the scenes of destruction and atrocity caused by invading troops.

Fig. 35.
Feng Zikai: "Today I am not going to have any
candy, / The money will be donated to our
government. / Although it is a small sum, / Every bit will
certainly help." The collection box is labeled "National
Salvation Fund. " From Feng, Zhandi manhua
(Hong Kong: Yingshang buliedian tushu
gongsi, 1939), n.p.

Fig. 36.
Feng Zikai: "Let the Blood of the Martyrs Nourish the
Flower of Freedom." The vase is labeled "Freedom,"
and the watering can, "Martyr." From Feng, Zhandi
manhua, n.p.

Fig. 37.
Feng Zikai: "A tree has been chopped down, / But its instinct for
life never dies. / When spring comes again, / It will grow and
thrive." From Feng, Zhandi manhua, n.p.

Yet despite his numerous patriotic pieces, Feng Zikai was never fully comfortable with what he had painted. To Feng, wartime cartoons were mostly expedient tools of propaganda; they could hardly be described as genuine art. When the war broke out, some suggested that he should burn his Paintings on the Preservation of Life because of the book's theme. Feng retorted:

The purpose of Paintings on the Preservation of Life is to admonish people to treasure their lives and to refrain from kill-

ing so that we can cultivate benevolence and love and promote peace…. When I ask an urchin not to trample on ants, it is not because I cherish ants, or because I want to provide food to sustain them; it is because I am afraid that this little cruelty [if it remains unchecked] will turn into aggression in the future, using planes to carry heavy bombs to kill innocent people.^[129]

Feng Zikai divided cartoons into three categories: reflective, satirical, and propaganda. The first are cartoons that come from the artist's heart. Unlike satirical cartoons, they are not intended to criticize or express an opinion, and unlike propaganda cartoons, they are not calculated to attain results. They are painted to touch a common chord between artist and reader. A good example, according to Feng Zikai, is his "The Instinct for Life" (fig. 38), which depicts a sprout struggling to survive on a brick wall. The ability of a sprout to survive against all odds is, in Feng's words, "an astounding phenomenon."^[130] A reflective cartoon, according to Feng, can only be appreciated by a genuinely thoughtful mind. "It is the most artistic type of all cartoons."^[131]

In contrast to reflective cartoons, satirical cartoons are designed to raise criticisms against unreasonable social phenomena. They do not point out problems directly; instead, they often resort to analogy. Finally we come to propaganda cartoons, which are used to instigate action. This type of cartoon, according to Feng, thrives in a conflict-ridden society. However, Feng warned,

conflicts are an abnormality of human society. It is not its normal state. The basic ideals and intentions of human beings are for peace and happiness, living harmoniously together. Who would like to live in a world full of conflicts? But when others invade us, I have no choice but to resist and to fight to end the conflict. This is using struggles to end struggles…. It is therefore clear that conflicts are the abnormality of human life, just like propaganda cartoons are the abnormality of the cartoon; … we must be fully aware that they are not the essence of the cartoon. The essence of the cartoon is art.^[132]

Feng was preoccupied with the irreconcilability of art and propaganda throughout the war. Intellectually, he was reluctant to create propaganda cartoons; but emotionally he realized that they were effective in galvanizing the people's support for the government. If conflict was inevitable and defensive measures were needed, Feng wanted to remind his readers: "We are using killings to end killings, and using

benevolence to overcome cruelty."^[133] The subject of most concern to Feng was not the war, however much it occupied his mind, but the human suffering associated with manmade destruction. This reflective mood sets him apart from his contemporary cartoonists, including Ye Qianyu and Cai Ruohong.

Feng's distinct humanistic style won him wide respect and enormous popularity during the war. His work appeared regularly in major journals, including Cosmic Wind and Resistance Literature and Art; his exhibitions were received with enthusiasm, winning him new fans and providing him with income to support his family during those difficult war years.^[134] His cartoons were also widely reprinted, including some that, to the artist's chagrin, were reissued for profit without his permission. One such collection of twenty-five drawings was Battlefield Cartoons (Zhandi manhua), published in Hong Kong in 1939.^[135]

Feng Zikai did not join the Cartoon Propaganda Team. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that he maintained any contact with the group. He was first and foremost a devoted family man. When his family was uprooted by the war, he felt a strong responsibility to bring all of them to safety; this is seen in many of his wartime writings, such as A Teacher's Diary (Jiaoshi riji), which he wrote in 1938 while seeking refuge in Guilin. When war broke out in 1937 he was almost forty, well established in his field, and much older than many other cartoonists (Ye Qianyu was thirty and Hu Kao only twenty-five). It would have been difficult both emotionally and physically for him to join the team. Moreover, Feng frankly admitted that he was not a sociable type.^[136] He abhorred the idea of serving in the government, preferring instead to live a simple life like that of Tao Yuanming (365–427), the famous Jin dynasty recluse who resigned from the government to return to his village so that he could be in close touch with nature.^[137]

Because of his fundamental aversion to conflict and his dislike of propaganda art, Feng Zikai might not even rate his own wartime cartoons highly, at least as art. Compared to his prewar works, it is true, many of his wartime cartoons were artistically crude. But it would be a mistake to overlook their philosophical value. W.A. Coupe argues that a cartoonist is concerned primarily with the creation and manipulation of public opinion;^[138] yet Feng Zikai's works, even those that qualify as propaganda, tend to be highly personal. They are thoughtful statements suggesting deep truths about human existence. Appalled by the sheer magnitude of the tragedy China was experiencing, Feng

Fig. 38.
Feng Zikai, "The Instinct for Life." From
Feng, Husheng huaji (reprinted Taibei:
Chunwenxue chubanshe, 1981), 1:50.

Fig. 39.
Feng Zikai, "War and Music." (The
date "1925" in the cartoon is
incorrect. This is one of the sixty-four
drawings printed in Feng's Zhanshi
xiang, all of which, according to Feng,
were "drawn during the war when I was a
refugee." See Feng, Zhanshi xiang,
preface, p. 2.) From Feng, Zhanshi
xiang, p. 18.

Fig. 40.
Feng Zikai: "I want to become an angel, /
Soaring high in the sky, / Following the
enemy planes, / And grabbing their bombs."
 From Jianwen 1 (1 August 1938): 2.

Fig. 41.
Feng Zikai: "In this world, / 1 hope
there will be no more war. / Weapons
turn into ploughs, / And bombshells can
be flower vases." From Feng, Zhandi
manhua, n.p.

sought constantly for an answer to humanity's infinite capacity for blunder and aggression. Perhaps more than any of his fellow cartoonists, he imparts to his wartime work a powerful conviction that mutual hostility must cease, simply because it is against basic human nature. Feng's wartime cartoons are thus not merely extraordinary pictorial documents of their time, epitomizing all the savagery of a bitter conflict; more important, they are condemnations of war as an irremediable crime against humanity.

This forceful humanistic current provides a unified framework for all his work, prewar and wartime alike. In sharp contrast to Goya's graphic scenes of torture and violence in The Disasters of War, Feng's wartime cartoons, with but few exceptions, do not show the ferociousness of Japanese brutality directly; rather, their barbaric acts tend to be implied.^[139] Perhaps by focusing on the consequences of Japanese actions rather than on the deeds themselves he made the people's ordeal even more painful and unforgettable. Interestingly enough, while most of his fellow cartoonists concentrated on the grisly aspects of the calamity, Feng attempted to show that there was a humane side to this tragedy as well. A soldier, putting aside his rifle, picks up a musical instrument and plays, enjoying temporary peace of mind in the midst of a bitter war (fig. 39). To Feng Zikai, these peaceful activities were far more meaningful than the battle itself. By emphasizing culture over bloodshed, music over war, he communicated through his drawings a unique sense of peace and tranquillity.

Feng would never have agreed with Gibbon's dictum that history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." For Feng, history was an unending search for the meaning of life and peace, and his wartime cartoons represent that search in a chaotic world. A major theme in his work is the contrast between war and peace: one is destruction, the other prosperity; one causes death, the other celebrates life; one is ugliness, the other beauty. The juxta-position of guns and music is not to promote war but to elicit peace. Feng argued that unlike an aggressive war, the War of Resistance was fought for neither power nor glory, but simply to repel the enemy and to end all conflicts. He wrote: "In this war, our mission is not only to repel the invasion and to subdue the enemy, but also to spread justice all over the world, to arouse those who love peace and support humanity. Together we will eradicate ruthlessness, inhuman devils, and establish a foundation of everlasting peace and happiness for all mankind."^[140]

Fig. 42.
Feng Zikai, "War and Flower." From Feng, Manhua de miaofa
(Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1948), p. 21.

Feng frequently envisions a world of peace, and he presents his hope earnestly in his works. In Feng's ideal world, angels will stop deadly bombs from falling on civilians (fig. 40) and artillery shells will be used not as implements of war but as flower vases (fig. 41)—echoing Isaiah's hope that warriors would "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks." Feng's peace cartoons may be simple, but their message is profound and sincere.

Behind Feng's quest for peace lies a deep philosophical and religious outlook that emphasizes the sanctity of life. His works, in the end, were motivated more by moral than by artistic concerns. Cartoons to him were not merely a sincere art form; they were an effective means of affirming life. Thus one sees an unflagging optimism permeating his work. This unique attitude toward art makes him one of the most original and philosophical cartoonists of his time. "The Instinct for Life" tells us that every creature in the world, no matter how small, will fight for its existence. Life is indomitable. Perhaps nowhere is the struggle between life and death more evident than in "War and Flower" (fig. 42), in which a soldier gazes at a flower he has picked at the battlefront. This picture, Feng said, "reveals a major contradiction in

life: the contrast between war and the flower demonstrates the mighty contention between ugliness and beauty, cruelty and peace, death and life, and human affairs and heaven's will."^[141] Feng was optimistic about the outcome, however. China would prevail in the war, just as the mutilated tree would survive and thrive when spring came. It was not victory on the battlefield but the instinct for life that held the promise of the future. As Feng wrote, "In this world, we might suffer natural disaster and manmade calamity, or experience temporary setbacks, but if the instinct for life has not been extinguished, then someday things will take a turn for the better."^[142]