Lingnan School en

An art trend prevalent in Guangdong Province, China during the first half of the 20th century. Lingnan, literally meaning ‘south of the mountains,' refers to an area including Guangdong and some other southern provinces of China. The key figures of the trend were the brothers Gao Qifeng and Gao Jianfu as well as Chen Shuren. In coordination with the popular ideas of reforming China with western ‘science and democracy,' the artists aimed to create a new Chinese art that defined the nation through a synthesis of East and West. Since many artists studied in Japan, they incorporated western realism as interpreted by Japanese nihonga painting into Chinese ink painting. After the Communist revolution of 1949, the trend diminished in People’s Republic of China but further developed in Hong Kong, Taiwan and some overseas Chinese centres in Southeast Asia and North America.