The Shanghai School and Its Painters

With the development of trade between the five open ports and the development of Sino-foreign trade, increasing numbers of Westerners appeared in Shanghai, and the “Shanghai School” painters who were somewhat influenced by Western tastes and the secularization of Chinese painting posed a challenge to traditional painting. The influence of commerce eliminated the tradition of literati painters who had high social status, and the interest of citizens led to the further development of the trend of commercialization of calligraphy and painting. However, the style of the art of the Shanghai School art basically belongs to the phenomenon of self-reorganization occurring in the process of the collapse of traditional agricultural society, but the most famous Shanghai School painters had still not entered modern society in conceptual terms. People like to use the word “popular” to analyze the works of Shanghai School’s painters, as it was often a common feature of those who called “Shanghai School painters.”