This thesis would focus on the “Relationship between Image and Text” in Feng Zikai’s (1898-1975) Cartoons, aiming at revealing his various formal treatments, which crucially make his style often regarded as simple but subtle and rich in overtones. The study would show how Feng made cartoon images dynamically interacted with different kinds of texts such as classical potery, contemporary fiction, and religious teachings. ....[ Read more ]

This thesis would focus on the “Relationship between Image and Text” in Feng Zikai’s (1898-1975) Cartoons, aiming at revealing his various formal treatments, which crucially make his style often regarded as simple but subtle and rich in overtones. The study would show how Feng made cartoon images dynamically interacted with different kinds of texts such as classical potery, contemporary fiction, and religious teachings. .

Chapter One would discuss Feng’s artistic theories which stress the linkage between painting and literature. Feng used poetic inscriptions, dialogues, foreign languages, punctuation marks and phonetic symbols to be captions of his comic works. Sometimes, he even published his pictorial works without titles. The analysis manifests how pictorial images and different captions created Feng’s unique style of simplicity and subtlety.

In Chapter Two, the study aims to reveal hidden and subtle messages behind pictorial images. After discussing how images and captions are harmonious with each other, this chapter would analyze some features in Feng’s cartoons, such as characters without eyes and facial features, gazing-far figures, still life paintings, and frames with different shapes, to show how these images carry rich meanings derived from Chinese cultural tradition.

Chapter Three would explain the relationship between Feng’s comic illustrations and literary works. Feng drew illustrations of fictions, poems, and prose written by Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Yu Pingbo, Zhu Ziqing, and other famous writers of modern Chinese literature. In interpreting the literary works in different styles, Feng developed his caricaturing techniques, with which his literary illustrations had everlasting artistic values.

Lastly, Chapter Four would focus on the polemic issue that Feng incessantly reproduced his works from the 1930s to his last days in 1976. This chapter would point out how Feng felt lonely and depressed after 1949, so that reworking on his old cartoons became a way to kill time though he struggled with formal renovations.