The Relationship and Influence of Meizhou Artists on the Development of Chinese Modern Art

บทคัดย่อ

This study examines how a distinctive regional community—Meizhou artists shaped by the Hakka ethos of perseverance, education, and intercultural openness—catalyzed the modernization of Chinese art. Addressing a gap in integrated, group-level accounts, the research investigates: (1) how the Hakka spirit informed artists’ identities, creative choices, and sense of national responsibility; (2) the roles Meizhou artists played in institution building, cross-cultural innovation, and major art movements; and (3) how regional traditions were translated into a global visual discourse. Methodologically, the study adopts a mixed-methods design combining qualitative case studies of representative figures (archival analysis and textual interpretation) with a structured survey of stakeholders in art education; data were analyzed through thematic coding and descriptive statistics. Findings show that the Hakka value complex functioned as a durable cultural resource, enabling Meizhou artists to (a) articulate and operationalize “integration of Chinese and Western art,” (b) found and reform modern art-education institutions, and (c) reposition tradition through cultural translation rather than mere preservation, thereby linking local heritage to national narratives and global modernism. Practically, the results suggest three priorities: strengthen archival recovery and oral-history documentation; embed localized aesthetics and regional case studies in art-school curricula and evaluation systems; and pursue comparative, cross-regional research programs to refine China’s contemporary art discourse. The study demonstrates how regional cultural subjectivity can drive national artistic transformation and inform policy, pedagogy, and heritage strategy.