A HALF BOTTLE OF VINEGAR OR ZHANG THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S LITERARY OPINIONS

Abstract

“A half bottle of vinegar” is a Chinese idiom academician Vasily Alekseev characterized the artists of Chinese popular prints nianhua. As a rule, these artisans were half-educated people without full complex of classical Confucian knowledge. These people were the conductors of ideas and images of high culture to the broad masses of consumers of folk pictures. One of them “the Draughtsman” Zhang Haoru (章浩如, 1870–?) helped V. M. Alekseev to disassemble his enormous collection of popular prints. We have at our disposal many comments belong to the Zhang Hao-ru’s brush, preserved at the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg branch (Stock 820, inventory 1) and we can get an idea of his education level and literary preferences.