| Chapter : | Introduction: Tradition and Modernity in China |
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dedicated their lives to art in the surroundings of nature. I wonder if we can still afford that luxury. Whilst people may wish to retreat from the industrial juggernaut that perpetually changes the world in front of their eyes, there are few places left to retreat. Whilst teaching in China, I have been acutely aware of students’ concerns about the links between their rich cultural tradition and the physical environment. The destruction of either, they suggest, leads to the destruction of the other. I am inclined to agree with them. The timeframe and intellectual space for people to gather their thoughts about what is happening to Chinese traditional culture gives them only the briefest of moments to structure a collective response to its possible demise. It will always exist historically, and it will always be a resource from which to draw, but the purpose of this book is to attempt to negotiate the ways in which the traditional visual culture in China can continue to evolve and find new ways of communicating, and I hope the reader will find something here to stimulate their engagement with the issues.