With the
end of the Qing dynasty's closed-door policy, the contemporary
material civilization of the West gradually found its
way into China. Dian Shi Studio Pictorial introduced
new instruments , machines, and techniques from abroad.
The techniques included Western medicine, fire prevention
and fighting, photography, life-saving at sea, trains,
armored ships, submarines, hot-air balloons, Western
opera and horsemanship. WuYouru and his contemporaries
wer4e note for their New Year's pictures and genre pictures.
As a result, the pictorial carried numerous scenes from
ordinary life, scenic and historical sites, all of them
popular with the masses. It also contained vivid descriptions
of foreign customs and conventions, which gave Chinese
readers a glimpse into the daily life and natural scenery
in the West.
Social news stories occupied a larger proportion of
the pictorial's space, with a host of pictures reflecting
the life of townsfolk at the bottom of society. From
different angles it vividly exposed the corruption and
the dark side of Chinese society at that time. It also
covered natural and manmade calamities, strange goings-on
and eccentric behavior, and the superstitions of China
and other lands. Especially worth mentioning is that
the pictorial highlighted various scenes from what was
termed the "ten li metropolis infested with foreign
adventurers" in Shanghai. Moreover, it exposed
various underworld scenes in the foreign concession
areas of the city, such as gangs and roughnecks starting
disturbances and fighting, bandits, brothels and streetwalkers
accosting their customers, it also laid bare the foreign
aggressors crimes in the International Settlement and
depicted Shanghai resident's resolute resistance against
slavery and oppression.
Dian Shi Studio Pictorial featured pictures with copious
clearly listing details, such as the time, place , plot
and characters, rather resembling those of photos in
present-day newspapers. through its pictures and captions,
the pictorial presented a wide range of scenes from
everyday life and unique aspects of Chinese society
. In his Growth of Chinese Art in the Last Century,
the late author and scholar Zheng Zhenduo points out,
" Wu Yongru's chief achievement are in figure and
genre painting. No artist has endeavored as he did to
depict all aspects of social life"; "his paintings
embody a very good art history of the past century.
In other words, his paintings are an epitome of the
history of the early period of semi-feudal, semi-colonial
China during the last hundred years or so," This
is also an excellent appraisal of the achievements of
Dian Shi Studio Pictorial.
Dian Shi Studio Pictorial initiated the tradition of
China's new-oriented , large-size pictorials. In 1890
Wu Youru started the Fei Ying Ge Pictorial (Flying Shadow
Pavilion) on his own . Three years later, in 1893, he
originated the Fei Ying Ge Album. Under the influence
of his three pictorials, many types of pictorials came
into being in quick succession, for example, Illustrated
Daily, Illustrated Oratory, Preschoolers' Pictorial,
etc. In Peiping (now Beijing), there were Brief Daily
News Pictorial, Capital News Pictorial,, etc. Pictorials
stimulated the flourishing contemporary Chinese culture.
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