Beyond the Comicality: The Childlike Mind in Feng Zikai’s Manhua

Feng Zikai, Singing and Returning Home, ink and color on paper, 17 3/8 x 11 3/4 in. (44.1 x 29.8 cm)

The term “manhua” first came into use in China in the late nineteenth century, deriving from its Japanese usage referring to both comics and cartoons. It was popularized in the 1920s by Feng Zikai (1898-1975), who published a series of political cartoons after studying abroad in Japan. According to Feng, “man (aimless rambling)” refers to an uninhibited mindset in literati art that long existed in Chinese ink painting, hua. He saw manhua as a “serious critique of life” which is featured by two significant properties: “simple, free strokes” and “meaning-driven.”

Unlike his contemporary manhua colleagues who dedicated their work to aggressive political satire, Feng created most of his work focused on witty scenes, where children at play appeared as a common theme. Because Feng declared himself uninterested in politics, he was soon being accused of his “frivolous escapism.” In this paper, I argue that Feng’s choice of specific motifs is in fact a direct response to contemporary social issues. Enlightened by modern Chinese philosophers, including Wang Guowei (1877-1927), he devoted the “meaning” of manhua largely to the portrait of the “childlike mind,” which represents the good human nature residing in children. I propose that Feng saw the chaos of society as a result of adults losing their childlike minds, and his solution to the issue was to appeal to children’s innocent view to depict an ideal world, where he promoted an opposition against utilitarian aims of art and an emphasis on self-expression. In Feng’s manhua work, his idea of “the isolation of art,” an act aimed at cutting an object off from all of its worldly connections to see it in "complete isolation,” was one of the crucial means he employed to evoke the childlike mind in the adult audience.