Whether the calendar pictures are works of art has long been debated, but time has honored the pictures at great value. Though having lost their function as advertising, the calendar pictures are doing well on the antique market. The well-known litterateur Lu Xun is a big collector of calendar pictures. Some portrayals of prominent figures such as Sun Zhongshan and Li Yuanhong, which were meant to be printed as calendar pictures, are now preserved in the Museum of Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and are designated as cultural relics in Grade One under state protection. Today, the Shanghai International Auction Company has completed the auction of more than 50 calendar picture articles since 1997. In 2005, they sold the original picture Peacocks, a work of Xie Zhiguang, at an amazing price of 1.32 million.
As the historic relics of that special time, calendar pictures represent the vicissitude of modern China, as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. They record the development of Chinese commercial culture, provide precious historic information of the evolution of Chinese modern clothing, and fill in the blanks in Chinese art history about modern pop art. Though people today no longer yearn for the grace and charm of the calendar pictures, their nostalgic affection for the parting days will continue forever.
By Si Xiangnan
Editor: Liu Fang
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