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China's Modern Sketch I
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Ye Qianyu
Untitled

February 1934 [ms02_000_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Chen Juanyin
“A Public Secret”

April 1934 [ms04_000_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		“The Little Gentlemen of Brobdingnag”

May 1935 [ms17_039_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Tao Mouji
Man (trying to drown himself in the river): Are you really
going to risk your life to save me?
Woman: Don’t tell me you forgot that time at Hongkou
when I jumped in the water right after you?”

June 1934 [ms06_022_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Tao Mouji
“Idealist Olfaction”
It’s not the sweetness of the fruit, but the
fragrance of the flower.

May 1934 [ms05_037_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Cai Ruohong
“Urban Merchants of Sex”

December 1935 [ms24_022_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Chen Juanyin
“X-ray, Transparent, Semi-transparent, Opaque

July 1934 [ms07_042_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Guo Jianying
“Black - Red - Cruelty and Woman”

January 1934 [ms01_019_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Lu Shaofei

January 1935 [ms13_021_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Zhang Yingchao
“Liquor and the Ladies”

February 1934 [ms02_019_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Zhang Guangyu
From the “Folk Love Songs” (Minjian qingge) series

April 1935 [ms16_034_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		The Fastbuck Photography Studio
“A Celebrated Anonymous Modern Writer
and Her Book”

February 1937 [ms35_012_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures 		Xi Yuqun
“Money Shot for the Month of May: A Still Photo
from a New Film”

May 1937 [ms38_034_ModernSketch]
MIT Visualizing Cultures
Nine Thematic Visual Narratives

3. Eroticized Women

Almost every major cartoonist who contributed to Modern Sketch, including the editor Lu Shaofei, tried his hand at erotic depictions of women. “Eating ice cream with the eyes” was the local slang expression for viewing such images, which in many ways resonated with the golden age of pin-up girl illustration in the United States that was happening at the very same time. Often these nude and semi-nude images came with a political subtext. Sometimes they were simply attention-grabbing ploys to increase circulation. For all their diversity of style, and whatever their ultimate intent, these erotic illustrations and photographs leave no doubt that Modern Sketch was very much a magazine by and for men.
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