#5 – 10 Things you (probably) didn’t know about China at the Treaty of Versailles

#5 – Several later-to-be-famous Chinese artists were studying in Paris at the time and demonstrated against Japan’s occupation of Shantung….

Chinese art students in Paris in 1919 were an especially radicalised group and included several artists who went on to become well known in China. Xu Beihong (top) had arrived in Paris in 1919 to study oil painting and drawing at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and was to become one of the most prominent artists in China. Lin Fengmian (middle), arriving shortly after Xu, became a pioneer of modern Chinese painting for his blending of Chinese and Western styles. The Fujian-born artist Ong Schan Tschow (Weng Zhanqiu) (bottom) arrived in Paris in 1919 after winning a Chinese government scholarship to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.