Zhang Chongren

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Zhang Chongren or Chang Ch'ung-jen (张充仁, Xujiahui, 1907 - Paris, 8 October 1998), was a Chinese artist and sculptor best remembered in Europe as the friend of Hergé, the Belgian comics writer and artist. The two met when Zhang was an art student in Brussels.

[edit] Early life

Zhang was born the son of a gardener in 1907 in Xujiahui, then a suburb of Shanghai, China. The young Zhang lost both his parents at an early age and grew up in an orphanage. At the age of seven, he entered the Tushanwan Art School, a French religious establishment, where he learnt French, drawing and was systematically indoctrinated into Western art. After finishing schooling in 1928, Zhang worked in design for the film industry and a local newspaper. In 1931, he left China for the Académie des beaux-arts in Brussels, Belgium.

[edit] Influence on Hergé

Hergé's early Tintin albums were highly dependent on stereotypes for 'comedic' effect. Russians (Bolshewiks) and Americans were portrayed as evil, black Africans as lazy and dumb.

At the close of the newspaper run of Cigars of the Pharaoh, Hergé had mentioned that Tintin's next adventure (The Blue Lotus) would bring him to China. Father Gosset, the chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Leuven, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese history, culture, and the techniques of Chinese art. As a result of this experience, Hergé would strive in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited.

As a token of appreciation, he added character "Chang Chong-Chen" (Tchang in original French-language version) to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. Hergé mocks his own naïveté deep inside the album, when he tries to let Tintin explain to the fictional Chang that Zhang's fear for the 'white devils' is based on prejudice. He then recites a few Western stereotypes of the Chinese. This Chang will later return in Tintin in Tibet.

As another result of his friendship with Zhang, Hergé became increasingly aware of the problems of colonialism, in particular the Empire of Japan's advances into China. The Blue Lotus carries a bold anti-imperialist message, contrary to the prevailing view in the West, which was sympathetic to Japan and the colonial enterprise. As a result, it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry.

[edit] Return to China

At the end of his studies in Brussels in 1935, Zhang made a tour of France, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Italy before returning home to China. Upon his arrival back in Shanghai in 1936, Zhang held a number of shows exhibiting his drawings and sculptures. He also established the Chongren Studio to further his art and to teach.

Hergé lost contact with him during the invasion of China by Japan (which is usually regarded as the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War) and the subsequent civil war. More than four decades would pass before the two friends would meet again. In a remarkable instance of life mirroring art, Hergé managed to resume contact with his old friend Zhang Chongren, years after Tintin rescued the fictional Chang in the closing pages of Tintin in Tibet. Zhang had been reduced to a street sweeper by the Cultural Revolution, before becoming the head of the Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai during the 1970s.

After the economic liberalisation of China from 1979, Zhang received widespread acknowledgment in the Chinese art community. A collection of his oil paintings and sculptures were published and in his later years, Zhang worked as an editor and translator of several books on art. Among the portraits he has painted are those of Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and French President François Mitterrand.

Zhang returned to Europe for a reunion with Hergé in 1981 upon invitation of the French government. In 1985 he received French citizenship and settled in Paris to teach, where he died in 1998. Shortly after his death, a memorial museum dedicated to him was established in Shanghai. A number of his paintings and sculptures are held in the China Museum of Fine Art in Beijing and the China Museum of Revolutionary Warfare.