Ancient Chinese Figure Painting Concepts

Primitive society, people live in nature, and contact with nature, our ancestors for natural phenomena, natural disasters, due to the wisdom of the relatively young, low productivity, for the fear of nature, produced a primitive "nature religion", the emergence of the art of totem, the subject matter to the nature of the natural world has a different natural power of plants and animals. Totem art appeared, and the themes were mainly plants and animals in the natural world that possessed different natural powers. The recognition and affirmation of the human self was relatively weak, and art appeared along with sorcery, rituals, productivity, and so on, producing some practical art, plastic art, and the art of figure for the study of human beings was also opened, only the overall state of social life led to the emergence of figure paintings mainly in the form of mural paintings, petroglyphs, and decorative paintings on artifacts, which mainly depicted the dynamics of the crowds in the ceremonies, such as dances, production and labor, and the dynamics of the crowd. dominated by images of people in rituals, such as dances and productive labor. The whole artistic effect of the image is based on the rhythmic effect of dynamism, and the figure modeling is mainly flat and two-dimensional. Character image has a side, front side, performance techniques to monochrome painting, hook line, hook line fill color. The color performance is based on mineral powder, plant color, animal blood and so on. Vermilion, red, ochre, black, etc., monochrome performance, mixed colors are rare. Line performance is relatively ancient and heavy. Composition, there are mainly groupings of characters and scenes, groupings of horizontal, circular, vertical and other forms of the most common.

The pre-Qin period, from the clan tribes to come, the change in artistic thinking has also occurred very diverse, the overall social environment is more important to cultivate immortality before life, after death, the ascension to immortality. Through the archaeological data show that the tomb art in the burial objects of decorative patterns, painting subjects, etc. are related to the idea of flying to immortality after death. For example, the two funerary flags of the nature of the silk paintings "figures of dragons and phoenixes silk paintings" and "figures of imperial dragons silk paintings". The overall artistic effect of the figure paintings in this period starts from abstraction and gradually becomes realistic, and the image effect of the picture is based on simplicity, dynamism and momentum. The angle of expression of the form is mainly the front and side. Lines, well-proportioned, dry and smooth with dynamic changes, ink lines, localized hooks and flat paint and other changes. Color, local color, vermilion, black, gold and white pastel. Archaeological discovery, figure dress technique performance, dress fold changes, geometric patterns, totem patterns, linear expression and other techniques to perform. Composition, the figure's own image soars vertically upwards, the figure is centered and then matched with the shape of other background objects rotating and combining to soar upwards, setting off the theme of the soaring idea. The Qin-Han period and the pre-Qin period belonged to the same "ritual period", the social function of art "to educate and help people", but there are still differences in the expression of the artistic effect, and the scope of the creation of figure paintings is relatively wide. The overall painting characteristics of the Qin and Han Dynasties are, on the one hand, the recording of social life, and on the other hand, the breakthrough of the decorative style restricted in the early period in terms of artistic methods, breaking the totem type of decorative style, and making bold attempts to present color blocks. Multi-angle modeling of figures began to appear, frontal, lateral, front and side, etc.. The use of life themes was also more frequently used for expression.

Archaeological discoveries show that the activities of the figures in the architectural paintings of the Qin Dynasty and the tomb paintings of the Han Dynasty were mainly based on the daily ways of life and the environment of the people before they were born. The attachment to the earthly world gradually replaced the ideological transition of ascension after death. The technique of figure performance in the presentation of the artistic language is increasingly rich, rich changes in line, concise, smooth, bold, majestic, evocative, vivid, hook line, ink line and so on. Color performance with hook line filling in large color section, large color block divided into flat paint and rendering, showing a bold artistic effect. The composition of the picture is relatively compact, with a long scroll and vertical style, and there is no or very little supporting scenery in the group, often expressed by the technique of leaving white space.

Wei-Jin and North-South Dynasties period, war and turmoil, disaster after disaster, up to the monarch, down to the people, the centralized monarchical system of feudal society was disrupted, the vassals cut off the power of the social life of the changing environment, the idea also underwent a profound change. Spiritual yearning, spiritual support scattered Confucianism, Taoist thought, metaphysics, Buddhist thought in the conversion and so on. Figure painting materialization of the performance of the increasingly rich murals (architectural murals, tomb murals), cave art, scroll paintings and other forms of expression appeared. The figure paintings of this period are related to two aspects, on the one hand, it is the religious art of Taoist and Buddhist figure paintings, and Buddhist story paintings. On the other hand, it is the painting of historical and historical facts that "educate and help people's morality", and there are more works with female subjects, which are typical artistic images of women's behaviors and words, from thoughts to behaviors, etc., to achieve the role of educating. For example, Gu Kaizhi's "Women's History" and "Biographies of Women". Most of the works appeared in the form of scrolls and frescoes. The artistic effects of this period appeared along with the treatises of many artists and theorists, which brought a high level of development in the study of technical performance in terms of ideology. For example, Gu Kaizhi's "The Theory of Transfiguration" was proposed and applied to character painting expression to shape. Artistic images should have the charm of the gods, and the standard of artistic language expression is also based on the gods, Gu Kaizhi's line strokes emphasize the strength of the bones, and Zhang Shengqiao's strokes are also rich in variations, such as line variations of the point, trailing, and whisking, and so on. Zong Bing, in his "Preface to Painting Landscapes", put forward the theory of transmitting the divine, and then attached importance to the concept of "sketching", which expressed the real "writing shape with shape" and "coloring with color" in the objective image of natural objects. In Wang Wei's Narrative of Painting, on the basis of retaining the sketching performance of all natural objects and incorporating the creator's emotional expression, Wang Wei puts forward the viewpoint of "Ming Shen descending". Xie He "ancient painting Pin Lu" in the proposed "six law theory", one said the chi rhyme vivid, two said bone method with the pen, three said should be object like shape, four said with the type of color, five said operating position, six said transfer mold writing, the painting process of the thing to do a summary of the law, line drawing method also has a swimming line description, the emergence of the iron wire description of the pen. Color performance in addition to flat paint, but also attach importance to halo, slightly three-dimensional expression, delicate, color matching is becoming more and more rich such as yellow, vermilion, green, ochre, green, black and so on. Composition, to scroll type is common, the figure with increasingly rich landscape, landscape, poetry and other elements, landscape painting was established, for the performance of figure painting added "wild and easy atmosphere".

Sui-Tang Five Dynasties period, the country in the unification and division of the changes in the social life of the environment, unchanged is the form of feudalism. Regime unification period of figure painting and landscape painting performance has begun to create a separate, increasingly rich landscape painting, independent division, flower and bird painting appeared. The subject matter of figures mainly originated from various aspects in addition to the inheritance of Taoist and religious figure paintings. For example, the upper classes of human society, such as banquets, riding and shooting, social activities, and the lower classes of daily labor and other activities. The figures are more graceful and rich. The figures are accompanied by figures of different classes, and the strict hierarchy is delineated through the size of the figures, line changes, and color richness. The overall artistic effect of the figure painting lines are smooth, capable and delicate. Expression of the figure form, the outer contour of the object and the structure of the line is dominated by the relative color to be weakened, colorful, contrasting, colorful, presenting a brilliant art aristocratic atmosphere. Composition is dominated by long scrolls, groupings, dense and so on. Yan Liben's character brushstrokes and heavy colors appeared. Song and Yuan dynasties, changes in the social environment, the unification of the feudal regime, a change in the selection of talent, excellent works of art were collected, Taoist and religious figure painting gradually recede, this period of landscape painting, bird and flower painting gradually flourished, the appearance of realistic figure painting. There are several kinds of figure painting performance, Taoist figure painting, landscape painting of figures in the landscape to embellish the main, figure customs painting, regime protective Buddhist murals and Taoist murals, historical figures story painting, old people and young children added some new elements. Artistic effect, the neat and thick, the literati wild and easy all. Line changes are rich, exceptionally varied, the colors are neat, bright, contrasting, ink changes have a light and elegant without color, changing styles. There are panoramic custom painting compositions, localized miniature painting compositions (close-up), and so on.

Ming and Qing dynasties, regime change, national rule changed, literature and art inherited from the previous dynasty and then changed, adding many schools of thought, the common denominator for the literary. Figure painting did not flourish in this period of landscape painting, the subject matter is relatively broad, to the ruling class of the crowd of individual images as the object of expression, the daily life of the classes, landscape painting of the figure with Taoist activities, Buddhist activities, the scholar, countryside villagers and so on. Character performance in the line heavy density changes, color heavy stain, ink line with thick and thin, hook line fill color, composition has a strange and dangerous, the artistic effect of a hundred schools of thought, each with its own characteristics.