What are the traditional art of painting and its characteristics and the background of the times

Characteristics of Traditional Chinese Painting :

The reason why the art form of Chinese painting occupies an extremely important position in the history of world painting is that it represents the special artistic aesthetic concepts of the Oriental nation. Throughout the history of Chinese painting, it is sobering to realize that innovation is not an issue raised only now. From the Sui Dynasty Zhan Ziqi to the Qing Dynasty "four monks" to modern Huang Binhong, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, etc., which is not in the innovation of the rise, development, growth?

The art of innovation is precious. But on the Chinese painting tradition and innovation between the relationship between how to grasp, how to innovate and other issues are divided, therefore, we have a need to explore. Regarding tradition, most painters only inherit the techniques and styles of several famous schools of painting in the history of painting as the essence of tradition. The techniques and styles of the schools of painting are important factors in the formation and development of tradition, and are the concrete embodiment of tradition, but they can never replace tradition. The so-called tradition, in the author's opinion, refers to the generalization of artistic viewpoints, artistic methods, artistic forms, artistic styles, etc. with national characteristics, which are essential. What is the tradition of Chinese painting? According to the characteristics of the development of Chinese painting, the author summarizes it as the following five points:

One, to write God with form and to have both form and God is an important principle in the creation of Chinese painting. Chinese painting is concerned with the chiaroscuro, the pursuit of mood. A painter should have the ability to "paint like". However, if the work has form but no spirit, then even if it is painted like a picture, it is not the purpose of Chinese painting. A painting with form but without spirit exists, while a painting with spirit but without form does not exist. The purpose of writing shape is to convey the spirit, to make the spirit free. Shape can be "between likeness and unlikeness". We should know that the ultimate goal of "writing God in form" is to "realize the meaning". Su shi once said: "the text to reach my heart, painting to suit my heart." There is no "form" bracket, "God" nowhere to attach. According to legend, Jing Hao in the fifth generation for the pine sketches of the collection of tens of thousands of books, so the pen can be "running through", "such as flying as moving", with the line is not exclusively to the simplicity of the win, not exclusively to the beautiful win, but to achieve the so-called "God"! Instead, it has reached the so-called "divine transformation". Chinese painting has always required the "form" of the bracket to express the "God". This "God" refers to the objective object's vitality, vividness and essential characteristics. "Form" is secondary, while "God" is primary. The modern masters Qi Baishi and Huang Binhong have proposed that a painting is only good when it is "between resemblance and non-resemblance". That is to say, if the painting is too similar, it is too vulgar; if the painting is not similar at all, it is not Chinese painting. The so-called "imagery modeling" is this reason. From the history of Western painting, the ancient Greek and Renaissance paintings emphasized the realistic reproduction of form; the development of modernism has gone to the other extreme. Modernist painters advocate that painting is a means of "self-expression", and therefore, they can manipulate "form" at will. In this case, "God" is even more impossible to talk about.

Second, Chinese painting to line, ink-based, pay attention to brushwork, the pursuit of "fine ink" artistic effect, pay attention to the bone method of brushwork. These are the requirements for the connotation of ink and brush. "Bone method" is also known as "bone power", which refers to the power of the brush contained in the writing points and drawings. It is the pillar that constitutes the dots and the form, and also the basis for the expression of the spirit. The artist pours his feelings into the image with strong brushwork to make it more vital. In the process of modeling, the artist's feelings are always blended with the power of the brush. Wherever the brush goes, it leaves traces of the artist's emotional activity.

The "bone method" and "bone power" in the use of the brush is also an important feature that distinguishes Chinese painting from Western painting. Although Western painters also use lines, and modernist paintings pursue curves, the lines in Western paintings are not as varied as those in Chinese paintings, and at the same time there are strict rules and methods for using the brush. Huang Binhong summarized the brushwork of Chinese painting in this way: "The brush must be flat, like a cone drawing sand; the brush must be round, like a broken hairpin, like the softness of gold; the brush must stay, like a roof leakage mark; the brush must be heavy, like a mountain falling stone." This is a high degree of generalization of Chinese painting brushwork. Although there is a "boneless method" in Chinese painting, this method still pays much attention to the brushwork in the coloring process. It is important to know that the point has a volume, the point is the accumulation of power, the accumulation of power into the line also has the inner bone.

Three, Chinese painting in the color ink-based, emphasizing the "ink in five colors", "still pure and refrain from refutation". Although Chinese painting is also concerned with the color, but the most important thing is the overall effect of the picture. For the sake of the overall needs, the color of the object can make big changes. In Chinese painting, whether it is the heavy color of flat painting or the light color of haloing, all of them are "still pure and avoid refuting". Ink is the basic color essential to Chinese painting. There are five types of ink: burnt ink, thick ink, heavy ink, light ink and clear ink. If each ink color is used skillfully and appropriately, it will show rich changes.

When creating Chinese paintings, how to inherit the tradition has always been the subject of our study. Inheritance is for better development, and the precondition for innovation is to inherit the valuable experience of the predecessors. Of course, the inheritance of traditional paintings is not to inherit without thinking, but to inherit selectively and to adapt to the development of the times. On this point, the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" believe that painting "can not be dead copy, dead to the ancient method", for the former paintings, should be "master of its intention not signs between"; or, to Or, in other words, to "learn half, skim half". This point is also very important.

Four, the composition of Chinese paintings pay attention to the momentum, not bound by the laws of perspective. Painters take the scene, to move step by step, face to face; to make good use of the blankness of the paper, to achieve sparse, dense, but not boring. "Painting" is the conveyance of the painter's spiritual feelings. Conceptualizing "pictorial meaning" is the beginning of creation. It is the unity of rationality and irrationality. "After conceptualization, the idea of painting is not unchangeable, but can be adjusted according to the needs in the process of painting. Painters change their own "painting idea" while painting, and find the pleasure of creation in gradually perfecting their paintings. Thus, the "pictorial meaning" of a work is created before painting and perfected in the process of creation.

Composition is said to be as good as it can be because of its potential, and it varies according to the potential it desires. There are two kinds of compositions, one convergent and the other convergent. Zhang's power is to spread outward, radiating, can give a feeling of painting outside the painting; convergence of the power is to gather inward, can give a feeling of painting in the painting. The power of convergence is to gather inward, giving the impression that there is a painting within the painting. One convergence and the other seeks for change and potential. In Song Wang Wei's "Narrative of Painting", it is written, "The one who speaks of painting intends to seek for the potential." The composition of the Western painting has strict rules of perspective, not too concerned about the expression of the painter's emotions.