The Origin of Oil Painting and the Development of China's Painting

Eastern and western paintings, especially those represented by Chinese paintings, have gone through a glorious course of more than 2,000 years.

According to the object and content of painting, it can be divided into religious painting, historical painting, genre painting, portrait painting (figure painting), landscape painting (landscape painting), still life painting, flower-and-bird painting and so on. According to painting tools and materials, there are sketches, oil paintings, watercolors, gouache paintings, ink paintings, prints, sculptures, murals and so on. According to national or national cultural traditions, there are Chinese paintings and Japanese paintings. Among these numerous paintings, Chinese painting and oil painting are typical representatives of the two major painting systems in the East and the West.

Oil painting is a kind of painting in which oil is used as a blending agent, short-haired hard brown pen and oil painting scraper are used to draw on processed linen or other materials that do not absorb oil. It was invented and popularized in the west, mainly in Europe. Because oil painting is a kind of painting from the west, sketch, oil painting, gouache and watercolor are traditionally called "western paintings" in China.

Oil painting is developed from the ancient mural technique, and the painting on the wall is transferred to the canvas stretched by the wooden board or frame on the easel, which is called "easel painting". 15th century ago, European painting pigments were still mixed with glue, mineral powder and egg white. Later, it was found that it was better to use linseed oil to adjust the pigment, and the adjusted pigment was not easy to dry, and it could have a layered feeling when painting. After drying, the color was very bright and it was not easy to fade in the sun. Therefore, after continuous improvement and perfection, it soon spread all over Europe, and oil painting became the main type of western painting. The effect of oil painting is exquisite and rich, which can well express the texture, sense of quantity, vivid light, tone and atmosphere of the object being painted. The content of oil painting ranges from still life to small scenery, to battles and celebrations, and it is best to draw portraits of people. In the era when cameras were not invented, realistic oil paintings were the main means for people to "take pictures". Although oil painting has developed rapidly since its invention, it has only a short history of more than 400 years, which shows its vigorous vitality. In the mid-Qing Dynasty, oil painting techniques were introduced into China, and developed in step with Chinese painting.

Judging from the earliest works painted on silk, Chinese painting has a history of more than two thousand years. Since Cai Lun invented papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and craftsmen in Jingxian County of Xuanzhou made a smooth, white, easy-to-mount and non-deformable Xuan paper from sandalwood bark and straw in the Tang Dynasty, the creation of Chinese painting has entered a free world. The birth of Chinese painting marks the creation of a special form of expression in the world art treasure house.

Chinese painting was called "Danqing" in ancient times, with a huge system and rich contents. It is the result of the mutual integration and infiltration of national cultures in China's 5,000-year history of civilization. Chinese painting has the great boldness of vision of the Chinese nation, and it can accommodate all rivers. It can assimilate various foreign art schools without being assimilated by them. The Kikucha mural and Dunhuang mural in Xinjiang, which are mixed with foreign forms, have become the representatives of China's national art, showing the great energy of China's national painting.

Chinese painting has a great influence on neighboring countries. Japan has long been a subsidiary of China's painting, and painters from China went to Japan to teach Chinese painting techniques. 14-15th century, Chinese painting spread to India, Persia and other countries, which had a great influence on their painting. The works of art in these countries are full of distinctive Chinese style and interest.

Compared with Chinese painting, traditional western painting requires realism and figurative painting. Its development depends on science, such as perspective, anatomy, chromatics, optics, technology and materials.

Chinese painting requires freehand brushwork, not realism as the highest standard. Image is different from concreteness and abstraction, both concreteness and abstraction; Realism is also freehand brushwork, so it depends on the development of philosophy and literature.

Western traditional painting strives to truly "reproduce" the outside world. It uses perspective and optical illusion to "truly" reproduce a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional picture.

Chinese painting, on the other hand, strives to "express" the outside world. Influenced by the philosophy of "harmony between man and nature", the world in the picture is the unity of the painter's subjective world and objective world. In the painting scene of Chinese painting, more attention is paid to the artist's mind and the artistic conception of the scenery.