Analyzing the difference between traditional Chinese painting and western oil painting works

The Comparative Difference between Chinese Painting and Western Painting (Feng Zikai)

Eastern and Western cultures are fundamentally different. Therefore, the expression of art is also different. Probably Eastern art emphasizes subjectivity, while Western art emphasizes objectivity. Eastern art is poetic, while Western art is dramatic. Therefore, in painting, Chinese painting emphasizes charm, Western painting emphasizes resemblance. Comparing the two, there are the following five differences:

(1) Chinese paintings are full of lines, Western paintings are not significant lines. Most of the lines are not original to the object, but are used by the painter to represent the realm of the two objects. For example, in Chinese paintings, an egg-shaped line depicting the human face, in fact, there is no such line around the human face, the line is the boundary between the face and the background. Another example is to draw a zigzag line to represent the nose of a person, in fact, there is no such line on the nose, and this line is the boundary between the nose and the face. Another example is landscapes and flowers, where there are no lines on the real thing, but the artist uses lines. Landscape in the line specially named "chapped (chapped & lt; cūn & gt; method: one of the techniques of Chinese painting, used to show the texture of rocks and bark.)". )". Character lines in the special name "folds". It is all a difficult research work. Western painting is not, only the boundary of each object, the boundary does not depict the line. Therefore, Western painting is very much like a physical object, and Chinese painting is not like a physical object, a look at its painting. The Chinese painting and calligraphy have the same origin, and painting and writing are the same, waving at will and disclosing their feelings; at the end of the 19th century, Westerners saw the flying lines in Chinese paintings, and admired them so much that they imitated them, that is to say, they became the "Late Impressionists" (for details, please refer to this book & lt; this book refers to the author's "Foundation of Artistic Cultivation", Guilin edition, 1941 & gt; "A Brief History of Western Painting" in the book). A Brief History of Western Painting). But the Western paintings before the late Impressionism are all unremarkable lines.

(2) Chinese painting does not pay attention to perspective, while Western painting pays great attention to perspective. Perspective is the expression of three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Western paintings strive to resemble the real thing, it is very concerned about perspective. Try to look at the Western painting of the city streets, houses, furniture, artifacts, etc., the shape is very correct, even with the same as the real thing. If it is depicted in the corridor of the light, even in a few inches of the table out of the distance of several feet to. If you depict the railroad in the front (standing in the middle of the railroad and looking out), you can show the distance of several miles in several inches. Chinese painting is not, do not like to paint the city streets, houses, furniture, artifacts and other three-dimensional phase is very significant things, but like to write clouds, mountains, trees, waterfalls and other things from a distance, such as the natural plane things. Occasionally, when depicting houses and artifacts, he did not pay attention to the perspective method, but expressed himself arbitrarily. For example, if you paint a deep courtyard, you will see the corridors and caves, as if you were flying in mid-air; and it is not what you see at one time, but it is what you see when you fly back and forth, and fly up and down, a couple of times. Therefore, in the hand scroll of Chinese painting, the landscape stretches for several zhang, as if it is seen in the train. In the standing scroll of a Chinese painting, the landscapes are overlapping, as if they were seen in an airplane. Because the Chinese paintings are the same as poems, wherever they think of, they paint wherever they want, and they can't be constrained by perspective. Therefore, sometimes the perspective in Chinese paintings is wrong. But there is nothing wrong with such mistakes. We should not criticize Chinese paintings with the laws of Western paintings.

(3) Chinese painting does not emphasize anatomy, while Western figure painting emphasizes anatomy. Anatomy is the study of the shape of the human skeleton, sinew and flesh. Westerners for figure painting, must first study anatomy. The name of this anatomy is: anatomy for art students, that is, art anatomy. So it is different from physiological anatomy, physiological anatomy of the human body and the role of the structure of the ministries, art anatomy is specialized in the performance of the shape. But also need to memorize the name of the bones, muscles and flesh, and its shape of all kinds of perversion, is a kind of hard learning. But Western painters must learn. Because Western painting focus on realism, must be depicted with the real human body. But Chinese figure painters never need this kind of learning. Chinese painting figures, the purpose is only in the character of the table out of the characteristics of the posture, but do not speak of the character of the size of the ministries and proportions. Therefore, the men in Chinese paintings have a strange and ancient appearance, and their bodies and heads are not proportional to each other. The women, on the other hand, have moth-eyebrows and cherry lips, and slender shoulders and waists. If you take off the clothes of these figures, their shape is horrible. But this is the advantage of Chinese painting. Chinese painting wants a strong impression, so it expands the characteristics of the characters to make the men more majestic, the women more delicate, and fully express their character. Therefore, they do not use the realistic method but the symbolic method. Instead of seeking resemblance, they seek divine resemblance.

(4) Chinese painting does not emphasize the background, Western painting is very heavy background. Chinese painting does not emphasize the background, such as writing plum blossoms, a hanging in the air, surrounded by white paper. When writing a character, a person hangs in the air, as if riding a cloud. Therefore, Chinese painting paper, leaving a lot of blank space. A very long piece of paper, the lower part of the depiction of a vegetable or a piece of stone, it becomes a vertical scroll. Western painting is not, everything must have a background, such as fruit, the background for the table. In the case of figures, the background is indoor or outdoor. Therefore, the whole picture is filled with paint, leaving no blank space. This difference between Chinese painting and Western painting is also due to the difference between realism and visualization. Western painting emphasizes realism, so the background must be painted. Chinese paintings emphasize on the spirit of the painting, so it must delete the trivial and specialize in the subject, in order to achieve a strong impression.

(5) The subject matter of Oriental paintings is mainly nature, and the subject matter of Western paintings is mainly people. Before the Han Dynasty, Chinese paintings also used figures as the main subject matter. But in the Tang Dynasty, landscape painting was independent. Until today, landscape has always been the main theme of Chinese painting. In the West, figures have been the main subject since the Greek era. The religious paintings of the Middle Ages were mostly about the masses. For example, in The Last Judgment and The Triumph of Death, there are countless figures in one painting. It was not until the 19th century that landscape painting became independent. After the independence of landscape painting, figure painting did not give way, nude painting is still the main subject of Western painting.

The above five points are the differences between Chinese painting and Western painting. From this, we can see that Chinese painting is far-reaching and Western painting is easy. Therefore, for artistic research, Western painting is not as profound as Chinese painting. For the public to appreciate, Chinese painting is not as common as Western painting.