The Development of Ancient Chinese Painting Art

Ancient Chinese paintings originated from the colored pottery and rock paintings in the Neolithic Age of primitive society.

Pre-Qin paintings have been recorded in ancient books and have reached a high level.

The Qin and Han dynasties were characterized by mythological figures and grandeur. Wei Jin and North and South Dynasties, the literati painting. Sui and Tang Dynasty, the development of fast, produce famous artists. Song Dynasty development to the peak, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties successive development.

Ancient Chinese painting originated very early, 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, the ancestors used mineral colors on the rocks painted simple animal and plant patterns and human figures, depicting a variety of beautiful patterns on the pottery, and then engraved and cast on bronze with a variety of mysterious floral patterns and other graphics. Due to the long period of time, these works have been preserved, but we can get a glimpse of the face of early painting. The earliest paintings on paper and silk that we can see today are burial objects unearthed in tombs, more than 2,000 years old.

Early Chinese painting was divided into a number of disciplines based on the subject matter of the work, such as figure painting, landscape painting, flower and bird painting, and so on. Around the 17th century A.D., European paintings were imported into China, and in order to differentiate them from the local traditional paintings, the imported European paintings were named "Western paintings", while the local paintings were naturally called "Chinese paintings". Therefore, the original title of Chinese painting was relative to Western painting (referring to European painting in general).

Chinese painting is the mainstream of Oriental painting art, which has formed its own system in the field of world art. Whether in artistic content, form, or expression, Chinese painting is very different from Western painting.

Working Brush Painting and Ink Painting

In most people's impression, traditional Chinese painting seems to be ink painting, but this is actually a misunderstanding. Chinese painting can be divided into two main types according to its techniques and styles, namely, heavy color painting and ink painting. Work-brush painting is also known as "fine-brush painting". The style of painting is neat and meticulous, with regular and expressive lines outlining the outline of the object and focusing on the fine details, and then applying heavy, bright colors. Most of the pigments used in Gongbi paintings are made of minerals, and after many years, they can still maintain their original colors; the whole picture is beautiful and bright, with a strong decorative effect. It is because this part of the paintings have a magnificent appearance, most of the court painters in Chinese history used this painting method, in order to show the royal style.

Relative to brushwork painting is freehand painting, also known as "rough brushwork". Its painting style is simple, through as concise as possible brush and ink, focusing on depicting the charm of the object phase of the mood, and does not care very much about the realism of the painted object and the shape of the similarity. Painters often use generalization and exaggeration in their paintings, and use rich associations to maximize their own emotions and express their different personalities. As a result, the works of pictorial painting have a certain improvisation, arbitrariness and accidental effects, which are more difficult to imitate and depict. Almost all of them are done in ink and water, with a plain and elegant appearance. This kind of works occupies a large proportion in the late Chinese painting world.

From the history of the development of Chinese painting, the early (before the 12th century A.D.) paintings were all heavy color paintings with brushwork. In the late period, most of the works were ink and wash paintings; and from the author's point of view, most of the authors of the heavy-brush paintings were professional painters or artisan painters, while most of the authors of the ink and wash paintings had the status of literati.

Of course, there is still an open area between brushwork and freehand painting for painters to choose between the two ends of the spectrum, thus forming an eclectic half-brushwork, half-freehand painting style.

The Perfect Combination of Poetry, Calligraphy, Painting and Printing

Traditional Chinese paintings cannot be separated from poetry. Inscription. Seal engraving is the artistic expression of the combination of poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal. Seal engraving is the artistic expression of the combination of poetry, calligraphy, painting and sealing.

Much of the early Chinese writing was based on the shape or meaning of an object, depicted with concise lines in the form of hieroglyphic aiyu. This is similar to drawing using lines. This characteristic of Chinese writing, coupled with the form of writing itself with a strong artistic creativity, and therefore has a certain natural connection with painting, people called "calligraphy and painting the same source". Chinese painters (especially literati painters. Chinese painters (especially literati painters.) in the process of painting is often very natural to write the brushwork applied to the painting; their emotions in the creation of many times in the form of verse - directly on the screen; and according to the custom of the Chinese literati, in the paintings of the inscription on the red seal engraved with their names. Emphasizing the expressive power of lines and the calligraphic interest of painting ink and brushwork is an important criterion for evaluating the quality of Chinese paintings.

Chinese painting is very concerned about the painter's comprehensive artistic cultivation, the painter in the pen first, generally has been the content of the poem, Yu body and seal in the picture of the position of the overall consideration. Poetry in the painting and the image complement each other, the mood and composition of the picture plays a certain complementary and balanced role; seal of the red color meaning and black and white (ink) pictures to form the difference in color. It is a very important feature of Chinese painting to integrate the four segmented factors of poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal into a unified picture.

From the layout of the picture, one obvious difference between traditional Chinese painting and European painting is that Chinese painting pays much attention to leaving a blank space in the picture. The blank space is not empty, it can be the clouds in the mountains, the morning mist on the river, the light of the sun and the moon, or even nothing at all. Some people believe that "white cloth" is the most important point in Chinese painting. Painters emphasize the poetic conveyance of the image, and those blank spaces may be a symbol of poetic uncertainty, ambiguity, and closeness, leaving room for the viewer's imagination. In the 11th century A.D., Su Zu (1036-1101), a great Chinese painter and writer, put forward the idea that "there is a painting in the poem, and there is a poem in the painting," which is the realm that painters have pursued since then.

Figure Painting, Landscape Painting, and Bird and Flower Painting

Figure painting, landscape painting, and bird and flower painting are the three largest subjects in Chinese painting, and also the most common ones. They can be roughly corresponded to figures, landscapes, and still lifes in European painting.

Painting with the human figure as the main subject is the earliest of all subjects in ancient Chinese painting, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries. The ancestors of primitive society "they use white stems, red alum soil, Ba charcoal black painted on the rock wall of the human Zhai shape and animal patterns, can be" said to be the first to open the figure of the painting of the first Ba river. To about 1500 years ago, Wei Xi North and South Dynasties period, the art of figure painting gradually matured. The famous painter and art theorist of this era, Gu Jianzhi (348-409), put forward the idea that figure painting should "convey the spirit with the form" and "prepare both the form and the spirit", believing that painters should not only correctly depict the appearance of the figure, but also pay attention to delineating the spirit and temperament of the figure, i.e., the inner things. In the long years since then, artists. Almost without exception, art critics followed this understanding and engaged in creation and evaluation. Figure painting had an extremely brilliant history in the early stages of the development of Chinese painting.

Painting that mainly depicts the natural scenery of mountains and rivers is called landscape painting, and is one of the most important and influential subjects in Chinese painting. Its rise was much later than that of figure painting, and it reached maturity in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), after which it flourished for a period of time with a succession of famous artists and masterpieces. The prosperity of landscape painting has its own traditional Chinese cultural reasons. Ancient Chinese philosophers advocated the "unity of man and heaven", that people and all things in heaven and earth are interlinked, the goodness of man's talent to perceive the interlinked, the goodness of man's talent to perceive nature. Even if people in the officialdom city, the heart also yearns for the landscape and trees; close to nature, nature, become Chinese literati (including painters) the biggest wish. Painters in the depiction of natural scenery in the inner feelings and pursuit, while giving the viewer to many associations and revelations. Throughout the history of ancient Chinese painting, landscape painters accounted for the largest proportion of all painters.

Another category of Chinese painting is the depiction of flowers, bamboo and rocks, birds and animals, insects and fish, of which the most common is the combination of flowers and birds, so it is called flower and bird painting. Flower and bird painting gives people a special ornamental interest, its rise is earlier than landscape painting, at first used for handicrafts on the pattern, to the Tang Dynasty began to become an independent category of Chinese painting. Ancient Chinese literati preferred plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, that they are elegant and noble, showing the temperament of the literati. Therefore, plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum are common subjects in bird and flower paintings.