Traditional Chinese Opera and Animation in China

In the 1920s, the early animation artists represented by Wan Brothers created China's early cartoons. After more than 80 years, China's animation gradually matured and formed its own unique artistic style. In China, animation has a special title-"art film", which accurately reflects the special creative concept of China's animation, that is, an animated film created by using the modeling concept, space concept and painting techniques of traditional China arts such as painting and folk crafts. The modeling of China's "art films" mainly draws on and absorbs the images of ancient murals, folk New Year pictures, temple clay sculptures and stage plays in China, as well as the design of costumes and props. The role modeling is magnificent, and it pursues a "decorative style" with a strong sense of form, or a simple and easy "freehand brushwork style", because it uses the techniques and techniques of scattered perspective, plateau rule, layering and blank space in China's paintings. Instead, it creates a plane space completely different from the real physical space, which is suitable for plane image activities. The role modeling is flat and the scene is flat, so the action (performance) can't be the same as real life. China animators get inspiration from traditional opera performances, and animated characters should be "represented" rather than "presented", which not only has animation characteristics, but also conforms to the graphic style of the picture. General Pride applies the clean and ugly performances in Beijing Opera to animated characters for the first time, and many actions in Make a scene in Heaven, Make a scene in the sea and Three Monks also draw lessons from Beijing Opera performances. As a result, China's animation action design has gradually formed its own style, one is dance performance, and the other is suitable for display in plane space.

China's fine arts films absorb and draw lessons from China's traditional painting and folk art, not only in form, but also in the inheritance of its aesthetic and philosophical concepts, especially in visual reconstruction and artistic conception creation. China's traditional painting and literature pursue the transmission of "artistic conception", which gives people more space for emotional catharsis and imagination besides narration. China's traditional painting and China's traditional animation based on it are both philosophical breakthroughs. The unique "artistic conception" also gives China's animation a distinctive Chinese style.

People whose "Chinese style" is out of date don't really understand it, and they don't know that foreign animation has been pursuing and promoting the culture of their own country and nation-from artistic form to spiritual connotation. The older generation of animation artists, represented by Wan Brothers, not only created "Chinese style" animation, but also inherited, promoted and developed China culture.

Of course, style also has the characteristics of the times. When we say that China animation should adhere to the "Chinese style", it is not for nostalgia or even "retro", nor does it mean that our animation must or can only be a breakthrough in traditional themes, traditional forms and traditional expressive arts, and there will be no real development of animation industry. Today, to seriously study and study the artistic concept and spiritual pursuit of the predecessors' animation is to seize the opportunity, create a new "China School" which is both traditional "Chinese style" and meets the needs of the times, and create new animation products to meet the arrival of the development peak of the animation industry in China.