What are the development processes of ancient figure painting?

Wei and Jin Dynasties is an important period for the development of ancient figure painting, with the emergence of the first batch of figure painting masters represented by Gu Kaizhi and the first batch of figure painting theories represented by Wei Jinsheng's Painting Praise and On Painting, which laid an important tradition of ancient figure painting.

From Sui Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, ancient painting art gradually entered a prosperous stage. Painting in Sui Dynasty has the function of connecting the past with the future, and gradually formed a unique style in Tang Dynasty. During this period, figure painting made brilliant achievements, and many famous figure painters emerged in the painting world, each with its own characteristics.

During this period, the portraits of the Central Plains style, represented by the famous painter Yan, inherited the traditions of the painters of the Northern and Southern Dynasties and Zhang Sengyou, and developed in grasping the characters' modeling and temperament, using elegant colors and summarizing them with pens.

Among them, the paintings of ladies, represented by Wu Daozi and Natalie, have changed from depicting political events in the early Tang Dynasty to depicting daily life, with more accurate and vivid shapes, surpassing the previous painters in psychological description and detail description, and pushing the religious paintings of figures to a more expressive and vivid new situation.

The Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty was a period of in-depth development of ancient figure painting. With the establishment of the Palace Painting Academy, meticulous figure painting has become more refined, and with the rise of literati painting, a new style of painting has emerged in the manuscripts of folk figure painting, called "line drawing".

With the development of urban and rural economy in Song Dynasty, realistic social genre paintings and historical story paintings are also flourishing. These figure paintings have made great progress in reflecting the social attributes of objects, expressing the inherent complexity of characters and magnificent composition ability. Zhang Zeduan's masterpiece The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival came into being in this period.

Due to the influence of social politics and aesthetic tendency, the development of figure painting in Yuan Dynasty has always been in a secondary position. But figure painting, like landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting, is also in the transition period of form and style, so it presents a completely different style from the previous generation.

In Yuan Dynasty, figure painters expressed the idea of "Yi" in the form of pen and ink that reflected social reality and their own psychological conditions. Figure painting in Yuan Dynasty occupies an important position in the historical process of figure painting development.

In the Yuan Dynasty, there were Liu Guandao, Yan Hui, Zhang Wo, Wang Zhenpeng, Wang Yi, Wei Jiuding, Zhu Yu, Liu Yuan, Wang Jingsheng, Ye Kekan and other professional figure painters. They either draw characters' stories or explain stories, but they all show their own characteristics.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, influenced by Zen thought, Nanzong figure painting began to appear, and then figure painting began to develop in another direction. From attaching importance to educational cognitive function to aesthetic function, from expressing the spirit of the object to expressing the author's feelings more.

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although more literati painters have turned to landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting, there are still many outstanding figures who are in contact with people's livelihood, care about state affairs and accept budding anti-feudal consciousness.

Chen Hongshou, a painter in the late Ming Dynasty, and Ren Bonian, a painter in the late Qing Dynasty, are among them. They deeply studied traditional figure painting, extensively absorbed foreign skills, and made contributions to life in the new era.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was another category in figure painting called "Gao Shi Painting", which was in the same position as lady painting.

Gao Shi's paintings are different from ladies' paintings, because ladies' paintings mostly express people's activities with strong emotions such as pleasure, bitterness and nostalgia. Most of Gao Shi's paintings, however, contain the artist's lofty and refined ideal, just like a paradise.

Gao Shi's paintings often entrust the painter's thoughts by depicting hermits, nymphs or famous Gao Shi in history, such as Tao Yuanming, Boyi and Shu Qi. They are the spiritual pillars of some frustrated literati in reality, and sometimes become the carriers of proud literati seeking a peaceful spiritual home.