Characteristics of ancient landscape painting
1. Typical historical characteristics
The history of Chinese landscape painting has a long history. Independent landscape painting officially appeared in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Gu Kaizhi, a painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, said in "On Painting": "When it comes to painting, people are the most difficult to paint, followed by landscapes, dogs and horses..." It can be seen that landscape paintings at this time have initially become independent from figure paintings. According to relevant documents, Gu Kaizhi painted landscape paintings such as "Looking at Wulaofeng in the Snow" and "Lushan Picture" at that time. In addition, according to historical records, at that time, Xia Houzhan's "Wu Mountain Picture", Dai Kui's "Wuxi Mountain Residence Picture", Dai Bo's "Jiuzhou Famous Mountain Picture" and other landscape paintings were published. At that time, mountains and rocks were only painted without chaffing. Threads were often used to paint water. Tree trunks and leaves were also painted using the hook-dying method. Most of them were ginkgo trees with fan-shaped leaves. It can be seen that the landscape still partially serves as the background for the characters, leading to uncoordinated scenes such as "people are greater than the mountains and the water cannot be flooded". In some paintings, trees and rocks are even treated with exaggerated deformation to pursue decorative interest. However, the theory of landscape painting at this time had basically matured, "either emphasizing the appearance of philosophy or attaching importance to lyrical expression", and discussed the expression of space, laying the theoretical foundation for Chinese landscape painting. In this way, it was not until the Sui and Tang Dynasties that Chinese landscape painting could be said to be fully mature and gradually formed an independent genre of painting. At the same time, a large number of masters specializing in landscape painting appeared, such as Zhan Ziqian, Li Sixun, Wang Wei, and Zhang Hong. These masters focused on realism and gradually pushed landscape painting to its peak. Zhan Ziqian's "Spring Outing" reflects the appearance of green landscape paintings in the Sui Dynasty or the early Tang Dynasty. Although it has not completely got rid of the original flavor of decoration, its writing ability has been greatly improved, and it can express the author's feelings very well. The lyricism of figure paintings, flower and bird paintings has been elevated to almost the same level. It's just that the techniques at this time were still relatively old and naive, without a specific and distinctive personal style. However, it cannot be denied that landscape painting officially embarked on the path of vigorous development from here. The Song and Yuan Dynasties were the heyday of landscape painting, with numerous famous artists and schools emerging, embodying the artistic achievements and aesthetic characteristics of ancient landscape painting. According to the statistics contained in "Picture Experience Records", "Xuanhe Painting Manual", "Hua Ji" and "Pictures and Painting Treasures", there are more than 180 painters alone. The subject matter and content are wide ranging, from the south to the north of the Yangtze River, famous mountains and rivers, palaces, terraces and pavilions, and villages and fishermen, each with its own unique style. From a formal point of view, ink, light colors, and green are cleverly embellished, and the texturing method, composition, and title are all unique. It is mainly classified into three categories: green landscape, light crimson landscape and ink landscape, which are expressed in meticulous or freehand techniques respectively.
2. Integration of distinct Confucian and Taoist thoughts
Influenced by ancient Chinese Confucian and Taoist thoughts, the aesthetic foundation on which Chinese art relies is deeply imprinted by Confucian and Taoist thoughts. Ancient Chinese philosophy's understanding of nature is different from Western philosophy. The Eastern Jin Dynasty, when Chinese landscape painting was born, was when Taoist metaphysics was popular all over the world. The Taoist thought of emphasizing "mind" and neglecting "things" laid the aesthetic concept and foundation of Chinese landscape painting and even the entire Chinese literature and art that emphasizes expression and neglects reproduction. This is not only reflected in paintings, but also in poems and articles, the connection between heaven and man is regarded as the highest realm of creation. Chinese landscape painting pursues the realm of the unity of nature and man, does not emphasize resemblance in form, and has outstanding inner spiritual beauty. The overall appearance of Chinese landscape painting has an obvious aesthetic feature, that is, it presents a kind of quiet, reserved, mysterious, vague, moderate and soft beauty, with very little impetuous, tense fire and fierceness.
Different ethnic groups and regions will inevitably produce different cultural phenomena. Art is the most prominent, active and profound form of expression in national culture. As one of the important painting subjects, landscape painting contains rich and profound national cultural spirit. The deep-rooted Confucian and Taoist thoughts can be said to be the essence of our national culture. For more than two thousand years, it has had an inexhaustible impact on all aspects of the social life of the Chinese nation. It goes without saying that landscape painting is no exception.
1. The relationship between Chinese landscape painting and Confucianism. Even the most neat and delicate Chinese landscape paintings are "freehand", as the saying goes, "the beauty lies between similarity and non-similarity". The reason for this phenomenon is directly or indirectly influenced by the Confucian "doctrine of the mean". This has a profound and widespread impact on literary and artistic creation, and it also has implications for Chinese landscape painting: excessive pursuit of the form and quality of natural landscapes will lead to the extreme of "kitsch" naturalism; on the contrary, it does not care about the form of natural landscapes at all. , blindly pursuing the skills of pen and ink and engaging in superficial embellishments will inevitably fall into the dilemma of formalism that "deceives the world". Works by Jing Hao, Guan Tong and Fan Kuan, representatives of landscape painters at the end of the Five Dynasties and the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, although the composition of mountains and rivers has the grand and magnificent feeling of "if you look far away, you will not leave your seat", what it really shows is a kind of peace. The static beauty is because the movement and tension contained in it are restrained rather than overt, and it can be said to contain movement in stillness. We can feel this beauty more clearly in Fan Kuan's "Journey to Qishan Mountain". Confucianism talks about "benevolence" and "virtue", etc. "Benevolence" and "virtue" are both based on "moderate" peace, and even "humility". It can be said that there is a lot of humility, which is manifested in the overall psychology of not showing off, showing no edge, and tending to be calm. This is the Confucian idea of ??"harmony in benevolence, movement hidden in tranquility".
, called the Great Qingming Festival.
"The view of "emptiness and tranquility" not only has a great influence in the history of philosophy, but also deeply penetrates into the creation of landscape paintings, causing it to appear as a beauty that is biased toward tranquility and silence. This is just as Ouyang Xiu said: "Depression Indifferent, this difficult-to-draw meaning can be understood by the painter, but may not be recognized by the viewer. Therefore, if you fly slowly and quickly, you can easily see things that are close to you, but if you are leisurely and solemn, it is difficult to see things that are far away. "From the two words "difficult", it is not difficult to see that Ouyang Xiu also admires the beauty of "emptiness and tranquility" in painting.
2. The relationship between Chinese landscape painting and Taoist thought. The coordination between man and nature The aesthetic view of unity and integration has great similarities with the idea of ??unity of nature and man advocated by Taoism, or it is more thoroughly expressed in Taoism, as Zhuangzi said, "Heaven and earth coexist with me. And all things are one with me." Zong Bing said: "The sage carries the Tao and reflects things, and the sage carries the image of the taste. As for the mountains and rivers, they have quality but are interesting and spiritual... The saints use gods to teach the Tao, and the sages understand it; the mountains and rivers use the shape to charm the Tao, and the benevolent people enjoy it. "Here, Zong Bing believes that the image of landscape contains "Tao" and embodies "Tao". Tao is reflected in things, which requires a sage to calm down and purify his heart to appreciate it. Wang Wei, a contemporary of Zong Bing, also said : "What is essentially the form merges with the spirit... it stops the spirit from seeing death, so it cannot be supported. "Wang Wei also believes that God and spirit are an integral whole that is inseparable from the form. God cannot be seen, so it is based on the specific form of landscape. The "spirit" here actually refers to the "Tao". It seems that landscape painting has been in its infancy. It has an indissoluble bond with "Tao" and it is precisely because of the profound influence of "Tao" that Chinese landscape painting does not put the pursuit of realistic shape, color, body and light in the first place, but "clearly contemplates Tao". "As the ultimate goal. The aesthetic embodiment of Laozi's "Tao" is a kind of implicit, mysterious and hazy beauty. It is this "elephant invisible" beauty that gives landscape paintings infinite vitality.
< p> From the patterns of landscape paintings, we can see that landscapes are not as rigid in structure and precise in proportion as figures and birds. It can be said that the shapes of mountains, rocks, trees, etc. are not restricted too much. There is no "normal shape" in landscape paintings. It is conducive to perfectly embodying the "beauty of the elephant". Yun Nantian's remarks can also help us grasp and understand the affinity between landscape painting and "Tao". As a painter, "it is important to know that none of the thousands of trees is a tree." There is no mountain in the mountains, no pen in the thousands of pens. Wherever there is nothing, nowhere there is existence, so it is Yi. "It's not a tree, it's not a mountain, it's not a pen and ink, what is it? It's the embodiment of "Tao" and the Taoist thought of "color is emptiness, emptiness is color, and comes from doing nothing."3. Create a profound humanistic artistic conception
Traditional "freehand brushwork" has been a long-standing method of Chinese painting. Painters do not pursue visual effects and brushwork skills in their creations, but face nature and life intuitively, feel and understand nature. Wang Wei believes that "when painting landscapes, the intention comes first with the brush"; Zhang Yanyuan said in "Records of Famous Paintings of the Past" that "the intention is in the brush first, and the intention is in the painting", "Although the brushwork is not thorough, the intention is thorough." ". The artistic conception of landscape painting is the realm created by landscape painting. It advocates focusing on intention, emphasizing expression, creating the environment with intention, and creating a realm where "the nature of the mountain is my nature, and the emotion of the mountain is my emotion." The artistic conception created by landscape painting is not only beautiful. The scenery and scenery of mountains and rivers are more about the painter's pursuit of the ideal state, a spiritual residence that is transcended from the trivial and vulgar society, or a fairyland-like ethereal and magical place, or a secluded residence for leisurely farmers, fishermen, and woodcutters. Many literati landscape paintings. It expresses the taste of living in mountains and forests, simple and natural ink scenery; court painters mostly depict pavilions, beauties and clouds, feasting and feasting, and fairyland on earth. Different people paint different paintings, and the same landscape expresses different artistic conceptions.
On the surface, ancient Chinese landscape paintings express natural landscapes, but in fact they express "people". It expresses people's moral character, spiritual temperament and ideal pursuit, and is the naturalization of the painter's inner soul. , materialized presentation, expressing rich human warmth and profound artistic conception.
Most of the shapes in ancient Chinese landscape paintings are not replicas of nature. Zong Baihua said: "Painters paint landscapes not as usual. A person stands at a fixed place on the ground and looks up at the sky; instead, he uses the eyes of his mind to cover the panoramic view, looking at the parts from the whole, "looking at the small from the big", and organizing the whole realm into a picture that is vivid, rhythmic and harmonious. The artistic picture is not taken mechanically. " Ancient Chinese landscape paintings always shape images through the painter's observation, intuition, association, and imagination. There are many comprehensive elements in it. Just as Lu Ji said in "Wen Fu", "View the past and present in a moment, and caress the world in an instant. ". Breaking the limitations of time and space, integrating the mountains and rivers in his mind, he created works with a personal style between "similarity" and "unlikeness". Fan Kuan once sat in danger in the mountains of Qinlong area all day long, looking around. , for the sake of interest; Jing Hao once visited Taihang and painted mountains... This kind of landscape painting created through long-term observation and consensus is reasonable but not necessarily reasonable, but it is not contrary to reason. The huge tension of "not similar" allows for considerable freedom in creation. For example, you can have mountains over mountains, water connected to water, banana trees in the snow, different trees of the same plant, compression, close-up, continuation, chaining, size, length , adjust the position as you like, right but not right, similar but not similar, which does not make people feel weird; for another example, landscape painting emphasizes painting clouds, mountains, flowing water, smoke trees, and fog, and sometimes only one or two peaks are painted. It expresses thousands of hills and valleys from the hazy, defeats the many with less, and expresses the infinite with the limited.
Ma Yuan of the Song Dynasty had a series of 12 "water paintings", namely "Ripples in the Golden Wind", "Dongting Breeze", "Layered Waves", "Cold Pond Clear and Shallow", "Yangtze River" "Ten thousand hectares", "Yellow River countercurrent", "Autumn water echo", "Clouds grow in the blue sea", "Lake light shines", "Clouds roll in the waves", "The morning sun bakes the mountains" and "Fine waves drift". These 12 paintings, some have vast waves, some have turbulent waves, some have meandering calmness, some have undercurrents, some have gentle waves, or some have rolling waves. They vividly depict water in different shapes and situations, which can be said to be the perfection of water.
Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" said: "The beauty of calligraphy and painting should be understood by spirit, and it is difficult to find it in form. Most viewers in the world can only point out the image position and color defects; as for the It is rare to see someone who is an Auli Mingzhu. For example, Yan Yuan commented on Wang Wei's paintings, which often include peach, apricot, hibiscus, and lotus in the same scene. In the painting "Yuan An Lying in the Snow", there are bananas in the snow. This is done with ease, and it can be done as soon as it comes to mind. "It's ready upon arrival" embodies the overall characteristics of ancient Chinese landscape poetry and painting.
Ye Lang said: "Ancient Chinese landscape painters like to paint 'yuan', lofty, far-reaching, and flat. Many ancient Chinese landscape paintings show a vast water surface with wooden bridges, pavilions, creeks, There are countless mountains and valleys in the distance, and the whole picture is pushed from the near to the distance layer by layer, farther and farther. The mountains and rivers are originally tangible things, and the "distant" breaks through the limited form of the mountains and rivers. People's eyes extend to the distance, from the limited time and space to the so-called 'image outside the image' and 'scenery outside the scene'."
From the perspective of ancient Chinese landscape painting, it is necessary to express the author's feelings and interests. In terms of structural modeling, the emphasis is not on physical resemblance but on spiritual communication, which coincides with the lyrical characteristics of poetry. Based on this subjective desire, it breaks through the limitations of time and space, expresses the intangible with the tangible, and transmits the infinite with the finite. It integrates the painter's understanding of the universe and the universe. A deep understanding of history and life, this is the artistic conception. Ancient Chinese landscape paintings, starting from Zong Bing and Wang Wei, have paid attention to the pursuit of scenery outside the scene and images outside the scene. Although the creative artistic conception was not clearly proposed from a theoretical level at that time, their painting theory and creation have already begun to show clues. Bing advocated "lying and wandering", "clearing the mind and images", "cleansing the mind and nourishing the body", and Wang Wei proposed "bringing down gods" and "painting feelings", which were the forerunners of later generations to advocate writing spiritual and freehand paintings. The turbulent situation after the mid-Tang Dynasty pushed scholars who were aspiring to become officials into seclusion, allowing them to directly experience the mountains and rivers. Jing Hao, Guan Tong, Fan Kuan, Li Cheng, etc. are all reclusive people. They understand the original state of mountains, rivers and objects in the mountains, rivers and valleys, so they can feel the overall character of the nature of mountains and rivers. For example, Fan Kuan's "Snow Scenery in the Cold Forest", Wang Shen's "Light Snow in the Fishing Forest", Li Tang's "Small Lan Xiao Temple", Ma Yuan's "Fishing Alone on the Cold River", etc. convey the experience of landscapes, not to reproduce but to express, not to describe the scene but Expressing meaning is what Su Shi said, focusing on expressing the infinite meaning beyond words. Ma Yuan's "Fishing Alone on the Cold River" shows only a fisherman wearing a raincoat and holding a pole, with a small hill shrouded in mist and rain on the back. As the saying goes, "The beauty of painting is where there is pen and ink, and the beauty of painting is where there is no pen and ink." This painting uses the vast and lonely hills and the old man fishing alone to create a realm of life that makes people think calmly and desolately, and exudes the poetic mood of cold desolation. Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" said that Dong Yuan of the Southern Tang Dynasty wrote about the Jiangnan Mountains with a hasty pen. The short-sightedness does not resemble the object, but the far-sightedness makes the scenery brilliant, the mood is distant, and it is like seeing a strange scene. This "unusual environment" is a poetic artistic conception. Staying away from the worldly world and escaping into the purest and most flawless nature, in order to express the pure and elegant personality, is what ancient Chinese literati painters pursued unremittingly. Fang Shishu's "Tianwu'an Essays" said: "Mountains, rivers, vegetation, nature, this is the real state. The mind creates the state, and the hands move the heart, this is the virtual state. The virtual becomes real, because there is no gap in the pen and ink,—— Therefore, the ancient people's writings and ink depict the green trees on the mountain, the water and the moistening of the rocks, and they form a unique kind of spirituality beyond the sky and the earth, or they are all refining gold into liquid. Wonderful." This is the essence of Chinese art.
Dong Yuan's "Picture of Xiaoxiang" is a short horizontal scroll, which depicts the activities of fishermen and tourists between Zhouzhu on the river bank. The foreground depicts the flat slope of a sand moraine, with two women walking towards the water. The middle scene shows the river, with a boat approaching on the river. There are six people on the boat, including a person sitting upright, someone holding an umbrella, someone crossing a pole, and someone rocking an oar. The main subject in the background is distant mountains and lush forests, with fishermen setting up nets and small boats passing by in the distance. This is a typical Jiangnan scenery. This painting does not paint water patterns, leaving most of the mountains blank. The scattered dots are used to represent the hazy distant trees, puffs of clouds and smoke, and the distant mountains are immersed in confusion. The whole picture combines movement and stillness, using movement to show stillness, presenting a warm and peaceful scene. Appreciate the "Xiaoxiang Picture", from the distant mountains to the near water, and then from the near water and people to the distant mountains, and so on. The whole painting is filled with the moist and beautiful atmosphere of the south of the Yangtze River, as well as the peaceful artistic conception of life's gentleness and natural joy. . This kind of artistic conception is what Wang Guowei said is the "state of self", which gently displays the painter's personality, character, interest and yearning in the natural landscape. The personal "self" is expressed in the "big" nature created by nature. In "I", the feelings and interests of the small "I" are highlighted in the materialized form of the big "I".
Ni Zan’s "Autumn Scenery at the Fishing Village" is a work he made when he was 55 years old. It shows the typical painting style of his mature period. The scroll depicts the autumn scenery of the fishing village in the south of the Yangtze River and the mountains and rivers of Pingyuan. The top, middle and bottom The "three-stage" composition reveals personal characteristics: the upper section is a distant view, with three or five mountains spread out gently; the middle section is a medium shot, without a single stroke, using virtuality as reality, and the right is a vast and calm lake; the lower section is a close-up view, on the slopes and hills. There are several tall trees, scattered at random, with sparse branches and leaves, and graceful appearance. There are no birds, no sails, no traces of people in the whole painting, and it is empty and lonely. Ni Zan created "folded and cracked" based on the "capped with hemp" created by his predecessors to express the rocks in the Taihu Lake area, such as the rocks on the hillsides in the distance. , rub horizontally with a hard side pen. The contrast between shades and lightness makes it quite charming. The trees in the painting are also painted with dry brushes, which are strong and strong. The branches on the tree heads are painted with sparrow-shaped stippling brushes, which has a calligraphic meaning. In the middle and right part of the painting, a long title in small regular script connects the upper and lower scenery. The whole picture is integrated and achieves the poetry and poetry. A perfect combination of books and paintings. Ni Zan's painting begins with a dead tree nearby. The prominence of the tree first catches the viewer's attention, and the tree's arrogance and stubbornness set the main tone of the entire painting. The mountains in the distance are faint and secluded. There is no ripple in the water in the middle. Wandering around in such a scene, one can appreciate the mood of desolation, desolation, coldness, and aloofness. This painting was painted in 1339, when Ni Zan was 38 years old, only a year after he dispersed all his property and wandered around the world. On this occasion, Ni Zan deeply felt that life was topsy-turvy and short, and his heart was depressed and hesitant. Where should life go and where should it be? The subject in the painting who is meditating facing the mountains and rivers is exactly the portrayal of Ni Zan himself. . After that, he gradually realized the true meaning of life and the mystery of the universe. In his later landscape paintings, he concealed his small self and returned to the greatness of the universe.
Comparative analysis of "Xiaoxiang Picture" and "Yuzhuang Qiuji Picture" from specific landscape paintings shows that the life conditions and tastes are different, and the artistic conception is also different: one is gentle, the other is delicate; one is honest, and the other is elegant. However, both paintings give people endless poetic thoughts and aesthetic enjoyment. They also have a deep sense of life and philosophy in them, bringing people infinite yearning and endless contemplation. In addition, the color of the ink and the style of the pen can be seen, which will be omitted in this article. "There is a painting outside the painting, and the mountain is visible outside the mountain. The intention comes first, and the reality and reality are present and absent." This is the characteristic of ancient Chinese landscape painting.
The expression method of "three distances" in ancient landscape painting
Guo Xi in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty said in "Linquan Gaozhi" that mountains have three distances: from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, it is called high and far; from the front of the mountain When you look at a mountain, you call it far-reaching; when you look at a distant mountain from a nearby mountain, you call it flat and far. "Chinese landscape paintings often have "high and far" in a painting, which makes you feel the majesty of the mountain peaks, and feel the mountains are compelling, as if you were there; "profound" makes you feel that the mountains are heavy and the waters are heavy, and the depth is unpredictable; and there is "flat" in the painting. "Far" has a broad field of vision and a relaxed and happy mind. To achieve this effect, it is necessary to break the limitations of the focus perspective to observe the scenery, and use scattered perspective such as looking up, looking down and looking at the eye to depict the scenery in the painting.
Ancient times Comparison of landscape painting and Western landscape painting
1. Characteristics and artistic spirit of ancient Chinese landscape painting and Western landscape painting
What distinguishes ancient Chinese landscape painting from Western landscape painting is its freehand nature. This is also the most fundamental characteristic of Chinese painting art. The so-called freehand brushwork focuses on the expression of artistic charm and interest, and does not stick to the physical appearance of the objective object, emphasizing the integration of the creator's subjective emotions, "or emphasizing the manifestation of philosophy. , or attach importance to lyrical expression", but this "lyrical expression" is not without origin, nor is it the author's whim, but is completed on the basis of observing objective objects. Of course, this kind of "lyrical expression" expressed in Chinese painting This kind of expression focuses on subjective emotions and emphasizes the characteristics of freehand brushwork. It is closely connected with Chinese cultural traditions, philosophical thoughts and outlook on the universe and life. Because ancient China believed in "Tao" thought, Taoism emphasized "heart" and neglected "things". The philosophical thought laid the aesthetic foundation of ancient Chinese landscape painting and even the entire Chinese art, which emphasizes expression and emphasizes representation. Therefore, a Chinese landscape painter must have the spirit to accommodate all rivers and all things, so that he can write freely and freely and express his feelings. The transcendent and indifferent artistic conception of landscape painting.
Because of the influence of Christ, Western art believes that the artist’s accurate and perfect expression of external beauty aims to move closer to God and is a contribution to God. Therefore, Western painters attach great importance to the realism of painting. Realism and freehand brushwork are relative. As the name implies, the artist focuses on objectively describing the external characteristics of the object, and the color, appearance of the objective object and the relationship between light and shadow. Depict it as realistically as possible. The main difference between Western artists and Chinese artists is whether to imitate the object of representation more realistically, rather than emphasizing the artist's subjective feelings and experience. Therefore, Western landscape painters pursue to reproduce as much as possible. Naturally, they use different techniques to describe natural scenery, and even seek scientific methods to express nature more vividly and directly. This expression is based on their meticulous observation of nature.
< p> 2. The expression techniques of Chinese landscape painting and Western landscape painting are differentBecause Chinese painting uses the most elastic brush and rice paper that is most responsive to changes in brush strokes and moisture, the brush and ink of Chinese painting are not easy to shape. , the characteristics of unpredictable brushstrokes. At the same time, Chinese landscape painting mainly relies on the "line" modeling of ink and brush, using "line" and various scratches of the brush to shape the characteristics of various mountains, rocks and flowing water.
Therefore, "line" is a very important element in Chinese landscape painting. The quality of the application of "line" directly affects the success of a landscape work. Therefore, it is not a day's work to draw a good Chinese painting. It requires a lot of time to explore and practice the pen, ink and lines to become very proficient, so that you can draw a painting well. Because every painter has a different understanding of life, Chinese painters infiltrate this understanding and understanding of life into lines and brushwork, and finally form a painting style with their own unique style.
Western painting uses oil brushes, oil paints and canvases that are completely different from Chinese painting. Because of the differences in tools and expression media, the expression techniques of Chinese and Western paintings will inevitably lead to differences. As mentioned above, Western art emphasizes realism and true reproduction of objects, while painting is a two-dimensional space art. If you want to create a three-dimensional space in a flat two-dimensional space, you must use blocks and light and shade to express objects. Therefore, Western landscape painting is different from the "lines" of Chinese landscape painting. It uses oil brushes and pigments to express the block surface and light and shade of the form, and uses color as the main modeling method. Western artists believe that small surfaces must be used to create objects that are close to reality and have a three-dimensional sense. Therefore, the lakes and mountains in Western landscape paintings are composed of "surfaces" one by one. Together with light, shadow and color, To enhance the volume and realism of the painting. Therefore, the Western landscape paintings we see are closer to the natural landscapes in real life than Chinese landscape paintings.
3. The spatial concepts of Chinese landscape painting and Western landscape painting are different
Let’s compare two Chinese and Western works: Huang Binhong’s “Sitting in the Rain in the Mountains” and Daubigny’s “Opte” Watts's Locks". It can be seen from this that the Chinese landscape painting "Sitting in the Rain in the Mountains" is a free flowing space concept. This space concept is not limited by time and space. It has no fixed viewpoint and can combine objects observed from different viewpoints at the same time. in the frame. As Guo Xi of the Song Dynasty said, "There are three mountains. From the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, it is called high and far; from the front of the mountain and to the back of the mountain, it is called far-reaching; from close to the mountain and to look at the distant mountain, it is called flat and far." It can be seen that this kind of Chinese painting The concept of space is not an ordinary physical space concept, but a very free and flexible spatial expression between heaven and earth. Therefore, in ancient Chinese landscape paintings, most farmhouses under the mountains are hidden among the mountains and forests, and travelers stroll along the banks of Xiqiao Lake. The paintings are full of poetic imagery and are not limited to the realistic spatial environment. This reflects the special perspective method in Chinese painting - "scattered perspective".
Let’s take a look at Daubigny’s “The Watergates of Optewoz”, a representative work of Western landscape painting. The painter strives to create a three-dimensional sense of space on a flat surface and realistically reproduce the spatial environment where the object is located. He only acts as a carrier in the spatial transformation of nature and landscape paintings. He uses the focus perspective method with rational scientific analysis. His concept of space is based on the guidance of his scientific and rational thoughts, and is expressed by light and shade and perspective. Therefore, Western artists’ understanding of the concept of space is their understanding of natural and real space, and they cannot break away from the constraints of real nature like Chinese painters.
Chinese and Western art are indeed two different art forms, and their aesthetic ideas and expression techniques are quite different. However, as expressions of the human artistic spirit, they have the same characteristics. We can learn from each other and develop in a coordinated manner with innovation.