The Comparative Research On Chinese And Western Classical Painting Aethetics

Painting as an expression of human civilization and physical existence of human spirit, not only is the painter's imitation of the Nature and the embodiment of his internal emotions, a "personal" action, but also has the function of "accumulation" and is affected by "Collective Unconsciousness", which is fostered by mode of thinking, psychological structure, aesthetic taste and cultural concept of a nation.Analyzed from the geographical and cultural perspectives, Chinese and western classical paintings, being relatively closed, remaining in certain stable condition with independent aesthetic interests and values and reflecting the mental and emotional intrinsic charm of Chinese and western ancients, convey totally different eastern and western cultural connotations and aesthetic interests and are physical expressions of eastern and western national sentiments and modes of thinking. Therefore, it is of great value and significance to study aesthetics of Chinese and western classical paintings.On the theoretical basis of Chinese and western cultures, from the respect of problem awareness, taking Chinese and western classical paintings as comparative objects, this dissertation comparatively studies aesthetic features, spatial awareness, painting themes, color concepts and development of Chinese and western classical paintings, reveals their different cultural connotations and aesthetic qualities, probes into the developing trend of Chinese and western contemporary paintings in the following six parts.The first part is the Introduction, which firstly analyzes the significance and value of the subject in this study, where two kinds of fusions are realized:one is the fusion of concrete painting forms and abstract aesthetic laws, the other the fusion of cross-cultural horizons of eastern and western painting aesthetics, which is of comparative aesthetic value and significance. Secondly, this part presents the status quo of painting studies. Compared to the fruitful results of studies on painting history or painting theories, studies on painting aesthetics are relatively weak. Besides, the researchers are one-track-minded with limited vision, often focusing on aesthetic category of ancient Chinese painting theories, adopting the form of narrating with little argument. There are quite few studies on the contact between Chinese and western paintings from their language forms or from philosophical aspect. Thirdly, it describes the research ideas and methodology, that is, proceeding from the perspective of culture and focusing on the language forms, the present research analyzes aesthetic differences between Chinese and western paintings, starting from the aspects of aesthetic features, spatial awareness, painting themes, color concepts and development. Finally, stages of art history are summarized which is to position Chinese and Western classical paintings in the long process of human history.Taking aesthetic features as its main subjects, Chapter One discourses on distinct aesthetic pursuits of Chinese and Western classical paintings respectively and probes into aesthetic motives for the pursuits. Aesthetic categories are dynamically and diachronically sorted out, from the "vivid portrayal" and "clearing mind and sensing scenes" in Wei and Jin Dynasties and "lively spirit and vitality" in Southern Dynasty, to the highly praised standard of "ease" in the Northern Song Dynasty. Every aesthetic category is elaborated in certain cultural context, and different categories are connected with each other centered around their relationship between body and spirit, so as to put forward the aesthetic pursuit of verve of Chinese classical paintings. As to the aesthetic features of western classical paintings, their structures are analyzed synchronically based on the study of western painting theories and summarized as such three features as valuing form, valuing imitation and pursuing ideal beauty. Finally, it is pointed out that ideological differences between Chinese and western classical paintings are fundamentally attributable to the differences between their aesthetic pursuits. Chinese and western classical paintings are harmonious aesthetics, but their connotations are quite different. Chinese aesthetic tradition of complementation of Confucianism and Taoism, especially Taoist aesthetics, gave birth to Chinese aesthetic pursuit of valuing verve in paintings. Harmonious aesthetic ideology since the Pythagoreans contributes to the aesthetic pursuit of western classical paintings.In the second chapter, starting from the perspective of time and space, this dissertation focuses on illustrating the different sense of time and space of the ancient Chinese and Western people, and analyzes thoroughly the concrete manifestation of this space-time consciousness in Western painting. The paper analyzes comprehensively and points out the spatial-temporal unity and the time and space awareness that time can control the life in space, respectively from the time and space consciousness of ancient Chinese, cultural patterns of four seasons and five elements, and the breed of farming civilization. Then the dissertation diachronically combs transition of western time-space concept from the Pythagoreans, Descartes, and Newton to Einstein, and explores the Western measurable physical time-space concept. And it further analyzes the specific manifestation of this space-time concept in Chinese and Western classical paintings. The article points out that Chinese people model with lines with fuzzy abstract features of deep space, at the same time convey a sense of rhythm and life. As for the commonly referred cavalier perspective, the paper analyzes it with scientific terms in finding a view, and points out that it is not scientific to regard the "point" as "viewpoint" in Cavalier perspective. The "point" should be understood as "sight" or "vision". China's "cavalier perspective" should be understood as "moving sight" or "mobile vision." But the "cavalier" can vividly represent the multi-angle, multi-faceted, multi-level approach of composition adopted by Chinese people. Finally, combined with the form characteristics of Chinese scroll painting, the paper analyzes from the aesthetic point of view. Chinese scrolls are expanded with the flow of time, so Chinese paintings reflect the manifestation that time leads space, and the mergence of time and space. While because of the application of focused perspective, the Western classical painting reforms the real deep space. The integration of Western classical painting and architecture, sculpture makes it have a carving characteristic, forming a convex three-dimensional space. The above two points create the beautiful features in western classical paintings. The paper intends to point out the sense of space life that can be experienced in classical Chinese painting and measurable physical sense of space in Western classical painting.In the third chapter, the dissertation tends to analyze why ancient Chinese prefer the landscape paintings, while Westerners prefer myth-religious paintings by comparing the subjects of the paintings from the cultural perspective. Firstly the paper points out the most influential landscape painting in Chinese classical paintings. It replaces the figure painting to become the center of Chinese paintings, and is mature a thousand years before the western landscape painting. The favorite subject of Western classical painting is human body, then focusing on subject of myth-religious painting with human body as the core. If the relationship between man and nature is the inner dimension of Chinese landscape painting, then the relationship between man and God is cultural elements in the western myth-religious paintings. Starting from the relationship between man and nature, this paper defines the "nature" in two levels:the "First nature" and "Second nature". The former refers to the natural landscape, while the latter refers to the "Road" in Taoist aesthetics and metaphysics. Landscape painting can not only represent the shape of landscape, but also reflect the spirit of landscape, which contains the reflection on nature and life by Chinese people. Thus the ancient Chinese were able to settle their lives in landscape. This is where the soul and life of the beauty of Chinese Landscape Paintings located. he paper also uses contemporary theory of environmental aesthetics to cast light upon natural beauty and natural consciousness embodied in the classical landscape paintings. The paper compares the Arnold Berleant's "Descriptive Aesthetics" and the ancient Chinese "mysterious landscape", analyzes the proposition of "clarification of mind and taste" and "Participating Aesthetics", intending to deepen the understanding of the relationship between human and nature in Chinese classical aesthetics, and also being helpful to explore the environmental aesthetics resources in Chinese classical painting, and thus to make Chinese aesthetics participate in the process of communication and dialogue with contemporary Western aesthetics.In the cultural analysis of Western people and God, the dissertation combs the evolution process of myth-religious painting from ancient Greek and Roman, the Medieval, Renaissance to the 17th century, and analyzes the changes of the relationship between man and God in different stages.Started from the concept of color painting, Chapter Four identifies the color development process of Chinese and Western classical paintings, and points out the difference in attitudes between Chinese and Western painting. Chinese classical paintings'color is green and ink. Before Tang and Song dynasties, green was the main expressive color, while after these two dynasties, the color ink became authentic. One reason for this shift is that the color ink has strong lyrical capabilities to cater for Chinese people's aesthetic taste; the other reason, also the profound reason, is the inherent requirements of Chinese traditional Taoism and Metaphysics to painting colors. There is also a gradual mature process in the development of Western classical painting colors. After identifying the color development of ancient Greece, Rome and impressionist paintings, the analysis points out that Western people were influenced by the concepts of imitation. The concept of Western painting emphasizes the reproduction of natural color and conditional color. The Western classical painting color attached much more importance to realistic functions, which is different from Chinese classical painting color whose focus is lyrical function. The scientific development of Western color makes the accurate realistic functions possible, thus it is reasonable to say that Chinese classical painting is a philosophical color concept while Western classical painting is a scientific color conceptChapter Five explores modern transformation of Chinese and Western classical painting. This chapter analyzes changes of painting concepts; moreover, it studies deep cultural motions of these changes. This chapter places Chinese painting's modern transformation in the background of Chinese modern society's modernization, by drawing the outline of clues of Chinese modern painting's concepts transformation, it studies the exchange and collision between "traditional" and "modern", "eastern" and "western" in the process. The concept of Western painting's modern transformation can be summarized into three areas:the first is that the painting shows the tendency of the development to the planarity, which breakthrough traditional focus of painting perspective achieved by creating three-dimensional space. The second is that painting has changed from traditional objective reproduction to emotional subjective feelings. The third is that the attention has been diverted from the painting subject to the painting medium. Since the transformation of modern Western painting concepts were born in modern and post-modern cultural environment, so this research points out that the appearance of modern transformation is the inherent requirement of art's self-discipline under the aesthetic modernity, meanwhile it is a forced choice after industry and mechanical had taken the place of handicraft. The former is internal reasons, while the latter is an external cause of this occurrence. This thesis doesn't judge modern Western painting as "fall" or "innovation" in terms of values, its intention is to state that the modern transformation of Western painting is the inevitable result of western cultural development.