Double Variation Of Chinese And Western Aesthetic Culture

Western painting penetrating China is an important period during the history of Chinese fine arts because the western paintings brought by missionaries made influence on Chinese traditional paintings,during which Giuseppe Castiglione is a representative character who made great contributions in the history of cultural exchanges between China and the west.The study of Giuseppe Castiglione provides a clear angle of view to understand how those two different cultures entangled,conflicted,and reconciled with each other.The previous studies of Giuseppe Castiglione focus on chronicles,the integration of western and Chinese painting skills,but few studies focus on the changes of Giuseppe Castiglione's artistic styles in concrete historical context from the embryology perspective.In this study,Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings are selected and analyzed in order to find the developing course and reasons for the forming of this kind of painting based on historical documents with Situational Logic Theory.Firstly,the author overviews the politics,economy,society,and art in Ming and Qing dynasty;Giuseppe Castiglione's life experience;the background of Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings.Secondly,the author divides Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings into three periods.Those paintings during the course of Yongzheng period are in the early stage,in which the paintings are characterized by strong western style with clear light source,rich hues,highlights,shades,and blocks.In the middle and late Yongzheng period,all the elements are diluted.In Qianlong period,few shades can be found in the paintings.The main parts of the paintings such as people and animals are presented in western chiaroscuro but not in the strong way while the background is presented in Chinese way of lines.In general,Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings change from the early stage in strong western style to the late stage in less western style with only chiaroscuro and focus perspective but in more Chinese style.Thirdly,the reasons for Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings are studied by the author from 4 aspects: missionary work;need for competition;the emperor's attitude toward foreign culture;the emperor's taste for art and the national aesthetics.Giuseppe Castiglione needed to make himself competitive to win the living space.Only when he won the appreciation from the emperor could he have supports to protect missionary activities.Therefore Giuseppe Castiglione had to know very well about the national and the emperor's aesthetic taste,and the emperor's attitude toward foreign culture,based on which,he continually made strategic changes in his paintings.All the factors mentioned above forced the becoming of his new-style paintings.Fourthly,Giuseppe Castiglione influenced traditional Chinese paintings.He not only taught painting techniques at the court of Qing Emperor,but also helped Nian Xiyao print the book perspective spreading the concept and techniques used in western paintings.Besides,his new-style painting influenced Chinese painters working in the court in the way of absorbing western painting factors into traditional Chinese paintings.In conclusion,Giuseppe Castiglione's new-style paintings enriched painting techniques and aesthetics of traditional Chinese painting in the sense of cultural exchanging history.The changes of his new-style paintings happen under the framework of traditional Chinese painting,which is a conscious choice of foreign culture made by native culture.