Study About The Aesthetic Thought Of Lu Tanwei's Chinese Traditional Painting

Lu tanwei, apprenticed to Gu Kaizhi was honored as "the three kings of the six dynasties" together with Gu and Zhang Sengyou. Both his paintings and painting style were discussed by later scholars. His paintings characterized by novelty enjoyed the highest fame in Liusong Dynasty and no other paintings could match with them. During the period of The Liusong Dynasty in which Lu lived, the art was full of innovation and characteristics. The naturalism advocated by people living in Southern period made them more inclined to have an unconventional mind in aesthetic appreciation. So, there existed a relatively wilder space for art creation. The exploration of nature and the construction of self had an incalculable effect on Lu's art creation. To the outside world, Lu discovered the essence of nature and observed the sorroundings in a heart of Taoist and Buddist metaphysics which gave Chinese painting natural spirit. To the inside world, he explored the spirit of self, highlighted people's natural attributes and built subject itself. From that period on, Chinese paintings began to have an aesthetic value as well as unique style and charm beyond the significance of image-building. Both painting and calligraphy sprang up with an unimaginable speed and integrated with an unprecedented way. Since Lu, calligraphy in painting, a unique painting style was gradually involved in the field of painting.The difficulties of this paper are that Lu's life experience is little known because of the "Song book-the exploration of Lu Tanwei" part of which is dispersed or lost. Studies on his painting style and theories can only be based on the records of the theory about painting in history and current research results.Since there is no Lu's painting or the theory on his painting in history, I will focus on the exploration which has attached to the information of the existing literature. Whether the nature can be recognised through the surface to explore the true thought of the painter and appreciate his aesthetic characteristics or not is the key of my topic to success.This paper divides Lu's aesthetic thought of his painting into three parts. The first part explores Lu's birth and death and defines the living dynasty of Lu thus to observe Lu in a specific historical background so as to inquire into the aesthetic beauty in his paintings. The first part also makes deep research into the cause of his painting style and the transition in the aesthetic appreciation, the discovery of nature and art creation. The second part explains Lu's calligraphy painting style called "one-stroke painting". And the third part studies his kiyohide and fresh painting style,as well as the aesthetic thought included in it.