On Freehand Brushwork In Contemporary Figure Painting In Meticulous Style

With the blend and collision of Chinese and Western culture, the contemporary artists in figure painting in meticulous style are making efforts to explore their own art forms and stylistic languages, in hope of finding one which both inherits Chinese traditional culture and can be recognized by the world. Truly, it will be difficult for the art of Chinese painting to develop if it clings to the tradition and is uncapable of absorbing the nutrition from others to enrich itself with the influence of the western painting art. While, right in the background of the blend of eastern and western culture, our cultural identities seem to be less obvious, and we firmly fail in standing by the traditional art spirit context. Therefore, insisting on our own culture is necessary. What this paper analyses and discusses is the current status of the development of contemporary figure painting in meticulous style and contemplation of how to embody freehand brushwork in it.As one of the art concepts and the creating habits of Chinese traditional painting, freehand brushwork embodies aesthetic feeling and standard. It is one of the important criteria of Chinese-painting appreciation, endowing Chinese art with particular fascination.Indeed, the modeling technique of Chinese painters has been largely improved under the influence of the western ancient modeling techniques and the theory, at the same time, it injects new blood to Chinese painting. While these scientific expressing techniques which can make objective facts reappear give rise to the phenomenon that Chinese painters pursue lifelike and realistic works blindly, misunderstand the tradition, learn the Western painting aimlessly to find a way out, and alienize the soul of Chinese painting. Therefore, they lose the spiritual connotation and aesthetic standard of traditional painting and become far away from the core criterion of appreciating Chinese painting---freehand brushwork, which is the soul of the Appearance-spirit view by Gu Kaizhi and Vividness view by Xie He.Freehand brushwork is the soul of Chinese painting, and innovation is the essential demand of the development of painting art. With the world cultures blending, figure painting in meticulous style has to innovate, reflect time spirit, respect the law of development and absorb the reasonable aspects of others in order to make progress and find more painting methods. On this condition, Chinese painters, especially those who are engaged in figure painting in meticulous style should keep the essence of art, no matter how times change and law develops. The more national, the more of the world. So it is quite meaningful to discuss the freehand brushwork in figure painting in meticulous style.This paper approaches the topic through three chapters. Firstly, freehand brushwork and traditional figure painting in meticulous style. Secondly, freehand brushwork and contemporary figure painting in meticulous style. Thirdly, the contemplation of how to melt freehand brushwork into art. These three chapters mainly comb and analyze the connotation of freehand brushwork, freehand brushwork of traditional figure painting in meticulous style and contemporary one, the reason for lack of freehand brushwork and the contemplation of how to embody freehand brushwork systematically, with illustration of examples of some representative ancient and current artists and their works.