A Brief Analysis About Potential Symbol And Obvious Symbol In Chinese Contemporary Oil Painting

Oil painting emerged in the west and after it had been introduced in China. In the context of Sino-occidental integration, Chinese oil painting has learned practical functions of occidental painting such as expression methods and has acquainted Chinese traditional culture spirit, it also has focused on the characteristics of contemporary China, to show the artist’s subject and objects under the environment of our times. It’s based on the unique real social situation of China which is totally different from the occident to vigorously develop Chinese national art spirit. The rapid development of economy brought the diversification of culture and the commercialization of art which leaded the Chinese contemporary art to show its prosperity. At the end of the twentieth Century, Chinese contemporary artists used the symbols with distinct Chinese characteristics for creation. They took a daily perspective and unique subject matter to record the mental status of a whole generation in China, and with these symbols in painting they could potential meaning and real comparativereflections between times and people. This article tries to analyze individual cases of occidental contemporary oil painting to indicate that the “symbols” have their development and phases accompanying with time, and with continuous change, they have improved steadily and have expressed in a more appropriate way to show the periodicity and necessity of the transition from concrete symbol to abstract symbol, and through this, it can be found that for the symbolization of Chinese contemporary oil painting, it takes time to refine and elutriate. In addition, this article put some existing disadvantages: symbols in certain works lack potential meaning; there is no sufficient close connection between the shown symbol in works and its representative potential background culture; some artists just want to simply duplicate symbols to accomplish a successful oil painting and there are no creativity in some symbols etc. This article selects several examples of Chinese contemporary oil painting to prove the necessity of symbol change and periodicity from concrete symbol to abstract symbol and the meaning between shown symbols and potential symbols. This article uses Susanne K. Langer’s symbolism of aesthetic and theory about aesthetic sociologyto discuss the potential and the show of symbol in Chinese contemporary oil painting from the aspects about the meaning, the emotion and the reflected characteristics of symbols. Through the study of aspects above, the artists can devote themselves to creation process with the enlightenment of inspiration, try of design, experiment and negation with contingency and repeatability, finally they can form concrete symbol, abstract symbol and easel painting symbol. They can also combine the idea of Chinese traditional character into painting and use express method like oil painting special material to manifest broad and profound of “potential separation” and “potential integration” of characters. At last, we can draw a conclusion: in the Chinese contemporary oil painting, we’d better use a dialectical view of dichotomy to treat the "symbol", it can’t be overstated, nor belittled. During watching an oil painting, not only we see the meaning of symbol but also apperceive its spiritual conception such as potential cultural spirit, national art. We’d better seek the development in time, strive for changes in development,find steadiness in changes and look for improvement breakthrough in steadiness. The periodicity and necessityof symbol formation are our inevitable process in creation life.