Chinese Modern Oil Paintings Of Surrealism Tendency

The surrealist movement is an ideological movement which has a far-reaching influence on the mentality and life style of modern people. Based on Sigmund Freud’s Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Henry Bergson’s philosophy of intuition, surrealists create an illusory and mysterious artistic atmosphere that combines dreams with reality, by studying the unconscious and subconscious mental activities. They believe that the real spiritual world can be better expressed in an unconscious way which is not restrained by rationality.Surrealism has a great influence on contemporary Chinese oil painting, the artistic elements of which can be found in many contemporary artists’works. With different techniques and excellent painting skills and in surrealist painting languages, artists depict illusory artistic conceptions fusing dreams with reality, and create different painting scenarios to express their spirit and thoughts in the subconscious world. This paper is aimed to study the painting languages in the oil painting works created by representative contemporary surrealist artists in China, and analyze and summarize them to reveal the influence of surrealism, as an artistic ideological trend, on the expressions of contemporary Chinese oil painting, as well as the significance of surrealism.The paper consists of three chapters in total. The first chapter mainly gives an explanation of the historical background of surrealism and the surrealist painting style, including the influence of the First World War and Dadaism on surrealism and the connection among them. A case analysis is conducted on the artistic style of surrealist artists and the expressions of their works. The second chapter mainly describes the development of surrealism in China, analyzes the social and cultural environment of "85 New Trend" and its role in the development of surrealism in China, and ravels out the influence of modern culture on surrealist painting. The third chapter makes a case study of the works of some representative artists such as Liu Yi, Xu Mangyao, Chen Ke and Yue Minjun, which includes the generation of surrealist art style in these artists’ works, the formation and embodiment of their painting languages, the surrealism presented by contemporary oil painting works, as well as the significance and influence of surrealism. Through the study of the surrealist painting languages and factors in works, this paper explores artists’ psychology of creation and the influence of surrealism on contemporary Chinese oil painting.