The Research On Fuli Chen's Pictorial Photography

Fuli Chen is a distinguished contemporary photographer,and he is named as the“three prominent figures” of Chinese photography industry together with Taiwanese photographer Jingshan Lang and Mainland China photographer Yinxian Wu.“Pictorial photography” is a distinct feature of Chen's photographic art,and hence he is known as the “Wang Wei” of photography industry by the public.“Pictorial photography” refers to the creative spirit and manifestation of artists to integrate painting into photography.“Pictorialism” starts in the Western world,and has a lengthy history of development.As photography enters China,“Pictorialism” starts to have its own place in Chinese industry.Chinese photographers did not directly parallel the “Pictorialism” from the West,and instead,they drew lessons from traditional Chinese painting and incorporated their own thoughts and emotions to make their photography hold onto Chinese spirit and national characteristics.This thesis uses the photography of Chen as object of study,aiming at discussing the artistic characteristics of “Pictorialism”.Firstly,the thesis starts with the art career and life of Chen,summarizing his photographic styles vertically,emphasizing the evolution of his photographic styles over time.In the beginning of 1950 s,Tchan mainly imitated the “Composite Photography” of Jingshan Lang,and he moved to focus on Documentary Photography in late 50 s.Then early 60 s,he started a new style which combined Realism and Poetic representation.In early 1980 s,he started to try the unification of paint and photography.Moving on to the in-depth analysis of the artistic expression and reasoning of Chen's “Pictorialism”,although painting and photography are different branches of art,both are art forms that create images based on 2-dimentional planes and shape3-dimentional spaces.Moreover,both forms need points,lines,colors,lights,and tones in order to demonstrate the layers and dimensions of the art works.Chen's“Pictorialism” uses theories and expressional skills of Chinese painting,mainly through using tones to show layering,creating artistic conception through blank,building dimensions through perspective,utilizing the composition form of “Wuzi Rule” and the effective combination of inscriptions,seal marks and images.Furthermore,the thesis discusses the artistic conception of Chen's works in“Pictorialism”.“Artistic conception” is the domain of Chinese traditional aesthetics,referring to artistic works expressing implications and realms through objects.Photography can also create artistic conceptions.The artistic conception of photography mainly refers to the imaginary space,thoughts and feelings of photographers expressed through objective features.This thesis analyzes Chen's creation of artistic conception through color,composition,lights,tones,lines and other perspectives,examining different kinds of aesthetics in Chen's works including vague,implicit,poetic and sublime aesthetics.The photographic works of Chen have profound themes,expressing strong patriotism,complex emotions towards native soil,warm attention towards humanity,and deep understanding of “Doctrine of Mean”.In conclusion,Fuli Chen,as a well-known Chinese contemporary photographer,integrates theories and expressional skills of traditional Chinese painting into photography.His “Pictorialism” has a unique place in Chinese photography industry,and is worth our inquiry and future development.