Zhang Daqian’s Lotus Painting Interpretation And Reference

Chinese bird-and-flower painting draws with the theme of flora and fauna.It has been fully developed since Tang Dynasty and gradually become one of the independent branches of Chinese painting.Kuo Jo-Hsu once said in his Experiences in Painting that in terms of religious figure,beautiful woman,ox and horse,the ancient paintings are far better than modern ones.However,in terms of the landscape,bird and flower,the modern paintings are far better than ancient ones.Kuo Jo-Hsu’s viewpoint further explained the differences of Chinese bird-and-flower painting since Tang Dynasty.In Song Dynasty,the style of court bird-and-flower painting began to differentiate a lot from the literati one.The painting skills of ink painting and line drawing arose as well.In Qing Dynasty,influenced by the western painting,Chinese bird-and-flower painting gradually integrated the western painting skills.It is in this context comes the legendary artist—Zhang Daqian in 20th century.His artistic philosophy is to inherit the ancient heritage,inherit the nature while inspire creative ideas.His paintings combine the strong points of different schools and especially the splendid sides of Southern,Northern School.Zhang Daqian integrates the skills of court painting,literati painting,western painting,folk art,etc.and eventually makes great achievement on splash-ink painting.His works have a profound influence on the successors.In this paper,I analyze the content of Zhang Daqian’s figure painting,landscape painting and bird-and-flower paining from the perspective of his personal experience.Zhang’s bird-and-flower painting,especially the lotus-themed painting is further researched in this paper.By analyzing his lotus-themed painting from different periods,I draw the referential significance both from the angle of pattern and skill.As a literati,Zhang paints not only for expressing the shape,but most importantly for mastering the principles and truth.The best part of Zhang’s lotus-themed painting is the integration of painting skills and artistic spirit.Based on this,this paper is designed to provide some lessons for the artists of bird-and-flower painting,or even the artists of other realm.