Comparison Between Chinese and Western Painting - Coursework Example

COMPARISON BETWEEN CHINESE AND WESTERN PAINTING By Student’s Name Code + Name of Course Professor/Tutor Institution City/State Date Contents Contents 2 Comparisons 3 Similarities 5 Differences 6 Aesthetic Basis: 6 Technique of Expression: 7 Reference List 11 Comparison between Chinese and Western Painting The Chinese classical painting is an old form of art that has developed an exceptional aesthetic taste and style. Correspondingly, the western art holds a significant position in paintings. Both of these art forms portray results of similar objects but of different forms in the universe of art treasure. These arts represent two distinct civilizations that originated in the ancient cultures and history of the east for Chinese art and ancient Rome and Greece for western painting (Sullivan 1962, p. 64). Both these paintings are great artisticdevelopments that portray great aesthetic value. A comparison of the likenesses and distinctions between these two art forms show splendid artistic expressions that are interactive to the cultures they represented. Comparisons The Chinese painting is traditionally referred to as brush painting because of its exceptional painting resources. The classical Chinese painting is classified into several groups: figure painting, landscape painting, and flower and bird painting. Technically, Chinese painting is divided into monochrome abbreviated ink tasks and classical Chinese realistic painting. The major theme in Chinese painting is landscape painting and it originated in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, about 1600 years ago. Landscape painting is commonly referred to as “Shan Shui” in China that means river and mountain (Shaw 1988, p. 183). Landscape painting does not only portray the precise appearance of the environment, but it also mirrors the emotional state and feelings of the painter towards the landscape or the artist’s philosophy of life (Da-Wei 1990, p.72). The drawing materials constitute rice paper, writing brush, and ink. Characteristically, the classical Chinese painting is madeusing ink stone, ink brush, Xuan paper, and ink stick. Chinese artists have exploited the abundance of ink brushes in several styles for a long time. As a result, methods of using ink and brush to produce more communicative brush strokes to convey feelings, emotions, and mood are a main issue in Chinese painting (Shaw 1988, p. 192). For instance, an image by Xu Fei of the Water Village: Fig.1 On the other hand, western painting was adopted from Rome and ancient Greece. The development of western painting was concurrent with other forms of art such as sculpture, dance, and music. The contents, which the western paintings depicted, were meticulously related with people’s everyday life. The main type of western painting is oil painting. Painters usually drew contents on thick paper, cloth, canvas, or board with oily pigments (Sullivan 1962, p. 69). The distinctive of oil painting was the abundant use of colour as a powerful artistic expression, which articulated the accurateformsof the objects. Additionally, the artistic taste of western painting emphasizes on the aesthetics and the authenticity of the painting items. In order to attain a precise art effect, the western painters stress more to the perspective, proportion, shade and light, chroma, and anatomy of the painting. During the sixteenth century, landscape painting as a unique type of painting occurred in Europe, immediately after the Renaissance and has progressed ever since. According to the western style, painting is classified into fantastic, emblematic, naturalistic, and empiricist (Da-Wei 1990, p.35) Similarities Both theWestern and Chinese paintings share a few similarities. They reflect different lives through their use ofcolours, lines, and strokes, and plane drawings. Additionally, they depict visual forms of art that signify the prompt moments of life. About strength, they compel painters to use distinct colours to replicatea wide variety of visible items. As far as the landscape paintings are concerned, all these paintings focus on natural sceneries like forests, mountains, clouds, and lakes. Buildings and human beings are infrequently depicted as accompanying parts. The figure below is a western painting of The Lackawanna Valley, byGeorge Inness, created in 1956. Fig.2 Both of the western and Chinese landscape paintings are influencedby different culture, politics, and religion so that they expressed their own ways of aesthetic and expressive traits. Differences Aesthetic Basis: The aesthetic foundation of the classical Chinese art is powerfully influencedby the principles of Chinese Buddhism and Confucian, and Taoist ideas. The Chinese landscape painting originated in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. The major philosophy of Taoism ideology is mentalism. The result of this is that the aesthetic foundation of Chinese painting is revelation as opposed to reappearance. Shaw (1988, p.200) The Chinese tradition philosophy has impact on landscape paintings. The tradition of Chinese paintingis considered as a great cultural achievement of the Chinese. Beyond the supposition that these paintings exemplify both Taoist and Buddhist ideals, little focus has been accorded to recording the progress, which led to this admired genre. As mentioned, the classical Chinese paintings embedded the personal emotions and feelings of the painters into the image, instead of just depicting the exact appearance and details of the object. The result is that the viewers perceive many broad strokes and white spaces on Chinese paintings (Da-Wei 1990, p.72). These white spaces are a phenomenon part of classical Chinese painting. The painters assumed that this would invoke viewers to imagine and think. The Chinese artists do not paint their subjects while observing them; an artist may walk around looking at the natural environment and then return to their station to paint what their minds remember (Sullivan 1962, p. 89). In contrast, the western paintings are influenced by the Christian faith. In the western art field, God is the architect of the world and the beautyand painters therefore seek the trail of the presence of God in the particulars of the naturalistic setting (Ballestar & Vigue 2002, p. 16). The result is that the western painters always reason that the expression of the actual natural scene is a contribution to God. In so doing, individuals can get closer to their God (Ballestar & Vigue 2002, p. 96). Many of the western painters possessed their unique ways of producing ideal works. One painter’s strategy was shortening the distance between the painting and viewers to make the viewers to engage in his paintings. Such images cannot be comprehended if they are not physically felt (Ballestar & Vigue 2002, p. 96). Technique of Expression: Composition The use of line and stroke are the major expression ways for classic Chinese painters to create the overall structures of images. Strokes and lines are vigorous and they possess powerful expressive forces in Chinese paintings. Therefore, most Chinese artists engage them in showing particular scenes within their minds. In this technique, a conventional way in landscape painting is to categorize all the natural traits into the segment of guests and hosts in order to attain the balance in the composition. In the Chinese paintings, the main composition form is called the ‘host,’ while the ‘guests’take a secondary part, mainly to stabilize that main point of focus. Nevertheless, the guests are a necessity. In their drawings, the Chinese always imagine some sections as specific symbols such as human beings, dragons, or some representational items. This kind of style of expression replicates the Taosim thoughts, which pay attention to the harmonious association between the cosmos and human beings (Shaw 1988, p.111). In western painting, the standard of expression is to develop the actual scenein every way possible. Normally, painters in western landscape depict appearance, relationships between shadow and light, and colour in an objective way. This makes the viewers to feel their environmental and atmospheric surrounding as created by the painter. The western paintings emphasize particulars of the natural environment. These particulars also introduced the processes, which the western artists used in makingpictures. The artists of western painting always emphasized the haphazard remoteness of nature, as well as its intermittent spread elements. However, paintings grounded on nature could have foregrounds, horizons, and skies that are more patterned (Sullivan 1962, p. 54). The artists acknowledge the associations between textures, light, patterns, and colour and integrating them into the wildest of locations to develop depth in painting background traits. These are usually painted with undefined and brushstrokes, which result in nebulous shapes. In selecting background colours, analike procedure is followed. The action of details also trails this principle, additionally defined within the foreground as well as indiscernible in the distance. The Use of Colour Whereas the classical Chinese mainly used black and white colours, rather than painting the details, their painters always simplified the complex nature of the landscape by showing an overall view of landscape to viewers using brush and ink. Sullivan introduced the process and manner of applying colour in classical Chinese paintings. The ink used in these paintings has been culturally considered as ‘colours’ to symbolise simple shading and tones if blended with dissimilar diffusion of the Xuan paper and a little amount of water to exhibit several visual effects different from any other medium of art, in reaction to the movements of brushes (Sullivan 1962, p. 74). In the Water Village figure by Xu Fei, the painter used black and white to depict different elements. The mountains are shownin black, while the rivers are portrayed in white. This means that using colour in Chinese painting is simple in order to give the viewers more space to reason on the art form. Colour usage is very abundant in western painting of landscapes. Painters use dissimilar coloursin all the paintings to depict different ways that people normally perceive in their daily routines. In early times, colourwas considered as a fantasy as most themes of western paintings were majorly related with religion (Sullivan 1962, p. 74). Most painters considered that the simple depiction of representing religious-themed topics could hardly portray their awareness and perception to the universe. This makes them to start observing and depicting the natural setting in real life. Accordingly, western painters conveyed actual and lively colours in their drawings and this made western paintings to get a powerful visual impact in comparison to the Chinese paintings. Painting a western landscape entails a process of chromatic richness. There are no other themes, where such ranges of elements interact. The western landscape palette is brilliant and rich. The time of day, the air density, and the amount of sun determine if the artist selects vibrant colours or more balanced or neutral colours. In order to paint a landscape, the western artist have to understand nature and to be able to accentuate the senses of smell, sound, colour, and light experienced by humans. Although only visual propertiescan be represented in pictures, the artist also shows the atmosphere and spirit of a painting. Due to the strength of colour and light, landscapes paintings comprise of the best topic for learning to value descriptions (Ballestar & Vigue 2002, p.205) Perspective Many of the Chinese classical painters used flattened perspective. The result of this is that most Chinese paintings lack specific point to direct viewers and this creates confusion when the paintings are analysed. The absence of perspective offers viewers with more space to imagine and think. The logic is that painters seem to believe that all people have their unique opinion and perspective of art. The Chinese perspective, unlike the methodical perspective of the West, represents a supra-realistic or idealistic approach. In this case, it is easy to depict additional details than can be perceived with the normal eye. The configuration is in a flat perspective or two-dimensional or in a sequence of planes. (Da-Wei 1990, p.70) Unlike Chinese painting, the viewpoint in western painting is verydissimilar. As western painters attempt to develop an actual view of what they perceive, several techniques and perspectives of expression are used. For instance, there is the multi-view point, which assists painters to develop a photographic setting (Da-Wei 1990, p.70) In conclusion, the Chinese and Western forms of art portray results of similar objects, but with different forms in art. These arts portray two distinct civilizations, which occurred in the ancient cultures of the east for China and ancient Rome and Greece for western painting. The classical Chinese painting is classified into figure painting, landscape painting, and flower and bird painting. On the other side, the main type of western painting is oil painting. This artistic taste of painting emphasizes on the aesthetics and the authenticity of the painting items. In this style, painting is classified into fantastic, emblematic, naturalistic, and empiricist. The use of line and stroke are the major expression ways for classic Chinese painters whereas for western painting, the standard of expression is to develop the actual scene in every way possible. Reference List Ballestar, V & Vigue, J 2002, Practical guide to painting, USA: Watson-Guptill Publications. Da-Wei, K 1990, Chinese brushwork in calligraphy and painting, USA: Dover Publications. Shaw, M 1988, ‘Buddhist and Taoist influences on Chinese landscape painting’, Journal of the history of ideas, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 183-206. Sullivan, M 1962, The birth of landscape painting in China, USA: University of California Press, California.   Read More