What's the difference between Chinese painting and western painting?

First, the comparison between Chinese painting and western painting in content.

Painting in the world can basically be divided into two systems, namely, oriental painting in western painting or oriental painting in western painting. Oriental painting is mainly Chinese painting, while western painting is mainly oil painting.

The two painting systems of western oriental painting have their own characteristics. If we compare Chinese painting with western painting, there are similarities in both content and form, but there are also differences.

After comparing the two, we can have a preliminary understanding of the night sky of Chinese painting and western painting, which is helpful for further research and is conducive to "making the past serve the present and making foreign things serve China".

Now, as far as content is concerned, there are three similarities between Chinese painting and western painting.

First of all, the history of Chinese painting in western painting and its early stage of development all pay attention to figure painting. And they have all served religion, which constitutes the so-called religious painting. Due to the feudal system in ancient China, under the reactionary rule of emperors, nobles and landlords, painting should serve them. Before the Han dynasty, Chinese paintings painted portraits of emperors, sages and heroes on murals, and also painted pictures of twenty-four filial piety to publicize feudal ethics such as loyalty and filial piety. Later, when Emperor Han Ming introduced Buddhism to China, Buddhist paintings appeared. Then, during the Jin and Southern Dynasties, Taoism, Buddhism and Buddhism prevailed for a while, and temples and courtyards were built everywhere, especially Buddhist paintings. Famous paintings at that time, such as "seven buddha" by Health Care Association, "Vimalakīrti" and "Luo Shen Fu" by Gu Kaizhi, and "A Shen Fu" by Lu Tanwei. This idea of advocating feudal ethics is extremely innate. Its purpose is to paralyze the people through the feudal ruling class and consolidate the people's political power.

There is a similar situation in western painting, that is, in the medieval period of ancient feudal society, the cultures of western European countries were completely shrouded in Christian theology, and science, education, literature and art were all religious, and western painting was no exception, serving religion. /kloc-during the Italian Renaissance in the 0/5th century, capitalism sprouted. Although art began to be liberated from the shackles of feudal thought and realistic art emerged to describe social life at that time, it could not completely get rid of the shackles of religion. Portraits are booming, but most of them are still based on religion or ancient myths. For example, Giotto Band-Aid painted Death of Christ, judas kiss and. In the16th century, during the heyday of the Renaissance, the prosperity of cities led to the prosperity of capitalist art, but figure paintings are still based on religious stories, but they have shed the mysterious cloak of God and have bourgeois thoughts and feelings, such as Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting The Last Supper and Michelangelo Buonarotti's The Last Judgment.

In the above example, "The Death of Christ" is a religious story, which describes the quarterly arrest and suffering. "judas kiss" is a story about the disciple Judas mistakenly asking Christ about other things before he was arrested. The Last Supper was the last dinner with his disciples before his arrest. The Last Judgment is a religious story, which describes that some apostles and martyrs came to Christ to receive the last judgment. The "Madonna" is a portrait of the Madonna. The so-called virgin Mary is a Christian title for Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. "The Sistine Madonna" is a religious story, which describes the extent to which the Virgin Jesus dedicated her beloved son to mankind.

Secondly, the landscape of Chinese painting originally existed only as the background of figure painting in ancient times, and did not occupy too much position in the picture. Later, the position of landscape in the picture gradually expanded, and finally developed into an independent painting, and the flower-and-bird painting also had a similar situation. As far as western painting is concerned, western landscape painting is different from China's landscape painting, and its still life painting is also different from China's flower-and-bird painting, but its development process is similar to landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting.

As far as Chinese painting is concerned, landscape painting sprouted in the Han Dynasty. It is said that Liu Bao painted "Cloudy Han Tu" and "North Wind Tu". Among the Han Dynasty portrait bricks unearthed in Chengdu, there is a portrait brick depicting hunting in the mountains and collecting salt from wells and mines. Most of the paintings are mountain scenes listed by peaks, and almost all the characters are embellished. Landscape painting began to be independent from figure painting in the Six Dynasties. At that time, Gu Kaizhi, Wang Wei and Zong Bing all painted landscape paintings. Gu Kaizhi wrote Painting Yuntai Mountain, and Zong Bing wrote Painting Landscape Preface. It is said to be "a good landscape, involving Jason Wu in the west and climbing Heng Yue in the south, because it is connected to Mount Hengshan." And "when traveling, everything is on the wall." It is a pity that his paintings have been lost. In the Sui Dynasty, You Chuntu by Zhan Ziqian was the oldest landscape painting preserved so far. By the Tang Dynasty, landscape painting was mature, not only completely independent, but also developed into an important painting discipline. At that time, the famous landscape painters were Wu Daozi, Li Sixun, Wang Wei and Zhang Yun.

Flower-and-bird painting only developed into an independent painting discipline in the Tang Dynasty. In the late Tang Dynasty, flower-and-bird painting became more prosperous, and famous painters included Bian Luan and Diao Guangyin.

Landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting can become an independent subject. There is also a certain class relationship. At that time, most people who painted landscapes, flowers and birds were literati, celebrities and even hermits. The so-called "painting in poetry, poetry in painting" is combined with poetry, which breaks away from the shackles of politics and religion and goes to another realm.

In western painting, at first, landscape painting also appeared as the background of figure painting. Later, in the Netherlands in the17th century, pure landscape paintings appeared, such as Rembrandt, Harmanz van Rien, Mayndet Hobema and jacob van ruisdael. /kloc-the French bourgeois revolution at the end of 0/8 dealt a heavy blow to the feudal system and cleared the way for French capitalism. Since then, the romantic painting school has risen, and many landscape painters have appeared. However, landscape painting really developed into an independent discipline at the beginning of19th century, or exactly around 1830. At that time, the important landscape painters were: joseph marroad william turner in England, Jean Francois Millet in Miller, etc. Impressionism further developed landscape painting, among which claude monet, pissarro, Sisley and others were the main painters. Monet's masterpieces include Venice, Tammy and His Series, Haystacks and the Main Gate of Lu 'an Temple.

The so-called still life painting is to regard the "five" in the painting as a static thing. Still life painting sprouted later than landscape painting. /kloc-At the beginning of the 0/8th century, the word "still life painting" began to appear. The original still life painting was a "dining table" with some food and cups and plates on it, such as Xia Erdan's still life painting. Still life painting became an independent discipline at the beginning of19th century.

Third, both Chinese painting and western painting paid attention to content at first, but later they paid attention to the color of pen and ink on the screen rather than its content. This trend from focusing on content to focusing on form is similar.

As far as Chinese painting is concerned, as I said before, in history, at first, it refers to painting people to serve religion. However, after the rise of landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting, landscape painting or flower-and-bird painting contained certain meanings. For example, an ancient landscape painting often expresses a negative seclusion thought. An ancient flower-and-bird painting is not about painting flowers and birds for the sake of flowers and birds, but contains a kind of meaning, such as painting bamboo to symbolize lofty, painting peony to symbolize wealth and so on. However, in the later development, its symbolic meaning was gradually regarded as secondary, and the interest of pen and ink on the screen and its advantages and disadvantages became important. However, after the national liberation, this situation has gradually changed. Basically, the criteria for evaluating Chinese painting are content first, politics first, while form and pen and ink have relegated to second place.

In western painting, due to the similar situation of China's painting, western painting also paid attention to the content of painting during the religious painting period. However, after entering the19th century, both the "naturalism school" and the "impressionism school" pay attention to depicting the changes of light and color on the screen, and pay attention to appearance presentation, and not only describe landscape paintings and still life paintings in this way, but also draw figure paintings in this way, without paying attention to the contents of the paintings.

As far as content is concerned, there are three differences between Chinese painting and western painting.

First of all, in Chinese painting, landscapes, flowers and birds are often symbolic, and some subjective parts are injected, such as painting plum blossoms, pine trees or chrysanthemums, to symbolize their spirit of fighting in the cold and snow. The landscape paintings painted by ancient people often praise the negative thoughts of seclusion, such as Ma Song Yuan Hua's Fishing Alone in the Cold River and Qian Yuan's Shan Jutu.

However, the landscape painting and still life painting in western painting are not symbolic, and they mainly pursue the beauty of the picture and pay attention to the harmony of light and color, while the content of flowers is in a secondary position.

Secondly, in the choice of Chinese painting theme content, in addition to figures, landscapes, flowers and birds, there are also some miscellaneous things such as flowers and birds, horses, cattle, sheep, and so on, and painters like to be good at painting one of them. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, Han Gan was good at drawing horses and Han Yun was good at drawing cows. Zhang Nanben is good at drawing fire, while Sun Wei is good at drawing water. Wang Yuan cotton is good at painting plums. This happened after the rise of landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting in the late Tang Dynasty.

But in western painting, there is no such thing.

Thirdly, on the screen of Chinese painting, you can write poems to illustrate the theme of the painting, and poetry and painting are combined with each other. There are many such examples. This is not the case in western painting.

Second, the comparison between Chinese painting and western painting in form.

In terms of form, there are many differences between Chinese painting and western painting, but there are too few similarities.

First, in Chinese painting, the characters in figure painting are all dressed and rarely naked, mainly because they show the posture and characteristics of the characters, rather than because they pay attention to the proportion of various parts of the human body and the changes of muscles and shapes during the movement, so there is no need to study "artistic anatomy".

In western painting, the characters in figure painting are naked, so it is necessary to study "artistic anatomy", strictly study the bone proportion of various parts of the human body and the changes of muscle shape during action, and so on.

This is mainly because westerners have different attitudes and concerns about human beauty from China.

Secondly, the scenery in Chinese painting does not pay attention to or depict the light on the object and the change of the color of the object due to the influence of light. In other words, it pays less attention to the shape, but to the magic and character of the scene, that is, it pays attention to thinking. The paintings in flower-and-bird paintings are vivid and the birds are dynamic.

The scenery in western painting pays great attention to the light on the object and the color change of the object caused by the influence of light, which requires simple description and similarity to the real scenery. In other words, it pays attention to shape, and the birds in still life paintings are still and dead.

Third, Chinese painting can get rid of the shackles of perspective. In a painting, its viewpoint is not fixed, it can move freely up and down, back and forth, breaking through the limitation of space.

Western painting attaches importance to "perspective" because it attaches importance to shape, strives for three-dimensional and requires realistic scenery. In a painting, it can only have a fixed viewpoint and can't move at will.

Fourth, Chinese painting attaches great importance to the lines on the screen. When you draw a figure, you should first check the lines and then fill them with colors. The plaid on clothes is called "pleat". There are also methods of painting flowers and birds, such as meticulous flower-and-bird painting. When painting mountains and rivers, the lines of painting mountains are called "Ninghua". These lines all require it to have a writing style. Moreover, this line is not only regarded as a boundary or outline, but also has the function of expressing the feelings of characters or the nature of objects.

In western painting, color is emphasized rather than lines. For example, in an oil painting, the "boundary" between things is generally drawn only by color, and no "line" is drawn within the boundary. /kloc-In the late 20th century, some western painting schools also drew lines, but this line only played the role of sketching. Pencil drawing, charcoal drawing and other sketches, lines drawn on objects in the picture, have the same function.

Fifth, Chinese painting does not attach importance to the background, and there are often many blanks in the picture.

Western painting pays attention to the background, no matter people, scenery or still life painting, it is necessary to draw the background, and the picture is full of color and leaves no blank.

Sixth, Chinese painting has many forms, such as picture books or fans. There is a form of larger painting called scroll painting. In addition to direct painting, scroll painting also has a banner form called "hand scroll", which can be more than ten feet long.

The form of western painting is generally rectangular, and the ratio of the major side to the minor side of the rectangle is about 5: 3, which is called "Huang Jinlv".

Seventh, the tools of Chinese painting are generally brush and Xuan paper. In addition to color, they are also painted with ink, which is ground into black on the inkstone. The tools of western painting are similar to those of Chinese painting except the brushes and colors used in watercolor painting, and the Xuan paper used is also different. When painting an oil painting, you should use oil instead of water to adjust the color, instead of painting on paper, you should paint on cloth. It is significantly different from the tools used in Chinese painting.