Comparison of Chinese and foreign arts (drama, film and television, dance)

Comparison between vivid and scientific Chinese and foreign artistic aesthetics

one

There is a passage in the notes of The Year of the Prince: "I am a brave China man, and I am good at painting. The first year of the first emperor offered it. When the painter washes the floor, it becomes the image of enchanting and strange things. Draw the ground with your fingers, which is 100 feet long and as straight as rope ink. Within one square inch, draw a picture of four blasphemies and five mountains, as well as pictures of various countries. It is also painted as a dragon and a phoenix. If you fly, you can't be accurate and you can't fly away. " Judging from this story, as early as the first year of the first emperor, Chinese and western art began to communicate. Of course, the western region at that time still referred to the western regions. It's a pity that Tales is a wonderful book, which can't be mentioned in the same breath as history books. However, judging from the momentum of Qin Shihuang's annexation of six countries and unification of China, it is not too far off the mark to infer that foreign craftsmen came to perform sacrifices at that time. At that time, the painting technology was very strong, and probably some craftsmen were still stunted. Perhaps the painter in this story is an example. From today's perspective, he should be a great avant-garde meticulous painter, but this "finishing touch" is really a myth. However, it is this "trick" that has far-reaching influence. In written records, there is at least the Western Jin Health Club, and the characters who painted seven buddha dare not make the finishing point; Gu Kaizhi in Eastern Jin Dynasty; Every painter hasn't touched his eyes for years. Once, he painted a statue of Vimala in the crock temple, and raised millions of dollars for the temple through the finishing touch performance. The story of Zhang Sengyou's finishing touch and breaking the wall is still used as an idiom.

After the Eastern Han Dynasty, Buddhism was introduced into China, and Buddhist art had a greater influence on China art. Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and other historical sites have left a historical witness. Judging from the artistic characteristics of Gandalf, it can be said that positive western art was indirectly introduced. Of course, the direct introduction was after the Ming and Qing Dynasties. So, first of all, China added a new kind of painting. Secondly, it has a profound influence on Chinese painting itself, and the practice of masters such as Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian is a good example.

The influence of China's art on western modern art is also remarkable. China's handicrafts were brought to the west through the Silk Road, but more directly, China's art spread to Japan in the Tang Dynasty. Japanese art is of special significance to the emergence of modern western art, and many post-impressionists have been influenced by Japanese painting. In MANET's Zola portrait. Japanese ukiyo-e prints have appeared in the background of Van Gogh's "Dad Dongji" and "Self-portrait with a bandage on one ear", and Van Gogh has carefully copied Japanese prints with oil paintings. In Gauguin's Still Life and Japanese Prints, Japanese Prints have directly entered the theme. Cezanne once called Gauguin "the producer of Chinese characters" out of portal prejudice. (9) Herbert Reid pointed out that one is Japanese, and the other is British when he pursued the origin of modern art in Vision and Techniques. When discussing the influence of Japan, he said: "Many impressionist painters are obviously influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, but only in the works of Van Gogh and Gauguin can the full influence of this art be clearly seen. Both painters tried to create similar art forms with the language of oil painting. Indeed, a painter like Whistler once imitated the structure and composition characteristics of Japanese prints, but he added impressionist colors to this system. As you can imagine, it was painted with the help of China, but it did not break away from the style of Monet or Degas in essence. " (10) At the end of this century, as we all know, western modern art has impacted the art world in China in turn. It is conceivable that there will be more extensive exchanges in the future, which will have a deeper impact on each other.

second

Cezanne once called Gauguin "the producer of Chinese characters" contemptuously, which was based on his rejection of decorative factors. Of course, fundamentally speaking, we are ignorant of China's art, and it is impossible to verify whether Cezanne has seen the original Chinese painting. However, after seeing Chinese paintings, some missionaries in China always feel that the characters are thin and there seems to be no body in their clothes. It is true that the emergence of a foreign culture, its connotation is really difficult to be understood at once. When western oil paintings were first introduced to China, people in China once despised this "artisan spirit" work and laughed at their lack of pen and ink. Of course, most of them were propaganda materials brought by missionaries at that time. However, even if you see the master's works, you may not be able to increase your respect because of the differences in ideas. Lin Shu's attitude towards western painting in the late Qing Dynasty is objective. He once talked about western painting in "On Painting in Chunjue Zhai" and praised his realistic kung fu: "The husband's portrait is the best, and there is no western painting." "This painting is very far and very close. Others paint the trees towering into the sky, while the trees outside the trees are like beans. Even the distant mountains are not more than an inch. Peeping with a telephoto lens is like forcing Xiao. " But he still thinks: "it's similar to the ear, but it's meaningless for the audience to look at the photos."

After the Opium War, the exchanges between China and the West became more frequent, mutual understanding deepened, and mutual exclusion still existed. For example, after traveling in Europe, Kang Youwei once praised Greek and Roman art, in which he mentioned the significance of accurately describing the human body structure in his works, and thought that the tendons were invisible and exquisite. Later, Westerners came to China to study Chinese painting. However, as the creation of the times, westerners did not give China art the same status, and as a commodity circulation, West Renye Fang did not put China art at the same height. Of course, this is subject to economic strength, politics and so on. However, the differences between different cultural systems are also an important factor. For example, westerners, after all, can't appreciate the charm of China's traditional techniques, especially the paper, pen and ink in Chinese painting, and even care about these materials themselves, thinking that they are just a few strokes on paper and can be achieved in an instant. In fact, they are just a watercolor of western painting. And oil painting is oil painting pigment, outer frame and inner frame, with complex technology, difficult production and long preservation time. Of course, the price is not the same as a piece of paper. On the other hand, in China, although western painting has had some beneficial effects on Chinese painting, after more than half a century's practice, people have a new understanding of this journey, and some Chinese painting majors in art colleges have begun to sketch in the way of western painting, which is a rational response.

"three"

In fact, discussing western art from China's point of view is not necessarily without the same language. Socrates attached great importance to carving the "mental state" and "spiritual characteristics" of the object through his eyes. His dialogue with the painter Barathers demonstrates that people often look at others with the eyes of friends or enemies, and painting can "draw this kind of eyes in their eyes". Moreover, "nobility and generosity, meanness and meanness, modesty and intelligence, pride and stupidity must also be shown in expression and posture", so "beauty, goodness and loveliness" and "ugliness, evil and abomination" can all be described. (1 1) Leonardo also emphasized "mental state", "ideological intention" and "inner intention", but he paid more attention to expressing it through actions. He said: "The most important problem in painting is that every character's actions should show his psychological state, such as desire, ridicule, anger and pity." . He also said, "In painting, the actions of characters should show their inner intentions in various situations." . (12) The essence of these discourses is "vivid", especially the former, which is almost "vivid". Moreover, if the above communication is the god of the object, it can be said that Gauguin, Van Gogh and later expressionism are the gods of the author, and they are very vivid and intense.

In addition, some concrete examples can be cited in theory and practice. For example, in ancient China, there was a saying that "poetry is an invisible painting and painting is a silent poem", and ancient Greek philosophers also put forward the same proposition. They say: "Painting is dumb poetry, and poetry is talking painting". For another example, in ancient China, there was a saying that "a grass comes out of water" and "Wu Dai is in the wind". In ancient Greek works, the relief of Ludwig's throne "The Birth of Azeroth", the depiction of wet close-fitting clothes and the sculpture of "Nikai, the goddess of victory" fluttering in the wind are just the footnotes of these two sentences. Wang Wei's "Yuan An Sleeping in the Snow" painted a banana in the snow, which was criticized by people, but Shen Kuo defended it, saying that "the truth is lost and it is difficult to talk with the layman." He also believes that "the beauty of calligraphy and painting should be based on God, but hard to find in form" (Meng Qian Bi Tan). This kind of artistic treatment is more common in western art, and even works with strong realism can give many examples. According to the analysis of relevant sports experts, the discus throwers in Miron, ancient Greece, the athletes' hands and feet posture is bound to fall when throwing. There is no doubt that the ancient Greek sculptor, who has a skill that is difficult to reach so far, is not unable to carve this movement well, on the contrary, it is precisely to obey an ideal pursuit. Angel's Maid-in-waiting is considered to have a long spine, which is not the academic master's mistake, but his intentional arrangement of obeying the picture composition. Goethe's exposition of a landscape painting by the Dutch painter Lü bons is closer. In this painting, the contradiction between the projection of trees and the light source violates the laws of nature. Goethe said: "It is in this way that Lubbers proved his greatness, and announced that he stood in a position higher than nature in the spirit of freedom and treated nature according to his higher purpose. ... he showed the world in this genius way: art does not completely obey the inevitable principles of nature, but it has its laws. " (13) Obviously, this is also an argument of "infatuation with reason". It can be seen that "the creator of Olympism" is not "rare" in Chinese and western painting circles. It is precisely because of this "reason" that art can become a spiritual wealth that transcends east, west, north and south.

four

At this point, the words should be said back. It seems that the ultimate goal of Chinese and western art is the same. However, due to the different connotations of national spirit, different tools and materials, each has its own characteristics. It is difficult to generalize which is long and which is short, and it is a scientific attitude to learn from each other. With the extensive and in-depth cultural exchanges between China and the West, people will learn more about the essence of their own national art through comparison and develop their own art in the process of new experience and elaboration.

Previously, their differences can be traced back to Zhuangzi and Pythagoras. In fact, their initial emphasis also has some similarities. Ancient Greece is very similar to China in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and perhaps the development process of human thinking is sometimes similar. The Pythagorean school thinks that the highest principle that governs everything is number, "the whole celestial body is a kind of harmony, a kind of number" and "beauty is harmony and proportion" (14). Firstly, the rhythm and harmony of music are explained from the perspective of numbers. For example, the length of pronunciation and the speed of vibration determine the length and height of sound, thus producing various tones. In addition, different numbers have different intervals and so on. This is also the origin of the theory of "seeking common ground in change" in aesthetics. Here, it treats art with an analytical eye and "cuts" art, thus "cutting" the tone of hearing and the "golden ratio" of vision ... "integrating neatness with change" and focusing on "change". In the theory of Laozi and Zhuangzi, the law of all things in the universe is "Tao", which has eternal and absolute ontological significance. Laozi explains the evolution of all things and puts forward that "Tao gives birth to one, two, three and all things"; Everything in the world is born, and everything is born without it. In a sense, this is also a "number", but compared with Bi's "number", the former is a real number and the latter is an imaginary number. Perhaps the most fundamental identity and difference is here.

Our ancestors, from the beginning, established an organic holistic and unified concern and used it to explain nature and people. But we focus on the whole, and the side is "combination", so the prominent figure is "one". "One", "Too One", "One Yuan" and later "The Unity of Heaven and Man" ... "One person is also the foundation of all things, and the invincible way is also" (Huai Nan Zi). Interpretation of the word), "One life, two instruments, two instruments give birth to Yin and Yang" (Lv Chunqiu. Da Le). The first one here refers to the chaotic qi originating from Tao, and there are two interdependent opposites of Yin and Yang in chaos. Dong Zhongshu emphasized the "harmony between man and nature" (the story of Spring and Autumn Annals). A deep examination of the name), and thus put forward the theory of "harmony between man and nature"; Zhu also said: "Heaven and man are one, and the inside and outside are one; There is no interval between cycle and realization "(Genre). Here, both man and nature run regularly in a chaotic whole. "Little Sunday" and "Big Sunday" are unified and can be induced by each other. There is no god, no discipline, no god who rules everything. Even if everything is born by Tao, it should be "natural" and let everything develop naturally. This chaotic concept led to a series of chaotic words in China's artistic aesthetics: "God, Qi, Rhyme, Bone, Meaning, God, Nature, Emotion, Reason, Escape, Wonderful, Interesting, Taste ……", just one word, so simple, but so appropriate. This is the most refined summary of different ideal realms of artistic beauty and the pursuit of China's artistic form.

People and things are also chaotic. In biblical mythology, when God made the first woman, he used anatomical surgery-he took a rib from Adam, made Eve, and practiced "cutting" here. And high technology, of course. China's theory of creating human beings is: "Nu Wa is a human being. When the audience is sitting, they can't cope with the supply, so they hold the rope in the mud and lead it to be a person ("Tailan" volume 78 quoted "Custom Pass"), which is also "kneading".

Perhaps Chinese medicine can better embody this dialectical unity concept. Different from western medicine in understanding people through anatomy, Chinese medicine explains the material existence and internal movement of human body through qi, essence, bone, blood, yin and yang and five elements, and explains the organic connection of human body through meridians. In addition, when observing people's health, people are always linked with nature, and people's mental factors are linked with physical health factors. "Huangdi Neijing. The Theory of Yin-Yang Correspondence says: "There are four seasons and five elements in the sky, namely, birth, growth, harvest and hiding, cold, urgency, dryness, dampness and wind. People have five internal organs and five qi to produce joy, anger, sorrow, worry and fear. Therefore, anger hurts qi, cold hurts shape, anger hurts yin, and violent joy hurts yang. " In traditional Chinese medicine, Yin and Yang are used to explain the system and its function respectively, and the name of an organ is essentially a symbol of a system. Therefore, the so-called "anger leads to liver injury, happiness leads to sadness, thinking leads to spleen injury, and worry leads to lung injury" and so on, actually refers to the influence of these psychological factors on the overall physiological function. These experiences have been paid more and more attention by modern medicine. Interestingly, the Pythagorean school has a similar view. They think that "a healthy body is due to the balance of cold, heat, humidity and dryness in the body" (15). Zhu Guangqian talked more specifically in the History of Western Art: "They put forward two mysterious views, one is that the' small universe' (people) is similar to the' big universe' (similar to the' small Sunday' view of China Taoism) People have internal harmony, and when they meet external harmony, they will' speak with one voice', so they are willing to fit in. Therefore, people can love beauty and appreciate art. Another view is that harmony within the human body can be influenced by external harmony. They applied this concept to medicine and reached a conclusion similar to China's theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements in medicine. Not only physically, psychologically, but also the internal harmony will be influenced by the external harmony ... ". However, they didn't take this road. In the long journey of exploring nature, China and the West sometimes stand on the same starting line, but just step away and go their separate ways. Westerners are very emotional to analyze and dissect each part, while China people are very emotional to understand and ponder the chaotic whole. Therefore, people in China can know what's wrong by looking at their tongue according to their pulse. Headache may not cure their head, and foot pain may not cure their feet. Acupuncture has the so-called "looking for reflux on the head". Yongquan point under the foot plate is actually related to the treatment of rhinitis, and the whole body can be found in the ear. ...

Extending to things is the theory of "leapfrog cattle" and "predecessors are like horses", especially the artifact of "making something out of nothing". Chapter 11 of Laozi is a typical exposition: "Thirty spokes * * * a wheel hub can be used as a car when nothing happens. Think of it as a device. When it is not there, it is useful. Carve the family into a room, and when it has nothing, it has a room. Therefore, there are advantages and disadvantages. " That is to say, with the hollowing out in the middle of the hub, there will be the role of the car, and with the hollowing out in the middle of the vessel, there will be the role of the vessel; With the gaps in the walls of doors and windows, the function of the house can be achieved. Being and not being are the unity of dialectics. Moreover, it is "nothing" that determines the role of "being". Therefore, from a physical point of view, there is Gu Kaizhi's light "four bodies" and heavy "blocking"; It has the characteristics of Chinese painting, mainly composed of the self-change and mutual combination of lines; Chinese painting has the procedures of hook, hook, dot and dyeing; There are different types of landscape trees and stones on the boundaries and points; There is a problem of "black is white" in ink and whole picture processing. At the same time, there are China opera programs, which are virtual ... So, China people regard "painting" as "writing" paintings, sketching, taking pictures, freehand brushwork, writing their hearts, and writing their minds in one go; China people say "acting" means "singing" and "watching" means "listening", which sounds like a song and is lyrical. They are a self-sufficient world in themselves. They mainly don't want to explain what the object is, but to explain what "I" is through the object. Therefore, China people believe in an old truth: "The metaphysical is the Tao, while the metaphysical is the device" (Yi. On the copula ").

Finally, if you want to sum up from that "number", it is that they are real numbers and we are imaginary numbers; They are exact mathematics, and we are paste mathematics; They value material things, and we value spirit; They tend to analyze, and we tend to synthesize; They tend to be rational, and we tend to be emotional; They focus on metaphysics, while we focus on metaphysics. Be patient, the method is just the opposite, perhaps because they pay too much attention to the local anatomical analysis of the object when fixing their eyes, so they emphasize the whole. Oil painting is like this, first of all, we should consider the outline, tone and block surface; Drama is like this. First of all, we should consider the whole stage rhythm and environmental atmosphere. As for us, we probably paid too much attention to the unity of the organic whole at the beginning, so we often started directly from the local. In Chinese painting, we draw eyebrows first, and then spread the whole body. In China's operas, the leading role is singing, and the supporting role is standing by without echoing ... The meaning of the word "pen" as a tool in Chinese painting can't be found in English. Only translated as "brush", and "painter" is synonymous with "painter". As a kind of meaning, the word "pen" of "pen and ink" is difficult to find a suitable free translation. Oil painting is "brushed" with a brush, while Chinese painting is "written" with a pen. The former pays attention to the result, while the latter pays attention to the process. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Western painting is much stronger than Chinese painting in expressing the sense of composition and realism of objects. Such as the creation of historical paintings, it is obvious that oil paintings are more convincing. However, if we compare their angels with our flying, the latter is undoubtedly more immortal. Even if those stocky human bodies in western paintings have wings, it is still hard for people to believe that they can fly ... China and the West communicate and influence each other. On the one hand, they learn from others' strengths to make up for their own shortcomings. On the other hand, only by knowing ourselves and ourselves can we do the opposite, foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, and base ourselves on our own characteristics. Perhaps the latter is more important at present.

There are many peaks in world art, one is Chinese and the other is western. A comprehensive grasp of the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese and western art is not only convenient for communication, but more importantly, for climbing-we will be more confident when climbing these peaks; When we look at these peaks, it will be clearer.