| Summary: | 碩士 === 華梵大學 === 東方人文思想研究所 === 91 === Abstract
In the development history of Chinese Humanities art, the brush and ink of the figure painting* has not only its own artistic value, but also its responsibility for the social education. It also expresses the core spiritual meanings of the contemporary. Therefore, it occupies a vital position in the development history of Chinese humanities art. The figure painting has been offering rich and abundant art forms and styles from the primitive age to the ancient empires, as well as through all the historical generations until today. If we can analyze and draw a conclusion of the collection of these artistic styles in an organized method, it will be very helpful to improve the expansion of modern Chinese Art and the development of figure painting. It will also be very valuable and meaningful for the study on the innovation of traditional Chinese ink painting and for artist who are concerning with this topic as well.
The contents of this thesis are divided into six main chapters. The first chapter, Introduction, contains three main sections: The first section of this chapter describes the motive I choose this topic. This section approximately states the goal, methods, composition, and the result of my research. The section explains the fountain-head of the motive of why I choose the research of Chinese traditional figure painting tools, the painting brush and the unique ink that are typically used in Chinese ink painting,** It is aimed at understanding the origin of the traditional Chinese artistic styles and the possible advancement of the usage of “the Brush and the Ink.”
* In traditional Chinese artistic forms, there were very less art works presented as drawings but paintings, therefore, I decided to use “figure painting” instead “figure drawing” when I mention about the Chinese figure pictures.
** The tools that are used in traditional Chinese ink painting need particular names to designate. Unfortunately, there are no such explicit names for indicate the special paintbrush and ink for Chinese ink painting and calligraphy. I will use “the Brush and the Ink” to indicate these two typical tools in the article.
The second section titled “The Brush and the Ink Are the Two Unique Regulations in Chinese Traditional Artistic Elements to Present Figure Painting” illustrates the importance of the research on the Brush and the Ink for traditional Chinese ink painting. The development history of Chinese culture shows the above-mentioned fact. When we discuss the origin, the process of development history, and the argumentation of Chinese ink figure painting, we may find that there are some special rules to follow up. My research investigates and induces the importance of “the Brush” and “the Ink” in which Chinese ink figure painting based on these rules will be interpreted in this section.
The third section named “Theories and Practice Generalize the Emotional Usage of the Brush and the Ink to Express Chinese Figure Painting” integrate the theories and practices that bring the self-examination for further expansion of Chinese ink painting. The affection that comes from the self-examination, however, returns to the threshold of the basic “traditional performing styles.” The modern Chinese ink figure painting, combined with the western artistic skills, such as sketch and perspective, makes it become a “modern performing style” that matches with the modern era and carry on the fine culture.
The second chapter, “The Meanings and the Scopes of the Brush and the Ink in Chinese Humanities Art,” depends upon the summaries of the methods of using the Brush and the Ink and the formation of the Brush and the Ink to analyze and investigate. I divide the Chinese ink figure painting into eight categories and state each of the eight categories in details. Through discussing the position of figure painting in the traditional Chinese ink painting and the lines’ usage that influences the Chinese ink figure painting, I found that “the Brush and the Ink” are the best considerable directions to make a research on the Chinese traditional esthetics.
The third chapter, “The Beginning of the Brush and the Ink Usage in the Traditional Chinese Figure Paintings,” tries to discover the original usage of the Brush and the Ink, and states its development and function by using proves obtained from history. I intend to persuade people how to comprehend the source of the traditional Brush and the Ink in order to make the theory of Chinese ink figure painting become more complete. I specially narrated about the Dunhuang frescoes in this chapter because of the it leaves us abundant information for the study of figure painting, and brings us very effective edification in Chinese ink figure painting. The characteristics of the Dunhuang frescoes are personification, transformation and exaggeration, and high imagination. These characteristics are exactly performed in the religion art works.
The fourth chapter, “Analyzing and Organizing the Theory of Brush and the Ink Usage in the Traditional Chinese Figure Painting,” illustrates the identical styles in the methods of using the lines in Chinese ink painting and of making use of the strokes in the Chinese calligraphy, such as eight basic strokes of the word “Yong (永)”, nine ways to terminate the stroke and complete a word, thus to prove the theory that Chinese ink painting and calligraphy come from the same root.
The predecessors all emphasized the importance of studies and moral qualities for an artist who wants to create art works in order to create a balanced, noble, and graceful artwork, that express moral integrity and secluded emotion or lofty quality. “The treatise of the most important six elements in creating Chinese ink painting,” was brought up by He Xie, who was used to be a very effective foundation and who sat a good example for later artists to follow up. He organized the six main requirements of Chinese ink painting, and analyzed these elements in an apple order to explain the reason why the first requirement of creating an artwork is “aroma and liveliness.” Following that is to demand “representing the subject similarly.” Next, another four requirements of creating an art work are: “correctly using the Brush,” “coloring the subject by its own characteristic,” “composing the picture,” and “studying from the pre-created pieces that display the same subject.” This chapter summarizes the usage of the Brush and the Ink in Chinese ink figure painting by “eighteen line forms” and compares several different artists from their artistic styles, such as Kai-Zhi Gu’s “silk from the silkworms in spring,” Zhong-Da Cao’s “Cao’s clothes coming out from the water,” Dao-Zi Wu’s “Wu’s belt waving in the wind,” “The lord of outline drawing” Gong-Lin Li, “The masters of splash-ink painting” Ke Shi, Kai Liang, and Xi Mu.
The fifth chapter, “The Further Expansion of Modern Chinese Figure Painting,” is the most important and emphatic part of the thesis. This chapter marshals the theories of traditional Chinese ink figure painting and discusses my research of the further expansion possibility of modern Chinese ink figure painting. I attempt to replenish the blank space of the expanding history of Chinese ink figure painting after the Qing Dynasty according to the result of my research. This chapter discusses the expansion and directions of Chinese ink figure painting since late Qing Dynasty and early period of the Republic of China to “The Chinese Renaissance,” which affected the modern Chinese art about thirty years, and then explains why the two main expanding directions of Chinese artistic styles happened because of the civil war of China in 1949. One of these two main artistic styles is “Realism,” which occurred based on the political needs of Communism. It relied on the traditional Chinese artistic theories and established a new Chinese artistic feature. Mainland China’s “Culture Revolution” had spoilt the art and culture of China for ten years. Chinese government advocates to be open and reformative during the recent years. This big change has caused more and more different genres appearing day by day.
One of the two artistic styles is the “complex artistic style” which was combined with both traditional Chinese artistic style and Japanese artistic style. After the government of the Republic of China regained its right to govern Taiwan and ended the Japanese ruling period in Taiwan, the artists who originally came from China with the government brought rich resources of traditional Chinese artistic skills. These resources gave new substance to Taiwanese artists and made them continue to develop the traditional Chinese artistic theories. Since senior artists’ efforts continually advocate traditional Chinese art and lead the young artists to discover and create new artistic ideas, Taiwanese artistic styles possess a free, luxuriant, and diversified distinctive feature.
The sixth chapter, “The Conclusion,” synthesizes all the theories presented in the previous chapters above, ascertains that the usage of the Brush and the Ink is the center point of Chinese ink figure painting, all the performance and expansion of Chinese ink figure painting will never go without these two main elements. “Chinese ink painting and calligraphy comes from the same root,” Chinese ink painting and calligraphy are both depending on the same character: moral integrity; He Xie’s Theory: “The treatise of the most important six elements in creating Chinese ink painting” gives us an ideal frame of reference of modern Chinese ink painting. We can obtain a lot of new ideas based on these predecessors’ theories and give the Chinese ink figure painting a new future by making good use of these resources.
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