Subjectivity and Semi-abstract Features in the Traditional Chinese Painting
Vol.1,No.2(2010)
Chinese art is often characterised by its subjectivity, the freedom in the brushwork, rather than descriptive realism. There are some specifics in the history of Chinese painting, which made it be very different from Western tradition. Lack of western one angle perspective, lack of shading, stress to the brush strokes, caused the misunderstanding between Western and Eastern art in history, but subjectivity of Chinese ink painting became a strong inspiration to Western abstract artists. Chinese painting in its history came times to times very close to abstraction.
In China, artists started very soon use their brush to express their own deepest feeling rather than to capture reality. Painting was much more self-expression of the artist than the formal likeness. In the article, I pay my intention especially to some styles in Chinese painting, for example, to xieyi, which means exactly “writing ideas”, I involve to semi-abstract tendencies in the history of Chinese ink painting, some authors, who are interesting from the point of view subjectivity.
There are authors almost leaving the position of objective representation in the painting, even proud to be independent from objective reality, to non-likeness of their works, authors, creating semi-abstract paintings, using rough strokes of brush to create their inner world, escaping from the reality. My article presents those tendencies in traditional Chinese painting in the history of Chinese art. I do not try to deny the strong realistic tradition in the Chinese painting; I only present the strong position of subjectivity in the history of Chinese ink painting, in the literati-painters, zen Buddhists painters or other non-orthodox spirits in China. We can find the opinions preferring subjectivity to formal likeness even in the eldest philosophic and art theories in China, stressing shensi 神似 to xingsi 形似.sinology; Chinese art; Chinese painting; subjektivity
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