(East-West Question) Ye Wu: Why does Chinese watercolor painting reflect the fusion of Eastern and Western art?
China News Agency, Tianjin, May 6th: Why does Chinese watercolor painting reflect the fusion of Eastern and Western art?
——Interview with Ye Wu, Associate Professor of School of Architecture, Tianjin University
Author Yang Ziyang Sun Lingling
From the beginning of the 20th century to the present, the modern "Chinese watercolor" has undergone tremendous changes in innovation after a century of evolution.
How to use watercolor painting as an exotic product in China's "Western learning"?
Why is watercolor painting incorporating "ink and wash elements" an innovative development in China?
Why does Chinese watercolor painting reflect the fusion of Eastern and Western art?
Ye Wu, an associate professor at the School of Architecture of Tianjin University and a general teacher of the school's "watercolor painting" course, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Dongxiwen" to discuss the above-mentioned issues.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Agency reporter: What is watercolor painting?
Ye Wu:
Watercolor painting is the art of painting that uses water as a medium to reconcile colors. It is the third largest type of painting that is different from oil painting and Chinese painting.
Watercolor art originated in Europe, but it really developed into an independent painting in England in the 18th century, which is called "modern watercolor".
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, under the influence of "Western learning to the east", Western modern watercolor was introduced into China.
In the early years of the Republic of China, under the active advocacy and promotion of the famous educator Cai Yuanpei, school education was introduced into the Western teaching system.
As an important means of basic art teaching, watercolor has been gradually promoted.
Today, the centuries-old watercolor paintings transplanted in the land of China, through the continuous pursuit and creation of Chinese painters, have gradually integrated traditional Chinese aesthetics, local culture and the artistic conception of ink painting, forming a unique Chinese watercolor painting appearance that integrates Chinese and Western styles.
China News Agency reporter: How is watercolor painting as an imported product "used in Western learning" in China?
Ye Wu:
The water-based pigments used in watercolor painting have a natural connection with the ink and wash expression of Chinese painting. Therefore, watercolor painting has become a foreign art painting that is easily accepted by Chinese painters.
Western watercolor painting and ink painting have many similarities in spiritual connotation and formal extension.
Chinese watercolor painters integrate traditional national culture, philosophical concepts and creative techniques into the creation of light, color and space in Western watercolors, and constantly explore new modes of watercolor creation.
He integrates oriental ink and wash freehand brushwork into the creation of watercolor painting, expresses contemporary watercolor painting with oriental philosophy in an eclectic and integrated way of thinking, and realizes the "Western learning and Chinese application" of watercolor painting.
China News Agency reporter: What are the similarities and differences between Chinese watercolor and Western watercolor techniques?
Ye Wu:
Let’s talk about Western watercolor first, taking the world-renowned British watercolor in the 18th century as an example.
The artistic effect of Western watercolors is often more rational than sensibility. Standard stylized painting methods are often used, and sometimes extremely complex color filling is performed after the precise pencil outline drafting stage.
Western watercolors particularly emphasize the time, light and shadow and sense of space of the objects expressed, and the watercolor works are even more exquisite.
Western watercolor painting has many similarities with traditional Chinese painting in the use of water colors and tools, and also has many internal connections in expression techniques - traditional Chinese painting is extremely rich in water, color, brush, ink and other skills.
In terms of color function, watercolor painting is also similar to color ink Chinese painting. Painting with water and color ink has long existed in traditional Chinese painting.
Looking at the history of Chinese painting, during the Neolithic Age 5,000 years ago, the "Stork with Fish and Axe" unearthed in Linru, Henan and the painted pottery vase painting with dancing patterns in Datong County, Qinghai, both have the nature of a watercolor painting.
Chinese paintings focus on real feelings, while Western paintings often focus on objective realism.
It can be seen in many contemporary watercolor works that Chinese painting emphasizes the coexistence of reality and virtuality, which is also a common technique for painting composition.
Embodying the subject with clearly visible things, and then using vague illusory things to set off the subject, can make the whole painting have a mysterious aesthetic sense of imagination.
Chinese painters also often apply the traditional Chinese ink painting technique of "white space" to Chinese watercolor paintings.
"Blank" is a unique expression technique with very good artistic effect.
The technique of Chinese watercolor painting is influenced by traditional Chinese ink painting. It pays attention to the realm where the brush is first and the brush is not reached. The brush is rigorous and highly refined, and the painting style is clumsy.
He pays the most attention to the freshness of the depicted objects and the emotion and meaning of the works of art, and constantly pursues the pinnacle of Chinese watercolor painting.
China News Agency reporter: What are the national characteristics of Chinese watercolor paintings of "Western learning and Chinese use"?
Ye Wu:
National characteristics are the unique and common fundamental characteristics of a nation, which are of the times.
The Chinese watercolor painting of "Western learning and Chinese use" will naturally form a common watercolor painting artistic language in history.
Artistic creation must be rooted in the soil of national life and deeply express the thoughts and feelings of the nation. No matter what artistic form is adopted, it will not be divorced from the spirit of the nation.
Chinese ink painting has the style of national culture, as well as the integration of Lao Zhuang and Zen ideology, landscape artistic conception and theory.
With the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures, the development of Chinese and Western integration in the field of painting art is essential.
Therefore, the Chinese watercolor painting of "Western learning and Chinese use" has the spiritual connotation of Chinese ink painting. It integrates traditional elements such as charm, artistic conception, shape, and layout in Chinese painting. It also integrates oriental ink painting into the creation of watercolor painting. The way of thinking shows the national characteristics with oriental rhyme.
China News Service reporter: Why is the oriental rhyme a unique aesthetic concept of Chinese watercolor painting?
Ye Wu:
Art starts from the emotions and thoughts that have been experienced and aroused in the heart, and gives a certain image expression.
Influenced by cultural traditions, Chinese watercolor art has a unique oriental rhythm. The formation of this aesthetic concept has its origins.
Chinese people often express "psychological harmony" through paintings to shape ideal social personality and realize spiritual communication with nature; Westerners often use paintings to achieve "form harmony" with the objective world, reflecting their profound attainments and styles.
This difference just highlights the rhythm of ink and wash in Chinese watercolor painting. This aesthetic form is more acceptable to the public and has long-term vitality.
The art of various ethnic groups communicates and influences each other. The unique aesthetic art form of Chinese watercolor art shows the perception of national culture and the deep feeling of real life.
China News Agency reporter: Why do you say that Chinese watercolors reflect the fusion of Eastern and Western art?
Ye Wu:
Eastern and Western art has always absorbed and learned from each other.
Some major Western painters value Chinese culture very much. They lament the decline of traditional Western art that seeks realism, and at the same time admire the vitality of Eastern art.
For example, in the works of Picasso, the founder of modern art and Spanish painter, many artistic expressions focus on spiritual expression and the creation of artistic conception, which are integrated with Chinese philosophy, literature, and painting.
Chinese watercolor painting, which also originated from Western art, has also developed in parallel with the development of the nation, forming an art form with the characteristics of the Chinese era, but it is no longer surnamed "West", but "East".
It can be seen that Chinese watercolor painting is rooted in the soil of modern social life where the nation is changing, and it has the national characteristics of the fusion of "Western learning to the east" and "East learning to the West".
China News Agency reporter: Why do you say that watercolor incorporating "ink and wash elements" is an innovative development in China?
Ye Wu:
"Chinese watercolor" in the modern sense has gone through more than a hundred years.
The reason why watercolor painting rooted in Western culture can be popular and developed in China is inseparable from its absorption and reference to traditional Chinese philosophy and culture.
"Chinese watercolor" is the product of the fusion of Chinese and Western painting arts. "Western learning to the east" is a process, not a boundary marker. The process is synchronized with the development of Chinese society, reform and opening up.
The profound national traditional culture is the foundation of Chinese watercolor art. It injects the traditional national cultural characteristics and aesthetic taste into Chinese watercolors to form innovation.
The growth of Chinese watercolor painting is the history of organic integration of Chinese and Western painting concepts, and also the history of the gradual development of exotic culture into a new local culture.
Chinese watercolor art integrates traditional elements such as charm and artistic conception in Chinese painting in thought, and incorporates the "ink and wash elements" of Chinese painting in painting techniques, which reflects the national spirit through these two aspects.
At the same time, some Chinese watercolor works obviously draw on folk shadow play and paper-cut styles.
The tireless efforts of generations of watercolor painters contributed to the modern national style.
It is with this style that Chinese watercolor painting stands in the forest of watercolor art in the world with its continuous innovation.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Ye Wu is an associate professor and postgraduate tutor at the School of Architecture, Tianjin University.
Distinguished expert of the Education Supervision Committee of the State Council, national postgraduate education evaluation and monitoring expert.
Member of Architectural Society of China, member of China Industrial Design Association.
Judge of the first National College Student Advertising Design Competition, and judge of the China Division of the 2020 "Dyson" Global Design Awards.
Judges of the 2021 "Star Cup" National Art Competition.
Presided over or participated in a number of national, provincial and ministerial scientific research projects including art, published more than 30 papers such as "Landscape Views of Song Dynasty literati from the similarities and differences between "Shanshui Jue" and "Linquan Gaozhi", and edited and published "Architectural Landscape" He has written more than 10 monographs such as Watercolor Expression Techniques, Color Composition, and Architectural Pen Drawings, as well as more than 10 textbooks for colleges and universities, which have been designated as textbooks by the Architectural Professional Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education.
Professor Ye Wu has been engaged in scientific research and teaching all the year round. He is in charge of the School of Architecture of Tianjin University and the watercolor courses of the whole school. The watercolor works have a unique charm of coexisting with rational thinking and humanistic feelings.
The use of brush and color is stretched and smooth, elegant in the atmosphere, and elegant in the heart, reflecting the excellent aesthetic meaning and the beauty of watercolor that integrates China and the West.