How to appreciate Chinese paintings

The so-called appreciation refers to appreciation with certain comments. Appreciation of works of art varies from person to person. People's feelings, understanding and judgment of works of art will be different. Therefore, appreciation of works of art has strong subjective factors and is based on each person's aesthetics, painting accomplishment and literary accomplishment. This results in different judgments on the works. Therefore, even if it is the same work, there will be differences in appreciation due to different viewing angles or different positioning. Appreciation and appreciation are two concepts. Appreciation is the evaluation of the quality, quality, and quality of a work; appreciation is the identification of the authenticity of a work. Appreciating paintings seems simple, but you must also pay attention to the method. The ancients had many standards and methods of appreciation. Although they reflect the aesthetic ideals of ancient connoisseurs and have certain era and aesthetic characteristics, some of them can be used as a reference for our appreciation today. Of course, when we appreciate works today, we still have requirements and standards put forward by the new era.

(1) Traditional evaluation standards

Traditional evaluation standards are constantly developing and changing. After thousands of years of precipitation and accumulation, they have a profound impact on the appreciation of Chinese paintings. It is still used for reference by people today.

Form and Spirit

There are many discussions on form and spirit. Some focus on form; some focus on meaning; and some focus on "both form and spirit". There have always been debates in this area. Never stopped. As a plastic art, Chinese painting must rely on images to reflect life and express the author's subjective emotions. Therefore, the current appreciation of Chinese paintings focuses on "both form and spirit". What is concrete is form, and what is abstract is spirit. We cannot "disgrace form in favor of spirit." We cannot seek meaning without form. Only "form" can "give birth to spirit." You can't just focus on the shape. Then painting figures will seem like clay sculptures and wood carvings, and painting flowers and birds will be like painting animal specimens, with only fur and no vitality. "Shape determines its form, and spirit determines its spirit." Form and spirit are both indispensable.

The Six Methods and Six Methods are the first relatively scientific and systematic guidelines for painting creation and criticism proposed in the history of Chinese painting. They were originally the six standards for evaluating figure paintings, and were later gradually applied to landscape, flower and bird paintings. . Xie He of the Southern Qi Dynasty put forward in his "Ancient Paintings": "What are the six methods? First, the charm is vivid; second, the bone method is the use of brushes; third, the image of the object is the same; fourth, the color is based on the category. ; Fifth, the management position is also; Sixth, transfer and imitation are the same." Xie He listed the vividness of charm as the first of the "Six Methods". During the Northern Song Dynasty, Liu Daochun proposed the "Six Essentials and Six Characteristics" for the tasting standards of the Six Methods, making the tasting standards more concrete - the "Six Essentials" are both spirit and charm; both style and structure; reasonable variation; Paintings are lustrous; come and go naturally; teachers and students are short-lived; the "six qualities" are seeking for rough brushwork; seeking talent for eccentricity; seeking strength for subtlety; seeking reason for madness; seeking dyeing without ink; and seeking longness for plain painting. The proposal of "Six Essentials and Six Characteristics" makes the appreciation standards of Chinese paintings clearer and clearer. It is also a disguised form of the Six Methods. The difference is that it specifically points out their advantages and avoids biased understanding. Zheng Ji of the Qing Dynasty stated in "A Brief Introduction to the Study of Painting in Dream House: On Meaning": "The meaning of the brushstrokes is not other than the rhyme of the character." In terms of the style of their paintings, they use the presence or absence of the rhyme as the criterion for evaluation. Xie He's theory of six methods has been highly praised by painters and critics of all ages. For more than a thousand years, there have been many commentators, and it has had a great influence on the theory of Chinese painting, the creation, development and appreciation of Chinese painting.

Freeze

In terms of the freeze-frame of painting, "Ancient Paintings" written by Xie He of the Southern Qi Dynasty was the first monograph on painting criticism. He used the "Six Methods" criterion to describe the period from the Three Kingdoms to the Liang Dynasty. The art of the twenty-seven painters is divided into six categories.

By the Tang Dynasty, not only the number of products had changed, but also the product names had been superimposed. Zhu Jingxuan first proposed the four categories of "Shen, Miao, Neng and Yi", and listed "Shen, Miao, Neng" as the first, second and third grades, and placed the Yi grade last. Zhang Yanyuan proposed "five grades". When he talked about "painting style", he established five grades: natural, divine, wonderful, exquisite and careful. He believed that natural paintings should be ranked first and careful paintings should be ranked first. The end waits. He believes that nature is a natural expression, without artificial breath or ax chisel marks. I painted everything carefully, which is a poor quality painting. "Four frames and five grades" were the new standards for evaluating paintings established by the people of the Tang Dynasty.

" Marked Lu Tanwei's paintings as top-grade. He thought that Gu Kaizhi's paintings " have delicate physiques and impeccable brushstrokes, but the traces are not as expected and the sound is exaggerated. " is listed as a lower grade. In the "Records of Continued Paintings", Yao Zui of the Southern Qi Dynasty thought it was inappropriate for Xie He to list painters like Gu Kaizhi as a lower grade. He said: "As beautiful as Changkang (Gu Kaizhi), He is good at pursuing high strategies, he is unparalleled in his approach, and he is unparalleled from beginning to end. If there are gods, it is beyond the reach of mediocre knowledge; if they are like the sun and the moon, how can they be glimpsed by learning? "Li Sizhen of the Tang Dynasty also disagreed with Xie He's evaluation of Gu Kaizhi, saying that "Xie's evaluation is very inappropriate." He believed that Gu Kaizhi was "an outstanding genius, independent and uncoupled... He was listed as a low-ranking man, especially uneasy. Today, Gu Kaizhi , Lu please live together with top quality." These painters' evaluations of Gu Kaizhi are all appropriate, but their evaluation angles are different, and they give different conclusions to Gu Kaizhi's paintings. "No gold is pure, and no one is perfect." There is no omnipotent master, nor is there a painter who is impeccable in all aspects. Maybe he is perfect in this aspect, but maybe he is deficient in another aspect. Therefore, when evaluating a painter, you cannot judge it because of one. The shortcomings negate everything he has to offer. Only by criticizing from different angles can we have a correct and comprehensive understanding of a painter and other arts.

(5) Different painting accomplishments and knowledge will affect the work. There are also differences in the appreciation of Chinese paintings

When appreciating Chinese paintings, one does not have any cultivation or knowledge in painting. What one sees is only the appearance of the work, such as what is painted, does it look similar, etc. , have no in-depth understanding and feeling of the works. There is a saying that "laymen only see the excitement, but experts only know the secrets." Often when we look at paintings in art galleries, some people pass by very quickly; some people are focused on them. Sometimes they frowned, sometimes they stepped back, sometimes they came closer to the painting, and some even took a magnifying glass to look at parts of the painting. From the way different people look at the painting, we can see who understands painting and who doesn't. Painting. Some people talked about the style of painting, the author’s teachings, the use of brushes and ink, and the artistic conception of the painting. Some people looked at the painting at a loss and didn’t know what they saw after reading the painting. , I don’t have any feeling at all, I just think it looks good. As for the method of viewing paintings, Tang Jie of the Yuan Dynasty explained the secret in his "Painting Review·Painting Theory": "The method of viewing paintings is to first observe the charm, and secondly to observe the brushwork and bone technique. , position, dyeing, and then shape, these are the six methods. If you look at landscapes, plum orchids, dead trees, strange rocks, ink flowers, ink birds and other playful calligraphy, be careful not to look for similar shapes. First observe the innocence, and secondly observe the meaning of the brushwork. Only by relatively forgetting the traces of the brushwork and ink can you gain interest. "If you don't have a certain understanding of painting, you can't see its charm, brushwork, bone technique, position, coloring, and shape, and it's impossible to talk about "interesting". Therefore, to appreciate Chinese painting, you need to improve your knowledge and cultivation. Cultivation , the deeper the knowledge, the more things you see, and the more things you learn.