Study On The Presentation Of Light In Traditional Chinese Realistic Painting Of Flower And Bird

Deeply influenced by Chinese Confucianist and Taoist cultures, the presentation of light, which is very unconspicious, has been seldom paid much attention to in the traditional Chinese realistic painting of flower and bird, so most painters have avoided such painting skill and created few works to present objects under optical effects.Generally speaking, the presentation light in the traditional Chinese realistic painting of flower and bird has merely been noticed and not to say painters’researchers under theories of optics. Since the beginning of the 20th, by the big shock of western cultures, Chinese traditional culture concept and art practice gradually had became broader and richer in the progress of Orient-West blend. Thus the presentation of light in western works began to affect some pioneer Chinese painters.With the introduction of western economy and technique in 80s, numerous concepts and sense of value have infiltrated into the pure Chinese traditional culture, which enables enable the diversification of Chinese painting art patterns under such culture context. An increasing number of new skills are adopted in the creation of Chinese flower-and-bird painting by painters who are critical on tradition while embrace new thoughts and make creations. Among these painters, some have noticed and tried to apply the optical effects, which changes and broadens the original art perspectives thus refreshes the appreciation of beauty and brings a newly life to it. So far, even though the presentation of light in the traditional Chinese realistic painting of flower and bird begins to emerge into a new topic for research, there is still no systematically theoretical research on it while there are a few descriptions about the tentative painting practice of optical effects on paintings.Therefore, this study firstly makes a relatively complete description about light presentation in ancient Chinese paintings in terms of both theoretical and practical cognition and trail, and proposes some reasons for the ignorance of applying light on paintings. Next, this study, selecting some Chinese flower-and-bird paintings with light presentation as study objectives, deeply analyzes the art features and patterns ofthem and provides the features of light art in paintings and a new value of beauty appreciation by researching on the point of modern Chinese flower-and-bird painters. Finally, the author, taking regard of a long-time interpretation and practice in flower-and-bird paintings, provides some suggestions concerning light in paintings for future study and practice. The aim of this study is to collect and reorganize the painting theory of light application in Chinese flower-and-bird paintings and combine modern skills in order to promote the further development of modern Chinese realistic painting of flower and bird.