Refreshing And Relaxing—An Exploration On Cui Bai’s Flower-and-Bird Paintings

Flower-and-bird painting is a painting art based on the nature,with full humanistic aesthetic characteristics.It embodies the aesthetic relationship between human and the nature,expressing affections and reflecting humanistic spirit of the age;it is an important art class of painting with unique aesthetic values.As a time-honored traditional painting art and the origin of contemporary Chinese flower-and-bird painting,the flower-and-bird paintings of the Song Dynasty has important research value and research significance.Cui Bai,an outstanding flower-and-bird painting artist of the Song Dynasty,changed the conservative and stuffy situation in the Song Dynasty painting circle,led this painting art of his age to a new pattern,and made remarkable contributions to the development of flower-and-bird paintings.Since then,his ethereal and pure art style has brought a wide and profound influence on later generations of painting,which still has considerable referential significance for today.This thesis aims to study and analyze Cui Bai’s painting art,discuss the implication to practice of flower-and-bird painting creation,and explore more possibilities for recreation of traditional Chinese flower-and-bird painting.On the basis of literature research,and combining with the perspective of semiotics and iconology,this thesis has studied Cui Bai and his works via case analysis and comparative study.It forms a preliminary understanding and intuitive image of Cui Bai’s historical background by sorting out background literature.In addition,it includes further analysis on Cui Bai’s artistic genesis,style characteristic,artistic ideas,and esthetic interest via analyzing the historical and cultural background,social environment,humanistic aesthetic thought,artistic expression and achievement,etc.It also attains a more comprehensive understanding of Cui Bai and his flower-and-bird painting art through the specific analysis of Cui Bai’s classic masterpieces,as Hanque Tu,Shuangxi Tu,Zhuou Tu,etc.Cui Bai’s paintings show his deep love and affection for life and the nature and convey his yearning for freedom and spiritual pursuit of detachment and leisureliness,including humanistic and emotional concern.Besides,he exerted unremitting exploration in his art creating,with a keen observation and solid painting skills,and therefore he madeeminent achievement in sketching field as well.Moreover,his modesty and studiousness are undoubtedly one of the reasons why he became an excellent artist.He was never biased for personal taste and learned from other artists like Xu Xi,Huang Quan,Zhao Chang,Yi Yuanji and so on.Through his hard work,Cui Bai made remarkable achievements in painting,which attained a poetic and harmonious realm and reached a unity of human and nature.Because of his strong feelings and deep thoughts,his works were endowed with life and soul,thus,they are still vivid and pictorial even after thousands of years passed by.Meanwhile,Cui Bai’s art spirit,typical of focusing on sketching and always learning from the nature and innovating with eclectic ideas,is a precious spiritual wealth for modern flower-and-bird painting artists.Today,as various artistic forms develop rapidly and exchange with one another frequently,Cui Bai’s artistic spirit should more than ever be inherited and developed;people should strive to show the unique artistic features of this era by inheriting the tradition and integrating the advantages of other painting arts.In this way people can also try to search a new developing direction for flower-and-bird painting in the new era and create more possibilities to make this art continue,and turn it into a newchapter.