Ancient Chinese Landscape Painters Personality Theory

The landscape painting is one of the important categories of the Chinese painting art. Since its establishment as an independent subject of painting, it has been exceptionally excellent for a long time, and particularly, it has been favored by the ancient literary men. The reasons for this phenomenon are very complicated. In my own opinion, the spiritual factor contained in the Chinese landscape paintings and the painter-centered personality activities constitute one of the most important reasons. As the optimal carrier for constructing the life spirit and ideal personality of the Chinese people, the landscape painting expounds the personality realm of the Chinese cultural ideal through the visual image and also practices the thought on ideal personality in the Chinese culture through the creation of landscape image. The essential spiritual characteristics of the Chinese landscape painting lie in the personality connotation of truthfulness and freedom and the humanistic concern consciousness based on the life in the universe. In their value pursuit of art for life's sake and creation for freedom's sake, the Chinese ancient landscape painters become one of the few sections that can advocate the truthfulness of human life and the personality ideal. Although the past and present scholars have come down to the painters'personality in analyzing the reasons for the primacy of the landscape painting, the studies of the painters'personality as a special object have been seldom seen. Even if there really exist such studies, they are confined only in certain idiosyncrasies or certain aspect and the analysis is mostly made from the point of culture and times or the growing environment of an individual. By learning from and absorbing the thoughts and opinions of the pioneering scholars, this paper mainly analyzes the personality of the Chinese ancient landscape painters in the four aspects of idiosyncrasies as follows:The Ego Idiosyncrasy. The ego idiosyncrasy of personality refers to the typical and stable psychological characteristics which are developed on the basis of the natural physiological qualities of an individual and through the acquired socialized practice and which can best reflect the individual unique personality. It mainly includes such personality qualities as temperament and character that are most personalized characteristics. The temperament and character influences and restricts the landscape painters'psychological realm of creation as well as their art spirit and aesthetic taste. The psychological process and aesthetic principles for creating the landscape paintings determine that those of choleric temperament and lymphatic temperament are more suitable for creating the landscape paintings. Since ancient times, most of the Chinese landscape paintings belong to either of these two temperament types or the mixed type related to them. The character traits of the ancient Chinese landscape painters are mainly reflected in their attitude of caring for and valuing life, their lenient and benevolent humanitarian spirit and humanistic concern consciousness, and their sequestered behavior and practice.The Cultural Idiosyncrasy. In their personality structure, the Chinese people are nature-loving, advocate tranquility and metaphysics, and own flexible and highly efficient ego mechanism. However, only a few groups such as the landscape painters in ancient China can materialize the Chinese people's nature complex and their cultural ideal of"harmony between man and nature"in the concrete survival and life styles by sequestering themselves in nature and in the art of landscape painting, and they have done it to the utmost. The ancient Chinese landscape painters inherit and carry forward the life spirit and humanistic concern consciousness of the national culture; driven by their divine piety to life spirit, they consciously enrich and improve the force of personality ego mechanism in the process of returning to nature. The cultural idiosyncrasy of the landscape painters in ancient China and its influence on their artistic creation are mainly demonstrated in the psychological process, realm and aesthetic principles and forms of creating the landscape paintings.The Social Idiosyncrasy. The social idiosyncrasy of the ancient Chinese landscape painters'personality is mainly demonstrated in their role consciousness and attitude to reality. The main motives for their artistic creation are originated from the contradiction between the scholars'role consciousness and the hermits'personality ideal, the sharp conflict between the social values that a good scholar will make an official and the ego idiosyncrasy, and the antagonism between the landscape painters'ego idiosyncrasy and the autocratic high-handed rule, and their general characteristics are deficient. However, different from the manifestations of the Western painters'deficient creative motives, the leading state of mind of the ancient Chinese landscape painters in the process of creation is harmony, tranquility and leisure and in the whole process, they can experience the delight in spiritual transcendency and sublimation.The Aesthetic Idiosyncrasy. The aesthetic idiosyncrasy refers to the specialized personality trait that the artists have developed and demonstrated in their long-term artistic activities. Due to the long-term influence of the psychological field effect produced from the cognitive style, way of composition, application of colors and aesthetic pursuit of the Chinese landscape painting, the personality activities of the ancient Chinese landscape painters boast the typical features of the professional activities, such as tranquility, truthfulness, leisure and vividness. The establishment of the specialized personality traits enables their psychological process of creation to be typical of the remarkable professional hues. As far as their activities of creation are concerned, the landscape painters are unique in their way of perceiving and finding a view to the"object"with"heart", in their way of creating a context by seeking the whole through visual image and by deciding conception through"farness"and in their creative frame of mind by melting themselves with the object", or in other words, the landscape painters'ways of activity are the most typical.To sum up, the major motive of the appearance and development of the Chinese landscape painting is to"clarify the mind to watch the Way"and"freeing spirit"; in essence, it aims to cast off the utilitarian fetters in realistic survival and various agonies thereof through the efforts of being close to and melting with nature, so as to free and emancipate the soul. Specifically and completely carrying the philosophy for life and the outlook of universe, nature and life of the Chinese culture, it represents the main means for the Chinese men of letters to realize self-integration and self-improvement. Therefore, the value of the landscape painting to the Chinese culture lies not only in its achievement and contribution in the science of painting, but more importantly, in the humanistic spirit and personality force it contains. The landscape painters in ancient China have carried forward the ideological quintessence and art spirit of the national culture and in the meantime, intensified the consciousness of life and humanistic concern of the Chinese culture through their unique personality activities and activated and enriched the adjustment system of the individual personality. The art spirit, life spirit and humanistic concern consciousness it carries forward are interlinked with the universal consciousness of co-existence among"heaven, earth and man", the consciousness of ecological homeland, the humanitarian spirit, the consciousness of harmonious development and the sound personality consciousness, all of which have been in urgent need of advocacy since the end of the 20th century, and therefore, it is still of important value of reference for the construction and development of the culture in contemporary China and even the world. Besides, the ancient Chinese landscape painters'pursuit of the creative spirit of truthfulness and freedom, their artistic values with"the true, the good and the beautiful"as ideal, their respect and understanding of the national cultural spirit, their self-manifestation of mentality and their sound and active ego defense mechanism are also of important referential and enlightening significance for the personality construction and artistic creation of the contemporary artists.