Total Art And Total Painting

This thesis aims at investigating the complete integrationof arts as a nature in contemporary painting. It focuses on thestudy of “Total art” as a starting point to examine thenotions of disciplinary integration and social integration，and followed with elaboration of how painting interacts withdifferent disciplines since the Renaissance， and arguing forsuch an open manner continues to the contemporary practice andtowards “Total painting”. Apart from identifying theintegration as a nature in contemporary art and contemporarypainting， the discussions on unity and totality reiterate theinterrelation between art， human being and the world.An in-depth study is undertaken based on interpretive modesof a variety of readings. For the English readings being quoted，attempts have been made for translating into Chinese version.For some of the important artworks being introduced， visualanalysis has been made to exemplify the argument. The viewpointexpressed in this thesis，to identify the notion of integrationin contemporary painting， is based on self-reflection frompersonal journey in art making.