Simple & Dense Beauty

An artist always gives top priority to the composition of a painting. Good composition of a painting is based on the property of elements and the relationship among such elements, but sublimed in the expression of the artist'spirit. As Mr. Zhang Yanyuan said,"spirit and composition comes first, painting follows", which emphasizes that the well-thought-out composition on layout, spacing and painting order, which all come prior to the painting, should always been paid the first attention. Therefore, the composition of a painting requires elaboration. As a matter of fact, the drawing and shaping skills generally do not differ much. But when it comes to the composition skills, a miss is as good as a mile. In this regard, the composition of a painting always plays a key role in deciding the greatness or commonness of a painting.The Chinese flowers & birds painting, as a branch of the traditional Chinese painting, emphasize particularly on the painting's composition, for its expression form is quite different from the portrait or the landscape painting. The Chinese flowers & birds paintings generally could be classified into simply style and dense style to certain extent, which reveals totally different spirit of the artists. The traditional philosophy of China always exerts profound and far-reaching influence on the painting. Many artists make painting under the traditional taste of Laozi spirit and Zhuangzi spirit, which leads the ancient Chinese flowers & birds painting to incline to the simple style.All in all, the research on the composition of a painting in both simple and dense style would benefit the production of modern Chinese flowers & birds painting.