The Awakening Of The Artists' Subject Consciousness

Since Romanticism in the 19th century, the western art has started its pursuit for "implicative form". Artistic form becomes a primary element in painting. Artists highlight the importance of "aesthetic emotions" and "artistic form", laying emphasis on expression of their personal spirits instead of imitation or replication of any outside objects. This change implies that art no long serves its original functions --- story narration, image building and social service. Instead, the artists' subject consciousness plays a dominant role in their artistic creation, and art develops into "art for art's sake". Of all the artistic expressions, color, brushwork and style of drawing are the principal ones to express the artists' aesthetic emotions and personal spirits.Color, brushwork and style of drawing didn't abruptly break away from image building to become independent means in aesthetic and spiritual expressions. The change was caused by revolutionary expressions by Venice School with color, brushwork and style of drawing, evolution of traditional material and skills, and awakening of artists' subject consciousness.The phylogeny of oil painting from the Venice School to the Romanticism period in the 19th century is also a relationship chain of the oil painting skills inheritance and evolvement. This dissertation studies this relationship chain from the viewpoint of modern art in form and spiritual expression. It studies representative artists in color and brushwork at different historical periods, and their use of painting skills, color and brushwork in their masterpieces. The purpose is to learn how color and brushwork break away from image building and develop into artistic forms with independent aesthetics and the function of expressing the artists' spiritual emotion, and furthermore to learn the evolution of artist's subject consciousness in this process.Chapter One cleans up the relationship among material skill, painting language and subject consciousness, and illustrates their interactive and inter-promotive relation. It also reviews conception of form and expression in modern art, in order to comprehend the description and the logic relationship of the following chapters.Chapter Two introduces the painting skills of the representative artists from Qiotto and Van Eyck to Florence School, and have also discussed their relationship of...