Depicting The People Based On The Loess

The "realism" is the term which spread from the west. The understanding of the"realism" must be established on the background of Chinese traditional culture. From the law of art development, the absorption of the practical technique in the western"realism"has provided the possibility for Chinese tradition drawing."Realism"originated from Europe in the late 18th century, and came into China at the beginning of 20th century. It lays stress on the faithful representation of the real life according to its true pattern and vividly describes the typical person in the typical surroundings. This is similar to the"true-to-life depiction"in ancient portray theory and these two share the same essence. However, due to the difference of Chinese and Western culture, people have different understanding on"Realism". So we should grant new connotation to realism on the basis of Chinese"truly depiction"and Western style of"Realism". Under the initiative of "realism" artistic creation by Xu Beihong and so on,"realism", which unified with Chinese social and history background, became the main stream of .the contemporary Chinese drawing creation rapidly.Realism art shows the spirit of expressing the contemporary and facing the real life, thus has everlasting value. It adopted the technique of the direct depiction which could be understood by people easily, is the important method in the artistic creation. The school of"Loess Pictures", with its realism spirit, refers to the drawing school in the contemporary Chinese painting field which displays the style and feature of the people and the culture on the yellow land. This drawing school leads by the famous painter Liu Wenxi, and takes the painters of the Xi'an Fine Arts Institute as the main forces. Their artistic creations are guided by the realism and have great influence in China. The school of"Loess Pictures", which takes the realism spirit as the instruction, faces directly on the reality, on the life and on the nature and bases itself on the depiction of the people on the loess. By all of these, it redefines the connotation of the contemporary realism. The first half of this thesis, which starts from the source of the"realism", tries hard to discuss the origin of the"realism"from the aspects of culture, history, education and cultural policies. While, the latter half elaborates the main characteristic of the realism spirit in the"Loess Pictures"school. At present realism in the art seems to has faded, we should restudy the realistic art spirit in the "Loess Pictures" School, promote and represent the realism in the artistic creation actively so as to revitalize realism tradition in Chinese painting art. This has great significance for our time. In the new historical period, the school of"Loess Pictures"gives a new interpretation and definition to the realism. Realism is an evolving concept. As long as those works which reflect the times, the people's emotions or livelihoods; reflect the love for nature; reflect the aesthetic ideal of seeking truth, righteousness and beauty; meet the aesthetic needs of people, and are enlightening and appealing, they can be named as realism.