Mirror Of Reality

Via approaches regarding induction, comparison and comprehensive analysis, thispaper reviews the development of Chinese ancient genre painting and presents evaluationof existing ancient genre paintings from pure artistic perspective. The paper clarifies thetruth that Chinese ancient genre painting was an outcome of the then remarkable social,political, economic, and cultural progress. The form came into being during a big timewhen the upper classes of the society, who showed intense disappointment of thecorrupting ceremonial rites and regulations, and turned to presenting a false picture ofpeace and Prosperity. It was also a time when the lower classes demonstrated strongdesire for artistic creations. As copy of daily life of folks and with diversified paintingstyles, Chinese ancient genre painting helps people record pictures of an age, depict ahistorical moment, and enhance the pride as being a Chinese. Genre paintings provide uswith a way different from the forms in written, and keeps us close enough to get animmediate impression on historical and social features. Moreover, their existence alsohelps greatly enhance the range and ways that an art form can cover. And later it bridgedand gap between daily life and art. The painting reflects the social life of ordinary people,which then is considered to be one of the major directions for painting developmentnowadays. The latest a few years saw a nation-wide attention to the Intangible CulturalHeritage, which brought the idea that social life is by itself a heritage to the public, as thethose who lead the simplest life contribute the richest elements symbolizing our ownidentities, features and culture. Being cultural workers, painters should do their best andgive priority to these evanescent traditional cultures and the people's customs, recordingthe culture inspired by the spirits of a nation, creating a cultural atmosphere that is morebrilliant ever, so as to show people all over the world the versatile Chinese culture withdiverse artistic styles.