Analysis Of The Freehand Spirit In Chinese Sculpture

In the course of thousands of years of evolution, traditionalChinese sculpture gradually formed the tradition and pattern of freehandcreation and distinguished itself from the realistic creation of traditionalwestern sculpture in its unique aesthetic style. However, out of historicalreasons, China's sculpture after the May 4th Movement of 1919 wasdissevered from its roots of traditional Chinese sculpture. This isolationbecame constraints in the nationalization of modern Chinese sculpture art.This paper, in the hope of establishing a sculpture system based on thenative culture and the art conception and style of Chinese sculpture itself, purports to explore the origin of the freehand spirit in traditional Chinesesculpture, and to quest after the spiritual links between modern Chinesesculpture and its traditional counterpart. At the meantime, the paper citesWu Weishan's "freehand sculpture" as an example and analyzes itsconnection with and distinction from traditional Chinese sculpture andthe freehand spirit. As a successful paradigm of modern transformation oftraditional sculpture and freehand spirit, Mr. Wu's creation plays aproactive steering role in modern Chinese sculpture creation.The paper consists of 4 chapters.The first chapter involves realizing the freehand spirit behind themulti-patterns of traditional Chinese sculpture from the perspectives of itsphilosophical origin and development course of image schema.Chapter two analyzes the epistemological foundation oftraditional Chinese sculpture's image patterns and points out that thedistinct space conceptions and observation methods underlie therespective sculpture styles, hence the Chinese-style understanding shouldbe granted priority if a Chinese-style sculpture is to be established.Chapter three focuses on an analysis of the freehand characteristicsof traditional Chinese sculpture from the perspective of its pattern character and abstracts those that have an influence on contemporary andprospective pattern features.Chapter four comes to the main theme of the attachment oftraditional Chinese sculpture's freehand spirit to the modern pattern andits significance on the style innovation of Chinese sculpture from thepenetration point of Wu Weishan's exploration of freehand sculpturestyle.Only when one is conversant with ancient learning can he have athorough modern knowledge and, by the same token, one cannot innovateunless he probes into the origin. The exploration of Chinese sculpturestyle, therefore, can only take root in the Chinese cultural spirit.