Natural Imagery--reflections On Landscape Painting

There were two different styles since the oil painting came into China,one is realistic,and the other is expressionistic.Western classical painting was under the influence of"Imitation theories",which advocated paint realistic and representational. While modern art emphasized on personality,and called for subjective expression. Chinese traditional painting"Brush and Ink spirit"advocated freehand brushwork, thus,when oil painting"landed in"China,it experienced imitation,variation and assimilation.At the beginning of the last century,Xu Beihong,Lin Fengmian and some other people held different opinions about"the invasion of"oil painting:Xu Beihong insisted on realism,and against the Western Modernism.Lin Fengmian thought if we wanted to merge Chinese and Western styles,we needed to make a good integration between Chinese freehand brushwork lyric styles and modern Western aesthetics.Therefore for,realism,images of oil painting and socialist realism which came from Russia,Chinese oil painting nationalization,which built the pluralism of Chinese painting styles.Landscape has two natural meanings:one is"visible phenomena",that is natural scenery;and the other one is"mental imagery",that is imagery of the soul.In the west painted natural scenery more than mental scenery before the Postimpressionism,but later vice versa.Natural scenery was portrayed,while mental scenery was expressed. When natural and mental scenery was integrated with the spirit of"freehand brushwork"in China,the image of oil painting was produced.Wu Guanzhong,Zhao Wuji and Zhu Dequn continued the imaginal road of Lin Fengmian;while Xu Jiang and Zhao Kaikun are the most represented style of the imaginal artist in China today.Of course,no matter if work is painted or expressed,the key point is that it should have artistic meaning.Artistic meaning is the work of the soul,and also is the nature of a work.