The Revival Of Watercolour Painting: Zhou Shaohua's Art

Fusion and reform have been the main trends in the development of Chinese painting during the 20th century. Be it the mingling of Chinese and Western elements, or the revival of the past for the construction of the present, these various trends have contributed excellently to the transition of Chinese painting towards modernity. It can be surely affirmed that until the 1970s Chinese painting was searching for the establishment of an independent and mature idiom. By the 1980s, following the emergence of a more relaxed and free social milieu, Chinese painting was wrestling with the thorny issue of how to progress from tradition into modernity. During this first round of great innovations, Zhou Shaohua stood out as one of the most prominent and important painters.Zhou Shaohua's artistic reform represents a conscious departure from the rationality and the aesthetic interests of the literati's painting tradition. Indeed, this is how one can interpret his advocacy of stepping beyond the literati's tradition of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties so as to retrieve the great deep spiritual roots of Chinese culture in the Tang, Han and even earlier dynasties. A man of a new age, he achieved the unity of the traditional soul with modern style while further promoting the transition of ' mountain-water'landscape painting from ancient to modern models. He is recognized as a famous representative of the'school of vigorous painting'. Zhou Shaohua's artistic production is mostly characterized by grandiose compositions and a penchant for the majestic. His works constitute one very precious portion of the heritage of Chinese contemporary painting.The foundations of Zhou Shaohua's creativity and reform rest on a holistic contemplation of cultural history and real life, as well on a reinterpretation of the concept of art, one that emphasizes both history and modernity, as well as communication and integration between East and West. In a very creative fashion he upheld ideas such as "breaking up direct transmission" (gedai yichuan隔代遗传,i.e. the call to refer to models previous to the Yuan dynasty) and "synchronic contaminations"(hengxiang yizhi横向移植,i.e. exchange with foreign artistic experiences). His thought has exerted a strong influence on contemporary Chinese watercolour painting. Undoubtedly, Zhou Shaohua's style and thought left a clear mark on the creativity and development of Chinese painting, both at its spiritual level and at its cultural level. Hence, research on Zhou Shaohua is very much significant to China's contemporary fine arts.