From Poussin To Monet

The art history is a history about various different methods that are taken bymankind to look at the world. The painter creates his unique painting-languageform when he expresses his own world with eyes and heart. Many kinds of formsconstitute a system which is a collection of different school painters' observingmethods and showing styles in different periods. And in turn, this artistic languagesystem has a great influence on the artist.Time and certain conditions are necessary for the development of an artistictrend. During the certain period, a brilliant artist stands out to acquire his outlookon painting, which is historical fortuity in the realm of necessity. A good artist isalways good at thinking about and resolving problems. The artist is inspired bythe traditional art phenomenon as well as the contemporary art phenomenon.Under the influence of his own cultural background, the artist forms his ownartistic language system in accordance with his understanding of art itself.In this way, the landscape painting forms its traditional trend. That is to say,some changes and turns have taken place from the idealized description of thelandscape to the expression of the artistic language itself. During this period,some great figures have make good use of these turns and finally developed thelandscape painting to a mature artistic form.Color, line and brush are the basic elements in a picture. An artist entrustsdifferent styles to concrete pictures by means of organizing different elements inhis drawing. The artist's special atheistic standards, his creation thoughts andpersonal outlook on life are expressed by his special understanding of artisticpainting language. An artist creates his artistic language;at the same time, theartist improves himself into an accomplished one with his unique artisticlanguage.It is well known that, making use of the traditional and contemporary paintingtechniques, an artist forms his own painting language. Through the discussion ofthe three representative painters in the history of French landscape painting, thisthesis aims at approaching the angles from which an artist forms his own artisticpainting language.This thesis includes three parts, namely, the introduction, the main part andthe conclusion. The part of introduction aims at defining the relevant landscapepainting which are discussed in the main part of this thesis. The main part of thisthesis includes three chapters. The first chapter is about Classicist painter NicolasPoussin who balances the styles of Baroque and Classicism and develops thelandscape painting. His historical painting style is solemn and quiet. The secondchapter aims at discussing the painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. He is regardedas an independent painter because he incorporates painting styles of diversenatures. His contradiction in painting principle is exactly the reflection of thecontradiction of Classicism itself. In his early painting works, the style of Corot'ssketch is different from the style of his creation;while in his later painting works,Corot's styles of sketch and creation are in accordance with each other. He is inpursuit of the beautiful tableaux and the moving emotions, which are much moreabstract than Poussin's. The third chapter is about the master of color ClaudeMonet who develops the method of objective painting. It should be noted thatMonet concentrates his attention on the elements of light and color. Furthermore,he approaches the artistic language of painting, aiming at constructing the pictureitself. The conclusion of this thesis aims at summarizing of the ideas of thedevelopment of French landscape painting which are represented by the threegreat painters above.Nowadays, the situation of painting in China raises doubts and many peopleare not optimistic about the future of painting. Besides, there are manydiscussions about the question whether it is suitable to localize the oil painting.Under these circumstances, it is an important problem demanding prompt solutionto bring forth new artistic painting language. In order to find out a new point ofview to understand the present problems, this thesis analysizes the three mastersof the realm of painting thoroughly. During the analysis, the author of this thesistries her best to form her own unique artistic painting language.