On The Sociology Of Art On The Rise Of The Early Twentieth Century Chinese Painting Realistic Style

At the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century China lagged far behind the West. People at that time blamed this on the drawback of Chinese culture. As the representative of the cream of Chinese traditional culture, Chinese painting also encountered a lot of criticism. So the public insisted that Chinese painting should be reformed. At that time, various different concepts appeared. Intellects raised a variety of plans for the reform of Chinese society and Chinese painting. As a result, many different choices were available for Chinese painting, which included conceptional scholar draws, western modern art, mixture of realistic painting style of China and the West. In the complex historical evolution, it is not fortuitous that realistic painting. By using the sociology of art, this essay is intended to analyze the development and evolution of Chinese art at the beginning of 19th century , explain the sociological meaning of the rise of realistic painting style of Chinese painting, expect to find inner causes that affect the development of Chinese painting in the 19th century and try to give some advice on the research of current Chinese painting.Since 19th century, realistic style in Chinese painting has taken place of conceptional style and began to rise. When discussing the rise of realistic style, we must pay special attention to the following two points. One is the widespread of ideas of the sociology of art in China and evaluation criterion of art; the other is utilitarian knowledge of art and culture in traditional Chinese culture. These two facts are essential to the formation of realistic style of Chinese painting. They exist throughout the formation and rise of the realistic style. And determine whether the realistic style will become popular.The chance for realistic style to rise comes from the reform of Chinese painting. The argument about which of the two styles is fit to be used to reform Chinese painting offers a theoretical basis to the rise of realistic style. The practice of art popularization makes realistic style the main stream of Chinese painting creation. Art popularization, which functions as a demand for art and a sociological evaluation criterion, has a great impact on the popularity of realistic style. There are two reasons for this. For one thing, art popularization has specific sociological guide so the cause of the reform of Chinese painting is no longer the demand of art itself but the demand of society. In this situation, as for Chinese painting, art has become a tool for social reform. For another, art popularization requires that art should be understood by the public, that is, the understanding of art. If we use the requirement of the understanding of art to determine the direction of the development of Chinese painting, then it is necessary for realistic style to rise. However, it is not enough to use this style as a tool for social reform because, as an art language, it cannot give people many social guides. As a result, for the Chinese society at the beginning of the 19th century, the realistic style is attached great weight to only because it is essential for realistic creation.