"strong Bone"

Chinese painting is a kind of cultural form influenced by philosophy. Since the Jin and Tang dynasties, the theories on painting are constructed, and in the Song Dynasty the literati painting becomes a dominant form and then arrives at the totally combined unity of spirituality and theories after the development of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.Since the beginning of last century, Chinese traditional painting is under the shock of foreign cultures, the pursuit of being new and creative-original occupies the main focus for Chinese painting development. In such process the doubt on Chinese painting tradition is always lingered that Chinese painting is almost at the stake of disappearance, as a result, the judgment standard for Chinese painting is increasingly weakened and the concept of Chinese Painting is also becoming more and more unclear and generalized.Pan Tianshou is in the front of reforming Chinese painting for all his life. Facing the western shock and national nihilism, he maintains a kind of philosophical wisdom and persists on the spirit of Chinese culture by way of rational thinking. He expands the expressive images of literati painting and transfigure the mildness of literati painting into the magnitude by absorbing the art theories of Tang and Song dynasties in order to demonstrate his aesthetic pursuit of 'being strongly impressive'.This paper attempts to start from the spirit of Chinese culture to explicate the spirituality, sources and images of Pan Tianshou's painting. His painting both derives from tradition and extends the expressive imagery of literati painting. Chinese culture is imbued with all his works. Pan Tianshou's methods of succeeding traditional creativity - to innovate images rationally - inspire us in creating our art new. Through Pan's theories and works we can feel that he has strong conviction and self-respect for the national cultural tradition, which is the source of his vigorous paintings. He expresses his belief in 'building the strong national culture' through his own ideas and theories on painting, and therefore establishes himself as one of the most important achievements in the history of Chinese painting. We can elicit more insights from his efforts and theories to reconsider traditional culture and how to succeed and renovate the ink painting.