Of. Near Modern Comic Book Art, Figure Painting Hongshou

"Line" is the most basic composition and one of the expressing forms of fine arts. Chinese figure paintings by Chen Hongshou have had great influence on later generations through the use of lines, layouts, expressing forms and so on. Judged by contents or forms, Chen Hongshou's "Shuihu Yezi", "Bogu Yezi", "Tao Yuanming's picture-story" and "Xi Xiang Ji" can be regarded as the origin of Chinese comics. This paper attempts to explore Chen's arts thought, his inheritance and innovation of drawing, his expressing forms and their influence on Chinese contemporary comics by analyzing Chen's works of prints and illustrations.The most important part of Chen Hongshou's arts thought is "Learn from the ancient, but not completely stick to them" and it also contributed to his drawing style of "detached and outrageous". As one of the most common paintings in Chinese contemporary fine arts, comics are connected with Chinese traditional paintings through "transmitting " and "transferring". Based on comparing traditional line-drawing comic works with Chen Hongshou's prints and illustrations, this paper tries to find the relationship among them.