Study On The Fusion Of Chinese And Western Painting Based On The Early Shanghai Painters

In the middle of19thcentury, China was under the rule of the feudal system and wasinvaded by the imperialist powers, which brought to the Chinese economic downturn, direpoverty and instability in the whole social environment. However, under the influence of theenvironment, there was a surge of innovative artists in the Oriental city–Shanghai. Headedby Zhao Zhiqian, Xu Gu, Wu Changshuo and other representatives, they opened a “battle” ofartistic heritage and innovation. A school of painting emerged from the “battle”, which washistorically known as sea painting or the Shanghai Painting. The Shanghai Painting was notdestroyed by the erosion of western art under social upheaval. Contrarily, they appliedwestern elements properly, beneficially combined them with local elements, and formed anovel art style. It is China’s important historical coordinates in the painting history and itindicates the development direction and the future of Chinese painting.This thesis is divided into five parts and the main line is the characteristics of theShanghai Painting. The first part simply summarizes the selected topic significance, researchstatus and research methods. The second part focuses on analyzing the background of theformation of Shanghai Painting, including the political background, economic backgroundand cultural background, and concludes causes of the formation of Shanghai Painting. Partthree lists three representative painters, Zhao Zhiqian, Xu Gu and Wu Changshuo, andreviews and interprets their paintings. It sums up their own painting style through their works,discusses methods they inherited and innovated in the creative process and focuses onexploring the application of western painting elements. Based on previous analyzed theories,part four will find out the feasibility of Chinese painting to draw lessons from westernpainting, and specific to those elements we borrowed from western painting. The fifth partdraws a conclusion on the fusion of Chinese and Western painting. It states that Chinese andWestern painting are not incompatible, but we can learn from each other and it summarizesthe methods and measures of the fusion.