“Drawing Color Adhere To Type” And “Drawing Color Adhere To Will”

The blue-green landscape painting has a long history of development. As an important category of Chinese painting, it has been well-known for its flourishing luxury and magnificent resplendence since its birth. At the same time, the study and creation on colors by painters and theorists have been never interrupted. One of the most famous studies is the theory of “Drawing Color Adhere to Type” in “six method theory” proposed by the painter Xie He in his work Collections for Ancient Painting Appreciation in Six Dynasties Period. Namely, in the process of painting creation, the painter makes color arrangements in accordance with the original colors of objective things. But the “type” in “Drawing Color Adhere to Type” not only refers to the true colors of all things in reality, but also means the colors that are highly refined and generalized after being transformed by the subjective initiative of painters. The color having gone through the transformation of painters based on their inner feelings is just the manifestation of the unique aesthetic temperament and interest of traditional Chinese painting.Because the “six methods” by Xie He becomes an important standard for the evaluation of Chinese painting after being put forward, “Drawing Color Adhere to Type” as the only method about color setting research in “six methods”, naturally becomes the theoretical basis and aesthetic standard for painting and color setting by later painters.After the blue-green landscape painting that is famous for color setting ingeniousness experienced the splendor in Tang and Song dynasties and the dying in Yuan and Ming dynasties, all factors including the rapid transmission of world information, the further integration of culture, the popularity of modern western oil painting art education, the rise of domestic “rock painting”, the influence of Japanese paintings, the research & development of new-type paint and the complicacy and diversity of picture making techniques have been prompting the rapid development of blue-green landscape painting. What is always following up the steps of changes of times is the change in Chinese society. And the Chinese pen and ink drawings are also unexceptional. The power of change is enormous and imperceptibly, “Drawing Color Adhere to Type” has become the “Drawing Color Adhere to Will” in the heart of painters. The transition of this traditional color drawing idea has been already unknowingly permeated into the creation of contemporary painters.With the rapid development of contemporary blue-green landscape painting, what is not matched with it is the research on contemporary blue-green landscape painting. In the opinion of the author, the step of this type of research has been not fast enough to keep up with the speed of development relative to the speed of development. And especially the study on color manifestation in it can be an important topic that can bring us more insight into the development of blue-green landscape painting. It is also the necessary reflection on how to enjoy better development and how to get better inheritance to promote the better development of blue-green landscape painting. To start discussion and summary on the color drawing characteristics of contemporary blue-green landscape painting at this juncture is a meaningful thing we can do for the development of blue-green landscape painting.