Inheritance and comparison of art
Jincheng Liu . art talk 2018.02
Good evening ladies and gentlemen,
Congratulations on the opening of the Contemporary Art Exhibition and talk of four countries artists in England.
I would like to take this opportunity to remark on two aspects in relation to the theme of art
1.The Inheritance of Chinese culture and Art
As we all know
The earliest words of mankind were pictographs but many of these ancient texts are no longer widely used.
But there is one country where the original pictographic poetry and prose from 2000 years ago can still be read by people today – this is China.
There is a culture that combines music, painting and poetry to achieve harmony between man and nature and a realm of artistic conception – this is the Chinese culture.
All of this is because Chinese characters were passed down over thousands of years.
And the inheritance of Chinese characters relies on writing, which becomes calligraphy and thus we have calligraphy art.
Chinese calligraphy carries Chinese painting, they complement each other, the calligraphy and painting harmonize to form an artwork.
This is the special difference between Chinese painting and Western painting.
The inheritance of Chinese characters is an extremely important factor in the inheritance of Chinese culture and art.
2. The comparison and development of Chinese and Western art
Now the world’s two major civilizations: the agricultural civilization and the industrial civilization are converging as we enter a civilization of digital age.
Before the 20th century, Chinese culture and art were developed on the basis of agricultural civilization.
The natural philosophy and cosmological concept of harmony between ‘the heaven, the earth and the human’ influenced the development of Chinese mainstream culture and art.
At the same time, the combination of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist values has influenced the development of China’s unique culture, which is expressed in the metaphysical and non-realistic characteristics of Chinese art.
After the 20th century, the Western industrial civilization’s form of art has been integrated into Chinese culture.
And the entanglement of traditional and contemporary, global and local has led to the distinctive mixed nature of Chinese contemporary art.
The culture before the 20th century in the West was developed on the basis of an industrial civilization and science. Explorations in perspective, anatomy, optics and mathematics pushed forward and were incorporated into art, as well as the philosophical ideas of the separation of man and nature.
At the same time, the integration of Christianity and universal values developed Western art’s unique characteristics of realistic representation, humanism, and a tradition of innovation.
After the 20th century, the evolution of Western art through the modernity, postmodernity through to the contemporary era was in a completely personalized form.
The interaction between localism and globalism has led to the emergence of a new artistic trend known as “global localism” in many countries, including China.
Despite the differences between humans and cultures, it is through the exchange of art that we communicate and achieve a mutual understanding and stimulation so that artists can create a new form of artistic language. This is also the purpose of our exhibition today.
Thank you
2018.2.