Flowers in the East Wind: An Initial Exploration of Chinese Painting Studies

Author: Zhang Zhongmei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Painting is a visual art, originally intended to reflect the myriad aspects of life through flat images, evoking aesthetic appreciation in the viewer. However, from ancient times to the present, there has never been pure painting with no purpose, or "art for art's sake." Since Zhang Yanyuan proposed the function of painting as "cultivating education, assisting ethics, exploring the divine, and measuring the subtle," it has inspired both the author and the viewer to further explore the ideological significance of painting, allowing philosophy, social sciences, literature, and other ideological systems to permeate into works of art. The title written on the work is called "painting title," which often provides a superficial explanation of the work. In contrast, writing self-composed or others' poetic or textual phrases on the painting to express the inadequacy of visual language or to reveal the deeper ideological and emotional connotations of the work, thereby further clarifying its hidden meaning and making it more apparent (e.g., Zheng Sishao's "Rootless Orchid," Gong Kai's "Zhongshan's Journey," Zheng Banqiao's "Ink Bamboo Painting"), is called "painting inscription," carrying a sense of the six artistic expressions of the Book of Songs.