Ancient Chinese Ink Techniques In The 21st Century

Art is a particular form of social consciousness and of human activities, an important way for people to perceive, discover and improve life: according to the laws of beauty. It is the creation of tangible or intangible products containing great values of thought-aesthetics, cultural character, and emotions. In this sense, there are numerous types of art. Painting is one of the oldest forms of art on earth. From prehistoric times, artists not only used it to communicate, but they also used painting to entertain the viewers. Painting can be transformed, eliminating the tedium, fatigue, and stress in daily tasks to bring the joy. Fun in life or silence for the soul. In other words, painting is a language that communicates an artist 's ideas

Beauty is an incredibly subjective thing; what might seem appealing to one’s eyes may be horrendously ugly in the eyes of another. However, the status of “beautiful” or “ugly” can be assigned rather objectively when art is examined from the perspectives of different philosophies. The beliefs and values of different philosophies can be used to find meaning and beauty in various art forms, allowing for a more straightforward determination of beauty. Because of the many layers of meaning most paintings entail, they are a perfect example of an art form that can be analyzed by numerous philosophical viewpoints to find meaning and beauty, and Ma Yuan’s painting Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring, which comes from the Song dynasty of Chinese and depicts a sole figure standing in a natural surrounding, is no exception. Ma Yuan’s painting is beautiful because it represents the ultimate achievements for the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian philosophies.

Kehinde Wiley is a New York based artist whose paintings focus on the themes of empowering black men and combining classical and contemporary styles.

The first work of art, illustrated by Kehinde Wiley, appears to give a realistic feel to the audience. As the painting of the man, the horse, and the sword appears as neither abstract, nor nonobjective. I can see that the painting is oil on canvas. In the background of his painting, it is dark red at the top, and pink towards the middle of the background, with a shade of white just above the neutral scheme of different brown shades representing the muddy ground. The white in the background probably represents the horizon. If you zoom in very, very closely, you can see what looks like a military cannon towards the right side of the painting, emphasizing the environment of a battle soldier. The horse is painted neutrally as well, white,

In ancient times, art was often made to become a burial object for the tomb of a respected individual. The Chinese are apart of this tradition and this mingqi or "spirit object" of a dog belongs to the religious concept of following the deceased into the afterlife. The artist of Mingqi (standing dog) is unknown but the period of the artwork falls around 250 to 200 BCE, during the Han Dynasty. Though much is unknown or undefined about this work, the visual components reveal the aim behind the artist's choices. The Han artist focuses on the media, ceramic techniques, and composition to fulfill the role of a protection vessel.

For thousands of years, the use of art through paintings, drawings, pictures, photographs have been used in religions for many purposes. Religious groups and sects have used art to protest, idealize, and tell stories about their religion. They have used art to express their beliefs and thoughts to the world. According to the dictionary, art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. This emotional power inserted on each piece of art was meant to inspire and teach each believer about their religion. We can see this in different religions such as the Chinese religion, Confucianism. Confucianism believes in the adoration of the ancestors and diverse powers being the greatest of all the heavens, the lord from above. People in Confucianism must understand that the ancestors and the cosmos, determine their life and existence and therefore they must maintain a good harmony. This is achieved through study and meditation to self-perfect. Therefore, like other religions, Confucianism through art represents their beliefs. Each work of art seeks that when observed can convey the idea and concept of the artist who will always seek inspiration from his beliefs.

Zhao Mengfu, a main calligrapher of his time, set the course of researcher painting by solidly building up its two essential precepts: restoration through the investigation of antiquated models and the use of calligraphic standards to painting. In Twin Pines, Level Distance the scene figure of speech of the Northern Song experts Li Cheng and Guo Xi has turned into a calligraphic style. Instead of essentially portray nature as it gives off an impression of being, Zhao tried to catch its quintessential rhythms. The attributes of rocks and trees, felt by the craftsman and carried on through his calligraphic brushwork, are saturated with an increased feeling of life vitality that goes past insignificant representation.

The two works of art that I have chosen to analyze are 1) Jordan Casteel. Miles and JoJo. 2014. Oil on canvas, 54” x 72” and 2) Aaron Fowler. He Was. 2015. Mixed media, 134” x 165” x 108”. The themes that these works of art represent in regards to the exhibit are love, family, and pain. However, they also fall into other thematic categories. The main theme that seems to apply to both “Miles and JoJo” and “He Was” is Human Experience. Additionally, these arts differ in some ways.

Art had played an important role in building up civilizations from all over the world through thousands of centuries. It is and will always still the way of projecting artists’ ideas and thoughts into meaningful and tangible objects which we called “work of art”. In addition, It was the path through all these years that dug its way to reach to our current century to show us the beauty of every single era starting from the Upper Paleolithic Period of time (42,000 – 8,000 BCE) reaching to our contemporary artists of today.

Shepard Fairey’s piece titled Pay Up or Shut Up is a representation of the role that money or your role in society dictate the power of your speech. This piece of art by Fairey was released in May of 2015. It is a screen print on cream speckletone paper.

The art work that I picked is a still life of the Chinese Porcelain Jar. The painter of the art piece is Willem Kalf. The era that it is focused on is the Dutch Golden era. He was born in 1619 and died in 1693.

The “point and line to plane” (Kandinsky 1979:6) is the painting element, such as the letters that make up the word, different combinations will have different effects. As Kandinsky (1979:12) has demonstrated, that point, line and plane is the basic building material of the artwork itself, and that in every different art the elements of art are certainly different. However, it is necessary to first distinguish the basic elements from the other elements, no artwork does not have these artistic elements. Therefore, the common feature between Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings and Guan Zhong Wu’s paintings are point, line

When one comes into contact with a Chinese painting, the style is almost instantly recognizable. The attention to detail, craftsmanship, and vast depictions of elaborate landscapes appear to pay homage to mother earth in an attempt to reach a state of eternal balance with nature and life. Before this equilibrium could be achieved, one must attain internal discipline. This was required before one began mastering their brushwork in Chinese culture. In Mai Mai Sze’s “The Way of Chinese Painting,” 1959, New York: Vintage Books, Random House, Sze discusses the philosophy known as Daoism/Tao, or “the way.” Before one became a skilled painter, one trained in the personal disciplines of poetry, art, calligraphy, and internal

Art is a form of human expression. Art can be seen as the artist sleight of hand on his mood. Art is in various media from posters to public wall of which we call “graffiti”. Art is elusive as the use of colors shapes and the surface used adds a new dimension. Art portrays various ideas, feelings such as triumph, love, happiness, sorrow and boredom in loss to mention a few. Art is beauty and creativity. During man’s evolution art has progressed over in its most primitive state up to its most modernized versions today.

“Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down. “- Francis Bacon. However when I learnt more about history of art and the way each movement and happenings in the world inspired artist to make new works, I was able to see much more than just a canvas with random paints and sketches. The interesting part about this concept is that each piece of art could be interpreted in many different ways. In contemporary art there isn’t right and wrong, each of us view and find different meanings and connections with artworks.