Pictorial principles in the system of formal connections: the limits of representation in modern Chinese painting

Abstract

The purpose of the article is the study of formal connections in the pictorial system of modern Chinese painting. The authors focus on the analysis of the types of form representation. This makes the question of finding correspondence between artistic forms and reality, which is generalized with the help of figurative author's artistic language, urgent. As a subject of research, the mentioned problem is relevant for modern art studies. The authors show that the concept of "formal language" attracts considerable attention in contemporary Chinese art studies. This proves the importance of the study of formal connections for the analysis of both traditional art practices and for innovative artistic searches. Form as a component of the language of modern painting is represented using pictorial principles, which in the context of the conceptual categories of Chinese art history can be summarized within two interrelated groups, namely: expression and aestheticization of form. The first group unites structural questions, which are mostly related in one way or another to the interpretation of the technical features of oil painting. Within the limits of the second group, the issues of figurative (or, according to the terminology used in Chinese art history – spiritual) foundations of the representation of the image are considered. The authors concluded that in modern Chinese oil painting, form as a pictorial principle relies on the imitative nature of artistic generalization. Form as a pictorial principle is connected with the possibility for the artist to "appropriate" certain aspects of reality, to make their generalization his own point of view on the world. Within modern Chinese painting, the imitative form has a reflexive status, which is confirmed by a number of transformations in the oil technique. In Chinese painting, this principle has a direct reference to traditional artistic practice.