The Image of the Yellow (Huang He) River in Chinese Painting

Abstract

The article is devoted to the creative works of artists who have created pictures of life of the people living along the Yellow (Huang He) River in all nine regions of China. The Huang He River, as the main artery of the country, has long been the subject of study by historians, writers and painters. However, contemporary artists who dedicated their works to the river have not been researched. This work examines the collective image of the Huang He River in the works of Chinese artists from the 1980s to the present day in order to get acquainted with its peculiarities. The methodological basis for the study of contemporary art is the historical and cultural and socio-cultural approaches. The methods of historical-comparative and sociological analysis of art, biographical and iconographic analysis, semiotics and hermeneutics methods are used. For the first time the features of oil painting in different regions along the Huang He River are presented: the geomorphological characteristics, national characters and folk customs in the river basin, and the cultural protection function of painting. The names of a number of Chinese artists have been introduced into Russian art history, and the panorama of the development of painting in the works of Chinese masters painting on the Huang He River has been shown. The works of these artists are correlated with the traditional art and religious ideas of the people living along the Huang He River: the role of created paintings in preserving the cultural code of the inhabitants through the portrayal of national costume, folk and religious holidays is traced. The results can serve as a basis for historical and comparative studies of the artworks of Chinese masters and become the basis for courses on the history of Chinese art.