An Introduction to the Chinese Oil Painting

The Orient is an important birthplace of world civilization as well as a great treasure house of the world art. From the developing process of the entire historical cultural art of mankind, we can see clearly in the East during the past several thousand years, artists created the basis on which mankind became civilized. Through various forms of art manifestations, the Orient enabled mankind to establish its spiritual culture on the basis of materials. In ancient Oriental countries such as India, Persia, Egypt and China, their prosperity reflected a synchronous advance of the relationship between the material and spiritual cultures. They in fact provided the modern mankind with this kind of correlation and brought about the re-emergence of ancient nations in the contemporary society. This has greatly inspired the conviction that the decline of ancient nations is not inevitability. Art possesses a purifying effect against poison infected by pure material life. It also frees mankind from the harms of material life and civilization. It enables mankind to live in civilized society and acquire a balancing effect to counteract ignorance, nihilism, vulgarity, wild arrogance and domineer, freeing mankind from being discontinued or eliminated in the promotion of human nature.

1. Development of the Chinese Oil Painting and its Characteristics

Since the mid-eighties, the Chinese oil painting, through a new round of exhibition activities, has gradually been introduced to various countries abroad. Because of lacking opportunities to make foreign contacts in the past twenty or thirty years, the Chinese oil painting has for a long time not been recognized abroad. Tracing back the development of Chinese oil painting, generally speaking, during about the twenties, the first generation of Chinese students started to study oil painting in Japan and France. It was during the fifties, another batch of students began to study oil painting in the Soviet Union. The Soviet school of oil painting thereafter exerted a profound influence on Chinese oil painting. Not until the eighties when the reform and opening to the outside world began in China, did the new generation of Chinese young oil painters hurriedly take a keen interest in modern school of oil painting art represented by Europe and America, and their works were also influenced by their style. So, to sum up, in the greater part of the past century, the development of the Chinese oil painting experienced off and on many-sided influence from abroad. Oil painting as international painting specie, the Chinese artists in the process of absorption and re-evolution played a corresponding role and value. Taking a macro-view of the painting history of the world during the past several thousand years, the Chinese painting embraced the longest development, an extremely systematic evolution, unparalleled in any country and nation. The tradition of Chinese painting for a period of several thousand years enabled Chinese painters to exert great influence on no matter any form of painting art. For a long period, a group of artists engaged in oil paintings, with their exclusive and unique talent, tirelessly made deepened study in the techniques of color, light, perspective and sketch. They incorporated excellent qualities of the Western painting. With their rich understanding of the traditional art and painting, through repeated research and constantly improving their skill, they made achievements in oil painting by infusing Chinese traditional culture and art and national artistic features into their works. Thus one can see the Chinese oil painting, in the lapse of a short time, acquired many-sided integration, reflecting successfully the features and styles of the oil painting of various countries including Europe, America, Japan and Russia. Of special importance is the fact that the works of Chinese artists, by virtue of their understanding of Chinese culture and traditions of Chinese painting together with their selection of themes, naturally reflect strong Chinese characteristics.

In addition to their Chinese themes in their works, it is noteworthy that the artists through their creative sentiments, led the way in restoring individual spirit, connotation and pursuit of aesthetics, have made innovations of artistic value. Such innovations are performed in the process of artistic development by integrating our long historical culture with painting tradition. They include the application of brush strokes, handling of colors and general appearance of the picturestructure.

The Chinese oil painting assumes the most unique significance in the history of art development within the present century. The Chinese oil painting, fortunately in the era of great changes, could fully evoke a lofty and authentic sentiment and give play to fervent passion. Thus, by combining the Western modern painting with the traditional Chinese painting, a new art road carrying forward the past into the future is opened up. This is an important milestone in the world art development. It is the result of great efforts made by the joint efforts of a huge art group of excellent artists after a strenuous work of nearly a century. Its significance requires our further serious exploitation and promotion. At present China has a fairly large creative painting force, capable of evoking profound influence on world painting art. Probably the New World painting art will henceforth undergo a new orientation. The value of time lies in its swift elapse. At this moment of momentary close and before the turn of history, which is in favor of art creation, we should seize the time and be good at exerting ourselves. Didn't such change ever emerge in the West?

3. The Art of Collection

The commodity value of an artwork is based on its academic value. Taking the value of a work of painting, the price we pay is the attribute value of the commodity coupled with its spiritual value. For an artwork without spiritual value or its spiritual value being very low, the appreciation of its value in the market will be much restricted in future. Because the rise or fall in the value of the art works, in the long run, it is pushed up by its spiritual value. This explains that in the record of artwork market during the past five decades, some oil paintings can enjoy a raise of a hundred or thousand times, far exceeding the sum accumulated through inflation. This accounts for the spiritual value of such work of art being affirmed. Those excellent works of art which can claim the highest price are probably due to the scenery of nature depicted, or in the cases of still life, portrait and pictures are created with living beauty, endowed with human emotion and mental attitude. Therefore, they should be given high evaluation to make self-affirmation.

To take an all-sided view of marketing management of works of art, especially the top grade works, one finds it, more often than not, more complex than any "commodity". Those engaged in such "products" are high intellectuals not "workers", while the buyers are those capable of gathering great wealth instead of the general public. There is certainly a lot to learn. The consumption experience of the common people is restricted to the traditional consuming basis. For works of art, by virtue of its highest consuming level, requires a process to accumulate the new consumption experience. Besides, such deals require the formation of much more connotations and greater monetary sum. Therefore, there are great limitations as well as difficulties. Never has the market for art works in any society, either ancient or present, in China or abroad, been popularized.

A manifestation of the raise of people's potential sense and understanding for art is to engage in collection. Collection, as its implication indicates, stems from a genuine love of arts. Simply out of satisfying the desire of possession may, of course, also be a great motive force to reach the goal. Only by real appreciation can one's understanding of the object of collection be promoted, his knowledge of collection enriched and significance of collection deepened. Collection is an art in its own right. If the collector takes collection as an art and be collection-oriented, not only can he enjoy the benefit of collection and interest but also can make contributions to society by making it more artistic. In fact, there are quite a number of people in society who have a mind to or are capable of collection. But due to various reasons, actually those who are preoccupied with collection comprise only a low proportion. From the overall and long-term view, the social market development of art is very broad, embracing many-sided value and meaning.

When we make selection of artwork as a tool of investment, we should clearly understand that it is most appropriate to look at it as a long-term investment. Whether the function of collection is value keeping or investment, it has to be long-term. In fact, as a collector, love and appreciation for the artwork are most important. The value keeping and investment are only subsidiary result and benefit. Though they constitute the most attractive portion to people. By virtue of its astonishing ability to appreciate in value, it has become an outlet for investment which people attach greater and greater attention in the commercial society.

Mankind depends on an original instinct of a potential capability to maintain his survival and evolution. Through the expression of various forms of beauty such as the ability for painting, sculpture and music, mankind gives expression to the pursuit of the source of life including the nature of beauty. It is one aspect of the overall capability for creating art. Art is the origin of all commodities. But there is a time lag in the evolution of the relationship between art and commodity market. If mankind's capability for developing art is exhausted, then the development of commodity market can also be ceased to advance. The material world will be stagnant and the evolution of mankind is restricted. The effect of art on commodity is not to show off monstrosity but to improve and raise the value of life. However, in respect of visible material, it requires rather great "quantity" in order to gain a bit of spiritual enhancement. Therefore, during the past several thousand years, there has been a sluggish progress in the overall value of mankind and it is not obvious in the sense of genuine evolution.

The Renaissance of Europe brought about benefit to the later flourishing growth of commodity economy in Europe and America. This is an extension of the effect of art on economic value. Therefore, while art promotes human spiritual civilization, it exerts far greater effect on material civilization. In human society, the development of art is like the storage of energy. Now in order to better develop the economy of the next millennium, we must create and provide new capability to push up the economy. We must make use of the fruits of economic achievements, actively and in a planned way initiate a new Renaissance movement. The result of it to the soul of mankind is to change the ideological structure of mankind, to raise the spiritual quality inherent in mankind and give play to the energy of people to the utmost, so as to develop and improve the commodity art of high quality.

The Renaissance of Western Europe spurred the modern commodity economy of this century. However, today we become aware that in the Western society, the development of art advancing slowly and unconsciously heading toward decline and witheredness, thus affecting the long-term growth of commodity market. It is especially on the eve of the next millennium when we are confronted with an economic challenge of great magnitude. By relying only on the motive force of the Western Renaissance, it is insufficient to meet the great demand of the future. Under the present population phenomenon, the world is faced with a dilemma of growth. (This change simultaneously effected the economic market and money market, and it is a factor of losing balance in regulation.) In future, China and India alone have 2 billion newly added "economic population" to form the expansion of market demand which will make the world face greater challenge. Whether in quality or in quantity of the commodity market, new source of driving power is required. Therefore, the Orient with its longer history and deeper cultural background may develop into a new source of driving power. By virtue of the formation of the Oriental commodity market, this cultural movement will be a new leap in the development of the Oriental society, which will assume an important significance on the economic development of China and Asia.

The new Renaissance movement will exert weighty influence on the structure of the modern economy. First, let us look at the matter from individual consumption behavior. In the new commodity market structure, under the influence of highly artistic commodity, the consumer surplus is raised to a rational state. Regardless of the same market structure (perfect, imperfect competition market), the increase of consumer surplus led to an increase in consumer welfare of entire society ?/FONT> an increase in the total utility of the entire consumer. Meanwhile, the commodity business of the factory or enterprise (imperfect competition market) is influenced by conduction of kinetic energy source of art. It approaches the direction of national social welfare instead of taking maximum enterprise profit as incidence. In this way, the loss of social resource is reduced to the minimum or more rationalized in producing surplus. Secondly, art composition conducts the influence of labor market and makes it more rational. Finally the influence on money market cannot be overlooked. The improvement in art transforms the structure of commodity economy, thus helping and providing improvements to the disequalibrium and incoordination between commercial and financial activities. While inquiring into more artistic fashion in commodity defects in the past commodity market, the price factor can be probed and re-oriented. Models of new and refined art commodity market can be developed to further raise efficiency and proceed to higher system of cultured price function Viewed from art and the law of economic growth, during the 20th century, the development of art in economy prosperously developed countries in Europe, America and Japan has not followed in step with the prosperous economy. This phenomenon runs counter against the law of history in the past several thousand years. Looking back at human history of the past several thousand years, basically the development of art synchronized with that of economy. Typical examples can be found in the cases of ancient Greece, Rome and China's Han and Tang dynasties. Among the causes, one of them being in the past history all the art development both in the East and the West, was generated from a specific and clear-cut creative orientation and demand initiated from top to bottom. It made people entertain a feeling of mission toward society.

In the commodity economy society, the importance of art is actually fundamental and eternal. However, the problem is, more often than not, liable to be neglected. All advanced countries, no matter among the people or government, attach great importance to artists and the promotion of art prosperity. But in the four small dragons of Asia: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea, in relation to countries in Europe, America and Japan, the art level and sense of art in the former countries are still low. The four countries or regions are respectively different in the property and type of their governments. In the past they all did not attach importance to art development. As they had been too much occupied with economic work to give consideration to art. This is but one of the reasons. The main cause remains still the lack of understanding of art on the part of leaders. In recent years, of course, thanks to the rapid economic development, they began to pay attention to art market and started to act. For developing countries, art and economic development should be developed in direct proportion, but more importantly, art should exert greater influence on economic development, especially the developing stage of high level. Among the famous brands enjoying, popularity in Asia, the majority are from the Western advanced countries. The so-called famous brand products lie in their excellent qualities, properties and appearance. They are manufactured under rigorous and serious attitude and technical virtuous guidance. Up to the present, almost all-manufacturing regions in Asia are still mainly imitations and plagiarizing foreign products. In the wake of Renaissance, Western Europe enjoyed flourishing development in art, which became popularized throughout the stratum in society. Consequently there was a general enhancement of the peoples art sense and art level. It is naturally a rational cause and effect to find a society which have experienced a long-term cultivation and influence, the people were able to produce relatively high level commodities for daily use in appearance, color and quality.

Since the work of art is the origin of all commodities, the idea created in the commodity world can all be traced to works of art as the foundation. Therefore, in China where economic development has entered from primary stage into high level stage, it is of great importance to keep a leading edge in the future competition era full of contentions. China may even lead the world market. To bring into play our commodity culture will depend on our concerted action in popularizing potential capability. Assume the Western society after a cyclical regulation in its business cycle, ushers in a long period of developing stage. At the same time, the developing countries of Asia having undergone a greater improvement, the production costs have enjoyed a more advanced condition than the West. Given the equal conditions of production costs, the discrepancy in human quality, especially the potential sense in art and substance are crucial in deciding the economic superiority of the new era.

Art should serve society. It has been so for the past several thousand years both in the East and the West. In time of revolution, naturally art should serve the revolution. For instance, the works of art produced during the years of war and revolution were immortal as they embodied extremely high emotion of mankind. Viewed from the angle of entire creation of the universe, artists themselves also are said as a tool. Art is often worked through government and society, especially in a great era. The artists are guided to dedicate their best efforts by society and its standard from which a kind of environmental force is extended.

In the overseas regions, many overseas Chinese settled in compact community. As a result of several decades of economic evolution, there has been a raise of economic ability belonging to art commodity, and at the same time, there is also an elevation in the ability for appreciation and enjoyment of art works. Especially during the time after 1980s, the situation became more obvious. Speaking of overseas Chinese, we should understand that many of them emigrated abroad after the 1940s. The majority of overseas Chinese big enterprises went abroad as young students. While making a living abroad, they experienced all kinds of hardships and arduous struggle and did not have the chance to receive a regular education. Therefore, in contrast to the Western enterprises that were brought up in an environment of strong art atmosphere by their forefathers, naturally, they were cultivated to grow up with artistic taste. This explains why the overseas Chinese enterprisers are lacking of artistic taste. Probably such situation can be changed in their second or third generation as the development of art is closely linked with that of society. In the days to come, the development of Chinese economy will be influenced by foreign countries, especially by the West. The Westernization in daily life and culture to a certain extent, has been going on along a certain track. Under the circumstances, the most important and ultimate elements of cultural art tradition, which maintains the orthodox system of Chinese nation, should require the middle age and young artists to be guardians. Otherwise, granted even our country becomes prosperous materially in future, our national spirit will be lost. As a result of the cultural level of not a few Chinese enterprisers falls far short of the actual requirement, this phenomenon which is temporary and transitionally is unfavorable for social development and will pound the excellent tradition to keep social honesty, kindness and justice. Its transverse development will bring about a variable hard to predict. As the largest nation of culture and art, we cannot underestimate its undesirable effect.

Artists have given and bestowed much to the world, which is filled with agony and sufferings. Without the assistance of artists, people also can have enough understanding of the worldly ugliness and sufferings. But the greatness of artists that is worthy our respect lies in: Through the works of art, artists turn people's souls which have deviated from worldly beauty into establishing a stronger yearning for life and encourage people to create with greater vitality.

On the developing basis of our present oil painting art, we can make use of the Chinese traditional art, accumulated in our treasure house that came down in one continuous line. We should carry forward the concept of propelling both art and economy, through epoch-making innovation, to release much more and greater creative power. We should carry forward modern art and promote economic growth. In the global economic competition, we must keep a more enduring edge. We believe the Chinese oil painting is bound to exert profound influence and significance in the future historical development of world art.