The so-called sketch is to convey the vitality and different characteristics of flowers and birds. The so-called "Yu Xing" is to express the author's unique feelings through the description of flowers, birds and plants, and to express his will by means similar to those in China's poems. The so-called freehand brushwork is to emphasize the leading role of meaning, and to pursue the expression of the author's feelings as vividly as China's calligraphy art, without being bound by the description of objects.
The conception of China's flower-and-bird painting is often related to personnel. Not for painting flowers and birds, nor for copying nature, but by grasping the encounter between animals and plants and people's lives and some connection between thoughts and feelings to strengthen performance. Ancient flower-and-bird painting not only pays attention to realism, but also attaches great importance to the expression of the concept of beauty and goodness, emphasizing its pleasing function, and advocates that people's interest, sentiment and spiritual life can be influenced through the creation and appreciation of flower-and-bird painting to express the author's inner thoughts and pursuits.
This is reflected in the shape. China's flower-and-bird paintings attach importance to similarities and differences, so as to express the object and the author's thoughts. In composition, ancient flower-and-bird paintings highlight the main body, are good at tailoring, and will seek the contrast between reality and reality in layout. Moreover, in freehand flower-and-bird painting, they are especially good at writing poems and sentences that give full play to the meaning of painting with calligraphy coordinated with the style of painting, supplemented by seals, and become a comprehensive art form based on painting.
In terms of painting methods, flower-and-bird painting is more specific than landscape painting and more colorful than figure painting, so meticulous painting is realistic or has a certain decorative meaning, and freehand flower-and-bird painting is more concise and procedural. Song Dynasty is the mature and heyday of flower-and-bird painting, which is perfect in terms of pictographic images, artistic conception creation, pen and ink skills and so on. Flower-and-bird painting in the early Northern Song Dynasty mainly inherited the traditions of the Five Dynasties, and the painting methods were mostly inherited from Xu Xi and Huang Quan, while the rich style of corpus luteum "adding color to outline and enriching the purpose" was more popular with the world. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, due to Song Huizong and Evonne's special interest in painting, under his vigorous advocacy, the flower-and-bird painting school, which was mainly academic, further developed into meticulous realism, with neat and delicate brushwork, which made meticulous flower-and-bird painting reach its peak.
From the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, the creation of flower-and-bird paintings lasted for a long time, and showed a diversified situation of combining work and writing, ink and color, flowers and birds, trees and stones, mountains and rivers, etc. , formed a novel and colorful face, not only a small picture album, but also a long giant system. From Huizong in the Northern Song Dynasty to Ningzong in the Southern Song Dynasty, there are the most works, and the styles are mostly rigorous, exquisite and meticulous. The pictures are small and big, full of interest.