In art, painting is the one that can freely describe everything, express the artist's spirit and fantasy directly and concisely, and easily arouse people's strong aesthetic desire.
The Qin and Han Dynasties were the first important period when Chinese painting was prosperous and vibrant. Paintings of the Qin and Han Dynasties inherited the realistic style and expression methods created during the Warring States Period, broke through the shackles of practical, decorative and mysterious styles of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, demonstrated the clear requirements and power of this art, and shone with an almost unrestrained style. the light of freedom.
Although Qin Shihuang implemented cultural control and suppressed academic studies, the development of painting did not stop. Qin Shihuang pursued luxury and enjoyment, carried out large-scale construction projects, and built palaces. The roof beams, columns, mountain joints, walls, doors and windows all need to be decorated with paintings. Paintings were an essential embellishment of courtly life, and archeology has provided proof of this. The remaining murals at the Qin Palace ruins attract people's attention today. The painting industry in the Western Han Dynasty flourished, and the political and ethical functions of painting as "adult education" and "helping others" were valued and promoted by the ruling class. Painting was widely used to promote ethics such as loyalty, filial piety, justice, etc., so the paintings of the Han Dynasty are known as "ethical paintings". For example, Emperor Xuan of the Western Han Dynasty and Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty successively created large-scale murals of the founding heroes. Those who were not included in the paintings were shamed by their descendants. It can be seen that painting exerted a huge political influence. On the other hand, paintings are still necessary items that help to beautify real life, such as decorative paintings attached to buildings and utensils.
The themes of Qin and Han paintings generally fall into three categories: First, they take all aspects of social real life as their themes. The large number of such works is related to the social fashion of the time. Because the emperors, nobles, and landowners of the Han Dynasty competed for extravagance during their lifetimes and simulated and depicted real life to show their magnificence, they also coveted the present world after death. They wanted to bring real life pictures underground and traced them in the tomb chambers, so they represented banquets, wars, music, dance, and carriages. Real life themes such as riding, acrobatics, customs, and production account for the largest proportion. Second, the theme is to promote ethics and morals such as loyalty, filial piety, justice, and justice. In the Han Dynasty, hundreds of schools of thought were deposed and Confucianism was the only one respected. Confucian ethics played an important political role in regulating people's thoughts and actions, and was deeply promoted and advocated by the ruling class. Therefore, there were many themes promoting political and religious ethics. Third, the theme of gods and monsters. The Han people are famous for worshiping immortals, being good at alchemy, being obsessed with prophecies, and seeking rich burials. Their ideology contains very strong elements of fantasy and romance, so such themes of gods and monsters also occupy a certain proportion.
The Qin and Han Dynasties inherited the painting practice since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and gradually formed and developed the tradition of realism, which requires realistic depictions of images. Zhang Heng (AD 78-139) of the Han Dynasty said: Painters are bad at painting dogs and horses, but are fond of painting ghosts and ghosts. Sincerity is difficult to describe with reality, and there is endless hypocrisy. ("Book of the Later Han Dynasty? Biography of Zhang Heng") This passage reveals two pieces of information. First, the artists of the Han Dynasty inherited the artistic views of Han Fei during the Warring States Period and required realistic paintings. Second, after all, painting in the Han Dynasty was still in the naive stage where it was difficult to describe reality. In addition to realistic outlines of objects, paintings in the Han Dynasty also required large-scale representations. Think of the big picture and avoid losing the big for the small. Liu An of the Han Dynasty wrote in "Huainanzi?" In the book "Speaking of Lin Xun", it is proposed that painting should avoid being careful about the hair and losing its appearance. Gao Yingzhu explains that it is to pay attention to the fine hair and pay attention to the small, otherwise it will lose its large appearance. That is to say, it requires grasping the proportion and expression of the object, and handling the local and overall relationship. On the other hand, the painting theory of the Han Dynasty already had requirements for spiritual and freehand painting. Proposed the Junxing theory, which has the significance of inheriting the past and linking the future. The so-called "junxiang" is to reflect the character's vitality and expression. Liu An in "Huainanzi?" "Speaking of Mountain Instructions" says that if a work depicts Xi Shi's face, although the image is very beautiful, but lacks a moving expression; if a painting depicts the warrior Meng Ben with large eyes, but no compelling power, then this cannot be regarded as a work. The failure of a successful work is that it does not express the spirit of the characters. The Han people’s theory of “Jun Xing” can be seen as the forerunner of the later theory of writing gods in shapes. Wang Yanshou of the Han Dynasty put forward the requirement for "Pictures of Heaven and Earth" in "Lu Lingguang Palace Fu" (around 150 AD) to record its appearance, entrust the paintings and follow the colors and images, and obtain its emotions. Writing down its appearance is to seek physical resemblance; reciting its emotions is to seek spiritual resemblance.
This insight laid a solid foundation for Gu Kaizhi’s theory of describing gods with shapes in the Eastern Jin Dynasty; and his theory of following colors, images, and categories was actually the forerunner of the later Southern Qi Xiehe’s theory of describing gods according to categories.
The artistic expression of Qin and Han paintings was crude in technique but distinctive in style. Its overall style is simple, powerful, distinctive and unrestrained. Of course, among the deep and majestic works, they are still too rough. The realistic techniques of most works are not high, the characters are mostly profiled, they lack in-depth and exquisite expression ability, and the expression form is not enough to match the rich content. The paintings of the Han Dynasty strived to grasp the general appearance and general trend, and had unique strengths in handling large scenes. In order to make up for the weakness of his low modeling ability, when describing the characters, he often combines the plot and atmosphere, and uses exaggerated techniques to focus on the expression of expressions to maximize his expressiveness.
The picture structure of Han paintings has not yet departed from the customary parallel and filling structure, but the whole picture is full and warm, the layout is dense and charming, and the main tone is clear but not ambiguous. The artists of the Han Dynasty The management of character relationships and the presentation of important plots are of a high level. Business position is a method of dealing with space. The Han people already have a variety of methods of dealing with space. For example, through the changes of dispersion and gathering, combined with the background of pavilions and mountains, the sense of space in the front, rear, left and right is expressed. The most common expression of the distance relationship between front and back is often explained by the position of up and down. The one at the bottom of the picture is the foreground, and the one at the top is the background. Its characteristic is that the front and rear backgrounds rarely overlap, and the distant scenery is not reduced proportionally due to distance. This way of expression in which scenery may appear in every part of the picture is the scatter-point composition method. This method can be seen in the late Eastern Han Dynasty tomb murals in Dahuting, Mi County, Henan Province, and the Eastern Han Dynasty tomb murals in Helinger, Inner Mongolia. The painting method of the table or mat does not shrink the back end due to the long distance. What is drawn is an approximation. Parallel quadrilaterals, from a modern Western perspective point of view, have no vanishing points and use parallel perspective. This kind of example is also common in the stone portraits of the Han Dynasty. Its advantage is that as long as the picture allows, the depth of the picture can be expressed wherever the parallel lines go. However, it lacks a sense of depth in space, which is different from the perspective of the Western Renaissance. Drawing method. Scattered point composition has become a characteristic of Chinese painting and still has great influence today. The brush strokes and lines used by the Han people to depict images laid the foundation for later generations of Chinese paintings. The Han people inherited the expressive techniques of Chu silk paintings during the Warring States Period. They were extremely proficient in the techniques and had very superb skills. Especially in the use of brushes, they often had a tendency to use brushes to outline the dynamics and expressions of the characters with a few strokes, with the feeling of defeating more with less. Often the body is flying, the expression is calm, and the lines are accurate and smooth. The slender, straight and elastic long lines known as ancient gossamer paintings in the Western Han Dynasty silk paintings at Mawangdui in Changsha and the undulating and thick lines in the murals of Bu Qianqiu's tomb in Luoyang together constitute the two major types of Chinese lines. system.
What is more important is that the changes in the lightness, weight, speed, softness and firmness of the brushstrokes reveal the corresponding rhythm of the artist's heart and hand, revealing the brushwork and spirit full of Chinese sentiment. In terms of coloring, Qin and Han painters widely used colors such as vermilion, dark red, light red, yellow, earthy yellow, red yellow, cyan, green, light blue, dark black, light black, white, etc., and gave full play to the performance and skills of color. , mastered the techniques of contrast and harmony, the use of light and heavy tones, and the rendering of flat paint. The traditional Chinese style of fine brushwork and heavy color had its precedent in the Han Dynasty. In addition, the paintings of the Han Dynasty have reached a very high level in expressing dynamics such as the dancing of people, the turbulence of clouds, and the running of animals.
The status of painters in Qin and Han Dynasties was not high. They were skilled craftsmen, one of the hundreds of craftsmen, called painters. Like craftsmen, they could only belong to the royal government and be driven by conscripts to decorate various utensils, carriages, clothing and banners in the palace, as well as the walls of palace tombs. Most of their names and deeds are unknown, and only a few names have been passed down or discovered by archaeology. For example, the lacquerware unearthed from the Han Dynasty Tomb in Lelang was accompanied by a date and the name of the painter. Painter Gongwen, Painter Ding, Painter Chang, and Painter Guang are just a few examples. These people are all folk painters and are the basic team of Qin and Han paintings. There are only six Western Han painters recorded in historical records, and they were all court painters.
Painter Mao Yanshou is good at human figures, both ugly and good, old and young, and they must be true to their true form. Painters Chen Chang, Liu Bai, and Gong Kuan also painted cows, horses, and birds. Painters Yang Wang and Fan Yu are also known for their good coloring (Xijing Miscellaneous Notes, Vol. two). Among them, Mao Yanshou, who painted the portrait of Wang Zhaojun, is the most well-known. Painting in the Eastern Han Dynasty began to be valued by some scholar-bureaucrats, and some high-ranking officials, literati, and scientists were also good at painting. For example, Zhang Heng, the official minister in the palace, and the Prime Minister of Hejian, were both famous writers, scientists, and outstanding painters. Zhao Qiqin, a native of Changling (North Xianyang), painted an inscription for his Shouzang (tomb). He changed the popular theme of enjoyment and banquet at that time and painted the four pre-Qin politicians Zichan, Ji Zha, Yan Ying and Shuxiang whom he admired. Portrait, also painted his own portrait ("Book of the Later Han Dynasty? Biography of Zhao Qi"). During the reign of Emperor Huan, Liu Bao, the prefect of Shu County, was also a painter. It is said that he once painted "Picture of Clouds and Han", which made people feel hot when they saw it; and "Picture of North Wind", which made people feel cool when they saw it ("Records of Famous Paintings of the Past Dynasties"). Cai Yong (AD 132-192), a native of Chenliu (Qi County, Henan) in the late Han Dynasty, was a famous literary historian, calligrapher and painter. He once painted Chiquanhou, generals and ministers of the five generations in the province, and he studied painting of Confucius and his seventy-two disciples at Hongdumen. Liu Dan and Yang Lu were also famous court painters, and they once painted at Hongdumen. The participation of literati and officials meant that the status and artistry of painting had been improved.
The painting art of the Qin and Han Dynasties generally includes palace and temple murals, tomb murals, silk paintings, woodcuts and wooden slip paintings, crafts and decorative paintings, etc. It is a stone portrait art that has both the characteristics of painting and sculpture.