Let's talk about ancient Greece, which is a representative period in western artistic creation. At that time, China was the period when Confucianism came into being and prevailed. This is also a representative starting point for comparing Chinese and western cultures. When it comes to art, it is inevitable to talk about culture. China people always regard implication as beauty, which is the virtue of China people, and it is also a civilization and belongs to human nature. Westerners are often very direct in some behaviors. Westerners like to hug and kiss when greeting, which is a good proof. They don't feel like hooligans shaking hands with the opposite sex in China at all. This is the cultural difference between China and the West. As the main body of this culture, people show such differences in external behavior characteristics. Art, as a means of expression that people act on objective things, directly reflects people's subjective consciousness. Understand the objective things through people's senses, get the initial concept, re-understand the objective things through people's subjective consciousness, and finally create the objective things for the second time in combination with their own unique expression. This is the process of art formation, which is the combination of objective things and people's subjective consciousness to achieve perfection and produce art. Art can be said to be a concept and people's recognition of artists' creation. The reason why art becomes art is precisely because it conforms to the characteristics of human nature, not simply expressing objective things themselves, but combining people's views on objective things and expressing objective things from the perspective of human nature. This expression is often associated with the artist's personal way of thinking, which leads to the existence of artistic differences. To talk about the differences between Chinese and western arts, we need to think about the differences of human characteristics from a cultural perspective.
As mentioned earlier, China people are implicit, while westerners are direct, which is the biggest difference between Chinese and western art in the form of expression. Let's go back to ancient Greece, when most western works of art, such as architecture, sculpture, oil painting, etc. You can find an objective cognition that artists like-the human body. In western architectural sculpture, the human body, as the object of cognition, is regarded as a kind of beauty and is praised repeatedly. Today, artists are pursuing a more direct way to express the beauty of the human body, so their artistic style is more direct in western artistic expression. Body art was introduced into China only in modern times, and it is still difficult to be accepted by Chinese people. Of course, the body art mentioned here is just an example to prove the differences between Chinese and western artistic characteristics. China pays attention to a kind of artistic beauty, which is hazy and lyrical, and often expresses the artist's subjective consciousness itself. Objective things are just carriers of expression, such as poetry, words and language, and artists integrate their personal feelings and express them. The implicit characteristics of China's art can be proved by China's traditional Chinese paintings. Some people say that Chinese painting is actually writing poetry, and I quite agree. Like China's ancient poems, they pay attention to the beauty of artistic conception, and they pay more attention to expressing the author's consciousness. Chinese painting is not as direct and vivid as western oil painting, but its style is more subtle. Often add personal emotional factors, turn static into dynamic, turn static into static, seek emotional sustenance in flowers and trees, and pay attention to expressing personal feelings implicitly and tactfully with the help of objective things. For example, in an ancient poem, "the petals have been like tears, and the lonely bird has sung grief." Flowers don't cry, birds don't get surprised, but it is the poet who transfers his feelings to the objective object he knows. This is an implicit expression and an artistic conception. Western art praises objective things more directly. They are more concerned about the existing form of beauty and emphasize the object of expressing cognition, rather than the subject of expressing cognition-human emotional factors. Of course, when emotion is the object of cognition, they will pay full attention to it and express it. In this regard, I would like to quote the great artist Beethoven. His artistic work Destiny is a good example. It expresses Beethoven's personal feelings, so it is very impressive! As far as people's feelings are simply excluded as cognitive objects, western artists are more concerned about how to express the object itself more vividly. The difference is only in the means of expression, but the content is the same. This is very different from China's art, and this difference comes entirely from the cultural differences between China and the West.
Speaking of the characteristics of western art, let's take a look at the Mona Lisa, a stunning work by the great western painter Leonardo da Vinci. In order to capture this moment, the artist himself tries his best to find an object of the artist's emotional mind, which is an existing concept in his consciousness. However, in the eyes of artists, it is not imaginary, it is completely realistic. It is to have a real object as a reference, which is exactly the same as or very similar to what it wants to express. To some extent, it is a kind of transcendence, surpassing the real thing. It is objectively expressed by the artist's hand, which is direct and realistic. When we see such a work of art, we will feel that there is indeed a person in this world who produced such a beautiful moment, and the artist recorded it.
Of course, when it comes to the differences between Chinese and Western artistic features, it does not mean that China is better than the West, nor does it mean that the West is better than China. This is just a difference. There is no question of who is good and who is bad. Different standards will produce different results. The characteristics of Chinese and western art are recognized by their respective cultures. The implicit characteristics of China artists and the direct expression of western artists have produced different artistic beauty. Here, I just start with what I think is an obvious feature in the comparison between Chinese and western human nature. Of course, as Chinese and western art, from different angles, it will have different characteristics, as the saying goes: different standards, different lengths.