Hong Kong Visual Arts Appreciation – Web-based course for secondary school teachers (Painting) Author: Ivy LIN 1. An Introduction to the Development of Western Painting. When did people start painting? This question is fundamental yet complex. In the West, the earliest known wall paintings from as early as 15,000-10,000 B.C. were discovered in the Altamira Cave in Spain (Fig. 1) and in the Lascaux Cave in France (horse) (Fig.2). These wall paintings demonstrate how people from the Stone Age began painting vivid and life-like representations of objects through careful observation. Primitive Western paintings were used in religious rituals, and as painting developed, religious art became central to Western art. Most ancient Western paintings were painted on vessels or on the walls of caves. They had several functions: chronicling history, glorifying certain deeds and prayer. Stone Age cave paintings principally depict scenes of herding and hunting, whereas paintings on tomb walls from the Egyptian and Assyrian Empires show mythological representations and scenes of everyday reflecting man’s quest for eternal life. The introduction of the “foreshortening” technique1 (Fig. 3) in early Greek art marked one of the major accomplishments of Archaic Greek art. It laid the foundation for perspective adopted by later painters and paved the way for the use of an objective, rational and analytic method to represent nature. The Roman Empire adopted the fine artistic traditions of Greece as exemplified by Christian painting which began to flourish in Europe during the time of Emperor Constantine. Byzantine mosaic art was followed by Gothic stained glass in the Middle Ages. In turn a revolutionary artistic movement, the Renaissance2, began in Italy in the 14th century, sparked off by social and economic changes which produced a new merchant class. Painters began to seek new solutions to formal and visual problems and started scientific experimentation in pursuit of realism and perfect human form. Based on scientific experimentation they developed perspective by using theories of anatomy they created a system by which all objects in a painting are related both proportionally and rationally. This made it possible to represent three-dimensional space convincingly on a flat surface. The Italian Renaissance promoted creativity and this allowed the style of Western painting to mature. This period is significant because it laid the foundation for the theory of painting and perfected the techniques which would greatly influence artists over the subsequent centuries. Emerging in Italy in the mid-17th century, Baroque art, which followed Mannerism3, used illusion, colour, light and movement to enhance the emotional power of subjects. Baroque evolved into Rococo 4 art which emphasised decoration characterized by lightness, delicacy, and elaborate ornamentation. It was popular for a short period in France in the 18th century. After the mid-18th century, Rococo art was gradually superseded by Neoclassicism5, which was marked by the emulation of Graeco-Roman forms. This, in turn, was replaced © All rights reserved. No portion of the material may be reproduced in any form by any means, without written consent. Hong Kong Museum of Art and Arts Education Section, Education and Manpower Bureau 1 Hong Kong Visual Arts Appreciation – Web-based course for secondary school teachers (Painting) Author: Ivy LIN by Romanticism6, which dominated Europe in the early 19th century. Inspired by social, political and historical changes, and even by the discovery of ancient relics, artists discarded the rational and harmonious principles of painting in pursuit of an expression of emotion to represent an imperfect world. The period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century witnessed the emergence of Impressionist 7 paintings in France and the rise of Modernism following the French and Industrial Revolutions. Impressionists rejected the formalism and sentimentality of academic art, seeking to use new technological devices and find new answers to the question of how to represent art. The rise of an increasingly powerful middle class (bourgeoisie) also changed demand and tastes in the art market and the kinds of serious subjects previously favoured by noble patrons were gradually replaced by light-hearted, easily comprehensible images. By this time, traditional painting seemed too unpopular to ever be reinstated in mainstream art. Impressionist painters chose to paint transient moments in order to deride the quest for eternity in traditional painting. They portrayed an emotional response and used scientific analytic methods to capture the effect of natural light and colour on objects at a particular moment in time. They were unconcerned about the traditional demands of incorporating morals and ideals into paintings. Instead, they used primary colors, the naturalness and juxtaposition of these bright colours and patterns reflecting a playfulness and light-hearted consumerist attitude. Neo-Impressionism 8 grew out of Impressionism. As a reaction against the loose painting requirements of Impressionism, artists gradually developed other techniques by moving away from naturalism. Paul Cezanne 9 (1839-1906) aimed to create a harmonious composition, exploring the interaction between the properties of line, plane and colour, while Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) emphasized the expression of emotions through every possible distortion and combination of colour. The revolutionary works by the Impressionists paved way for the development of Cubism10 and Fauvism11 in France in the early 20th century. While Cubism stresses the structure of the pictorial surface, Fauvism emphasises the expressiveness of colour and line. Yet, another contemporary movement, Expressionism12, developed in Germany, sought to depict a movement or tendency striving to express subject feelings and emotion rather than reality or objectivity in nature. Like Expressionists, Surrealists13 emphasised the depiction of dreams and subconscious fantasies in their work. With social, industrial and urban advances, during the 19th century, naturalism was no relevent to society. Painters were now confronted with tall buildings and machinery. In the early 20th century, given © All rights reserved. No portion of the material may be reproduced in any form by any means, without written consent. Hong Kong Museum of Art and Arts Education Section, Education and Manpower Bureau 2 Hong Kong Visual Arts Appreciation – Web-based course for secondary school teachers (Painting) Author: Ivy LIN this new view of the world, many artists reacted against the tradition of imitating nature by using forms, colours and abstract space to represent or to create a “reality” which dated back to 10th century European painting. The antecedents of abstract art can be traced back to the 19th century and to styles of painting in which the accurate depiction of reality was losing its primacy as the painter's aim. There are two main tendencies in abstract art: to have the subject of an artwork “abstracted” from natural appearance or pure abstraction, where non-representational forms and colours are used without any reference to the external appearance of the physical world in order to express the artist’s personality and feelings. Sometimes inspired by music, nature or urban landscapes, paintings in the former group are composed of independent forms and colours. This tendency has led to the rise of New Objectivity 14 in Germany and Neo-plasticism15 in the Netherlands. Pure abstraction later developed into two different styles, lyrical abstraction16 and geometric abstraction17. The former became the precursor of abstract expressionism and action painting18 which became popular in the United States and Art Informal in France in the 1950s. Following this, artists began to concentrate on the exploration of spirituality and symbolism in the artistic vocabulary and media. This resulted in n ascetic, pure and serious kind of art which was then overtaken by allegorical or mannerist art in the 1980s with the rise of Postmodernism19. It used figurative images to allude to tradition and mythology and represents a reversal of progressive, avant-garde modernism. © All rights reserved. No portion of the material may be reproduced in any form by any means, without written consent. Hong Kong Museum of Art and Arts Education Section, Education and Manpower Bureau 3 Hong Kong Visual Arts Appreciation – Web-based course for secondary school teachers (Painting) Author: Ivy LIN II. Early Western Painting in China 2.1 The Influx of Western Culture to China The influx of western culture to China can be traced back to the Ming(1368–1644) and Qing(1644-1911) Dynasties when Catholic and Jesuit missionaries introduced Western religion, culture and art to China. Unlike the literati tradition of Chinese painting, humanities and sciences were combined in Western painting. To the court of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Western painting was no doubt something unique and new. During the Ming Dynasty, the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci(1552-1610) offered the Chinese emperor Shen Zong two religious paintings, thereby opening the eyes of the courtiers to Western art. The key figure who systematically introduced Western painting to China was an Italian Jesuit, Lang Shining20, (Giuseppe Castiglione, 1688-1766). He came to China in 1715 (the 54th year of the reign of Kangxi) and worked as a court painter under three successive reigns: Kangxi(1662-1722), Yongzheng(1723-1735)