Observing from history of art, the Eastern painting has much difference with Western painting.
It is probably because the eastern art attaches importance to subjectivity, and the western art places value upon objectivity. Therefore the traditional Chinese painting pays attention to romantic charm, while the western painting lays emphasis on being similar in appearance.
The traditional Chinese painting is commonly using lines, but in western painting all of the lines are not notable. The most of lines are not originally owned by objects, instead they are used by painters to show the boundaries between two objects. For example, in the traditional Chinese painting, the mountains and water, and flowers, actually all of them have no lines, but the painters often use lines.
Painting a figure, it is necessary to draw the lines, and then fill in the colour; those lines which are outlined in clothes are called “smocking”. Bird-and-flower painting is a kind of Chinese painting named after its subject matter. Normally, most bird-and-flower paintings belong to the scholar-artist style of Chinese painting.
Drawing flowers and birds, the method exists also as drawing lines first and then replenishing colours, such as meticulous paintings of flowers and birds. Those lines are all required to possess the technique of writing. Also, this kind of lines does not only mean being treated only as borderlines or adumbrations, they also have the effect of expressing the figure’s sensation or the characters of objects.
In traditional Chinese painting, the names of lines of mountains and water are specially called as “chapping”, which is used to show the shades and texture of rocks and mountains by light ink strokes. In figure painting the lines of people are specially called as “smocking”. Those are all abstruse painstaking of disquisition. The western painting is different, for every boundary of objects does not need retouch on it.
In general appearance of western painting, the importance is attached to colour instead of lines, such as in oil paintings, commonly only colours are used to distinguish the boundaries among objects, and on the boundaries it does not need depicting lines. In western painting groups they also depict lines, however this kind of lines only acts on contours. Sketching such as pencil drawings and charcoal drawings, in the objects the lines are also act on such effect.
Therefore the western paintings are very similar to practicalities, the traditional Chinese painting are not like entities, instead they are obviously paintings when people have a look at it negligently.
The traditional Chinese painting does not pay attention to Scenography, but the western painting extremely pay attention to Scenography. Scenography is that when someone paint, shows all the perspectives of an object in two dimension, and let it owns the effect of distance and discretion of space and solid. Because the phenomenon of clairvoyance is showing bigger when closer and smaller when farther, therefore it is also called “method of distance”. The western painting generally use focus perspective, it is the same as taking photographs, fixing at one point, and being limited by space, the picture being taken into the camera will be taken strictly.
Trying having a look at the quarters, houses, furniture, implements and so on, the form and structures are all very accurate, like the practicality. If it is painting the scenery of corridor, it has the impudence to manifest the distance of a few meters in only a few decimetres. If it is depicting the frontage of railway, it can go so far as to showing a few kilometres in only a few decimetres.
The Chinese painting is different, the traditional Chinese paint doesn’t devote particular care to focus perspective, and it almost doesn’t lay stress on the photochromic of objects in nature, neither does it stick to the similarity of object appearance, instead more focus on giving expression to subjective sentiment of the painter. The Chinese paintings are particular about “using appearance to show the spirit”, pursuing for a kind of feeling of “exquisite between similar and dissimilar”; comparing with this situation the western painting strive for “using appearance to show the form”, of course, in the procedure of production, they also pay attention to the expression of showing “spirit”. However they are fastidious about the entirety, generalize of a picture. Someone says, the western painting is the “reappearance” art, the Chinese painting is the art of “manifestation”, it is quite reasonable.
The composition of Chinese painting usually doesn’t follow the golden rule in Western art, instead they use long rolls, or vertical shaft, the proportion of length-width ratio loses its balance. However it can express greatly the particular prospect and the subjective interests. The Chinese painters don’t always fixed in one point for drawing, and neither are they confined by fixed sight field. It can move the footing spot and paint, according to painter’s feeling and demand, taking all visible and invisible landscapes into its own picture. This kind of perspective method is called dispersing perspective, or multi-spot perspective. For example, the famous painting in Northern Song Dynasty, < Along the River During the Qingming Festival> reflect the complicated and spectacular scenery in capital city of Northern Song. In the 5.28-meter long picture, there are 814 humans, 28 boats, 60 animals, 30 buildings, 20 vehicles, nine sedan chairs, and 170 trees drawn . Treating the Bian river as centre, painting from outskirts far away to boisterous “rainbow bridge”; not only the closer buildings and trees can be seen, but also deep streets and rivers far away; not only the walkers can be seen in the bridge, but the ships under the bridge can be seen as well. The arc of the stone bridge is much taller than that of the wooden original, and where the original had a boat about to crash into the bridge, the reinterpretation has a boat being methodically guided under the bridge by ropes, pulled by men ashore, several other large boats dutifully waiting their turn, undisturbed. In the hand scrolls of Chinese painting, mountains and water stretch for kilometres; in the vertical portraits, the mountains and waters layer after layer.
The Chinese painting doesn’t place value upon background, but western painting does very much. In Chinese painting, such as depicting wintersweets, there will be one branch hang in the space, all around is blank space. Depicting figures, a person hung in the sky, like fly up to the cloudy regions. Therefore the drawing paper is remained much blank space. The very long paper, in the lower part there is a plant or a piece of stone, will become a portrait. Western painting is quite different, all things should have background, such as fruits, the background is the table. The figure has the background such as indoor or field. Therefore the picture will be fully scrawled, no blank remained. The distinguish between Chinese painting and western painting, is also happened because the principle of realism and vivid. The western painting must paint background for realism, and Chinese paint must delete trivial to highlight its theme, to brightly show the impression.
The subject matters in Chinese painting are mainly the nature, in western it is human beings. Before Han dynasty in Chinese painting, the main subject is also people. However when it reached Tang dynasty, the landscape painting promptly became independent. Until now, mountains and water are usually the formal objects of Chinese painting. First, the mountains and water, flowers and birds are usually symbols, there is certain subjective part in them, Related to the Four Gentlemen are The Flowers of the Four Seasons, which consist of the orchid (spring), the lotus (summer), thechrysanthemum (autumn) and the plum blossom (winter). They contain three of the elements of the Four Gentlemen. A painting or decoration incorporating all four plants is also known as the "Four Gentlemen".
For example, drawing wintersweets, pine trees or chrysanthemums, in order to emblematize their bravery for fighting with ice and snow. Ancient people paint landscape in order to eulogizing negative seclusion consideration, for instance,
But in western painting perspective, there’s no such situation.
From the generation of ancient Greece, painters always utilize figures as the major subject. The religion paintings in mediaeval generation, most of them use public as the theme, such as
Judging from opinions above, about difference between Chinese paintings and Western ones, it is clear that the Chinese paintings have lofty interests, while Western paintings have amiable interests. Therefore for art studying, Western painting is not profound as Chinese painting. However for appreciation of public, the Chinese paintings are not common enough as Western ones.
