What are the differences between Chinese painting and Western painting?

The difference between Chinese painting and Western painting is: the emphasis of painting is different; the use of lines is different; Chinese painting does not pay attention to perspective, while Western painting attaches great importance to perspective; Chinese painting does not pay attention to anatomy, and Western figure painting pays great attention to it. Emphasis on anatomy; Chinese painting does not emphasize background, while Western painting attaches great importance to background; the subject matter of Eastern painting is mainly nature, while the subject matter of Western painting is mainly human figures.

Speaking of Chinese paintings, most people must be familiar with Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", Huang Gongwang's "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains", and Wang Ximeng's "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". Representative works of Western famous paintings include Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Van Gogh's "Sunflowers". As world-famous paintings, what are the differences between Chinese paintings and Western paintings?

The main differences are as follows:

1. The focus of painting is different. Eastern art emphasizes subjectivity, while Western art emphasizes objectivity. Eastern art is poetic, Western art is dramatic. Therefore, in painting, Chinese painting emphasizes charm, while Western painting emphasizes similarity.

2. The use of lines is different. Lines are widely used in Chinese painting, which means that Chinese calligraphy and painting have the same origin. Painting is like writing, free and expressive, revealing your mind. The lines in Western paintings are not obvious. At the end of the 19th century, when Westerners saw the flying lines in Chinese paintings, they admired them very much and imitated them, which became "Post-Impressionism". However, all Western paintings before Post-Impressionism had inconspicuous lines.

3. Chinese painting does not pay attention to perspective. The vertical layout of Chinese painting, with overlapping mountains and rivers, seems to be what you see from an airplane, because Chinese people paint like poetry. They paint wherever they think. Cannot be bound by perspective. Western painting attaches great importance to perspective. Western painting strives to resemble the real thing, so it pays great attention to perspective.

4. Chinese painting does not talk about anatomy. The purpose of Chinese painting of figures is only to express the characteristics of the figure's posture, but not the size and proportion of the various parts of the figure. Western figure painting attaches great importance to anatomy, because Western painting pays attention to realism and must depict the human body like a real human body.

5. Chinese painting does not emphasize the background, but emphasizes conveying the spirit. Therefore, it is necessary to delete trivial matters and close up the subject in order to make a strong impression. Western painting attaches great importance to background, and Western painting emphasizes realism, so the background must be depicted.

6. The themes of Eastern paintings are mainly nature, while the themes of Western paintings are mainly human figures.

The differences in the roots of Eastern and Western philosophies are reflected in differences in artistic works. Chinese culture is based on Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, so it develops the wisdom of the East, while the West is dominated by rational thinking represented by Plato. The existence of two different philosophies inevitably leads to differences in the way of thinking.

This is reflected in the works of art. The East pays more attention to the expression of emotions and pursues the height of realm, while the West pays more attention to techniques and realism.

Because the differences between Eastern and Western cultures have brought about differences in paintings, I hope that the two kinds of wisdom can learn from each other and create better works in the future.