INTERPRETING EUROPEAN ART IN CHINA’S PAINTING

Abstract

Interpretation itself is one of the key phenomena of culture and social reality. What is the integrity of a work of art? By virtue of what does it get its individuality? What creates the unity of the art work and what individualizes it? What is its “center”? These questions drive the consideration of interpretation prerequisites to the highest point. Interpretation in art is replacing the original meaning of a certain artistic phenomenon by a different, independent meaning within each new mental representation system. Chinese artists’ interest was not in whether reality corresponds to some objective prototypes but whether it is loyal to the inner truth of life and to the deepest roots of human experience. For this reason, many masters of modern painting in China, having become acquainted with examples of the European art including works of contemporary art, paid attention to the artistic techniques that were close to the meanings which these masters were accustomed to attach to the process of art work creation. This article characterizes artistic techniques by means of which European art is interpreted in works by Chinese artists who worked in different styles and represented some of the most notable trends in modern Chinese painting. As noted for the first time, techniques of interpreting the achievements by the mid 20th century European painting school played a unique role in mainstreaming works by representatives of China’s national art schools during the new time.