The difference between watercolor painting and Chinese painting
1, with different concepts.
Chinese painting, referred to as "Chinese painting" for short, mainly refers to the traditional Chinese ink painting, which is dominated by ink and wash, with no or a small amount of color. Ink painting also uses ink, but it is heavily colored, including boneless paintings that basically do not use ink. It is a painting form in which water is used as the medium to draw on rice paper or silk with brush, ink, mineral pigments and plant pigments.
Watercolor painting originated in the west and developed during the Renaissance in Europe. It is also a painting form that uses water as the medium and uses colorful and mostly transparent watercolor pigments. White paper is a kind of "hard white paper", such as the white newspaper we usually say, and generally does not use soft white paper dedicated to Chinese painting.
2. The tool materials are different.
Watercolor painting and Chinese painting are mainly white paper. In Chinese painting, ink plays a very important role, and there is also a saying that ink is divided into five colors.
In watercolor painting, there are only black pigments. Watercolor painting is not as particular about the use of this black pigment as Chinese painting. Watercolor painting and Chinese painting are mainly based on brush. Just because of historical reasons, the two brushes are somewhat different in appearance, but there is no obvious difference in essence. Brush for Chinese painting and brush for watercolor painting should have certain elasticity and water-containing ability.
3. Different painting concepts.
Chinese painting pays attention to meaning first, while watercolor painting is realistic-oriented, paying attention to realism and the use of light colors. Gu Kaizhi, a painter in the Jin Dynasty, put forward the idea of "clever approach and careful thinking". The focus of watercolor painting is shape first, and the pursuit of "verve in painting" is far less intense than that of traditional Chinese painting.
The landscapes, flowers and birds in traditional Chinese painting are symbolic, plum blossoms and pine trees symbolize the indomitable spirit of fighting cold and snow, and lotus flowers and bamboo symbolize nobility. Chinese painting, especially freehand brushwork, pursues a feeling that beauty lies between similarity and dissimilarity. Watercolor painting emphasizes "writing by form". Of course, there is no emphasis on the expression of "God" at all, but on the whole and generalization of the picture.