Cultural Acceptance and Views about
Traditional Chinese Painting

Ever since modern times, under the lash of western modern civilization, Chinese painting has undergone an earth-shaking change. Undoubtedly, the so-called modern and creative development of Chinese painting of the twentieth century has always followed the lead of western art. So to the views about ' traditional Chinese painting' of various ages, all of them show different problems of cultural acceptance.

Looking back on the beginning of this century, we can find that in order to respond to and be distinguished from the foreign painting of Europe and America, Chinese painters, facing the tide of western influence on Chinese culture, began to use the expression 'traditional Chinese painting'. Among the views about Traditional Chinese Painting, most of them were negative attitudes, like that of Kang Youwei (康有为), who held that "Chinese painting of recent modern time has been on the decline", criticizing the conservativeness of the traditional Chinese painting by men of letters and skills of using brush and ink. He then called for the innovative method of taking on western art as teacher. Chen Duxiu (陈独秀) once pointed out, " If the Chinese painting is to be reformed, we should first reform the painting of Wang Shigu (王石谷), because the reform of Chinese cannot be fulfilled without the adoption of the realistic spirit of western painting." This kind of radical tone reflects the common mindset of the intellectuals at the time of the Movement of May 4th. They were living in a time of national calamity, even though, at the same time, they cherished the dream of saving the nation from subjugation and ensuring its survival, in order to construct modern China. So, facing the collapse of the value system of the old society, they were determined to accept the western art.

From the 20's to the 40's, numerous Chinese painters sought the new development of traditional Chinese painting through learning western art technigues and having it as a reference. In spite of the tide of "all-over westernization", there were still some advocates of "the quintessence of Chinese culture" who were engaged in the rise and fall of traditional Chinese painting. But even as people like Chen Hengke (陈衡恪) sorted out the national cultural heritage and constructed articles to emphasize the "value of literary painting works", they could not retrieve the decline of studies from the west. Lin Fengmian (林风眠), as one of the representatives of the innovators, criticized directly, "The so-called Chinese method of the 'painting of the cultural quintessence' will undoubtedly get on the wrong track." Viewed like this, the crisis existing in modern Chinese culture resulted from the loss of intellectuals' confidence in the ability of traditional culture to be renewed, and hence the turning to the western world for the acceptance of modern China.

Chinese painting followed the teaching of the western "revolution in fine arts", and with the founding of the "new China", it gradually abandoned the precious traditional values of "Traditional Chinese Painting". Although during this period of time, discussion arose about the passing on of the "traditional Chinese painting"; whether it submitted to the principles of Marxism and could preach new forms of expression and content in order to carry out the guiding ideology of Mao Tsedong's (毛泽东) Speech on the Symposium about Literature and Art in Yan'an. Although the historical experience of struggle with imperialist European countries and America strengthened the national awareness of Chinese people, this policy of "anti-western westernization", which replaces the value system of traditional society with Marxist political ideal, instead deepened the crisis of Chinese cultural acceptance with an hidden danger.

In the Chinese painting circles of the 50's, for the cause of political instruction, western ideas of realism in art first began to take place. At that time, people like Ai Qing（艾青）and Jiang Feng (江丰) put forward, respectively, the ideas of "new traditional Chinese painting" and "color and ink painting", with the view to completely getting rid of the various rules of traditional culture and successfully transforming "traditional Chinese painting into a political tool "for the service of the revolutionary mass of workers, peasants and soldiers" through the management of the national power mechanism. Undoubtedly, after a series of political movements in the period from the 50's to the 70's, the development of Chinese painting suffered serious interference and distortion from ideology. Especially in the period of Cultural Revolution, when anti-traditional emotions surged high, the basic values of the whole society was subverted by political power. And the views about traditional Chinese painting naturally could not be free from the spiritual shackles, while the painters devoted all their energy and emotions to mediocre and stereotyped production.

On the other hand, painters of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 60's and 70's, thanks to the free and open social environment, could undergo exploration into Chinese painting without fetters around their neck. They thought that not only did the title of traditional Chinese painting give the impression of inflexibility and conservativeness, but also that strong national awareness was not good for international artistic preference. So they used the expression "ink and wash painting" to label their "modern" and "creative" abstract works. In fact, for a long time, only a few of the intellectuals, home and abroad, were able to put forward probing and creative ideas about the essence of tradition. They only repacked Chinese culture by mechanically applying popular western theories. So such acceptance could not stand the testing of time.

In the 80's, after the tribulation of the Cultural Revolution, the society in which numerous plans remained to be done was almost in a state of cultural vacuum. The new generation of intellectuals, under the lash of the modern western trend of thought, suggested the demand for "cultural introspection". Some expositions, which were only playing the old tune, also reflected the sense of cultural loss prevailing in Chinese society. In the final analysis, Chinese intellectuals suffered setbacks again and again during the process of Chinese modernization in this decade, and this made the intellectuals think that traditional culture was the biggest hindrance to the development of the nation and country. It seemed that only if they resorted to the "western truth", could they foresee the prosperity, power and progress of future China.

But actually, during this period of 20 years, the academic circles of Europe and America have gradually abandoned the tendency of looking up to western culture as the standard, and have turned around to adopt the ideas of cultural pluralism. For example, "Orientalism", by Edward W. Said, gave the intellectuals of the Third World much inspiration and prompted them to re-explore the spiritual source of tradition to establish their own cultural acceptance by way of criticizing the hegemony of western culture. Ever since the beginning of the 90's, perhaps inspired by the changes in the academic thought of Europe and America, Chinese intellectual circles have begun to examine some issues about cultural acceptance and have formed a "new trend of traditional Chinese learning" that aimed at rejuvenating tradition. Although the general mood of loving the new and admiring the foreign still lingered, in Chinese painting circles at that time, there appeared some new elucidation about traditional Chinese painting by men of letters and of the skill of using brush and ink in the aspect of expounding of traditional Chinese painting.

Facing the advent of the so-called "globalization" in the 21st century, painters of traditional Chinese painting should not be complacent and conservative to such an extent as to totally rejecting foreign culture. And it is the pressing matter of the moment to re-explore and carry forward the real value of tradition under the condition of accepting cultural pluralism and negating western complacency. And in recent years, the painting circles of Tai Wan, under the influence of pan-politicized "native awareness", have repeatedly understood and expressed the national connotation of traditional Chinese painting in a negative way. At the same time, they rejected the cultural tradition of "China" along with the "international style" of modern European and American art. The cause of the deviation in the cultural acceptance in the painting circles of Tai Wan, besides from the long-existing general social mood of worshiping and having blind faith in things foreign, is because of a "localism" stimulated by extreme ideology. But looking back to the mainland of China, there is also a trend of "nationalism" that surges high, and it is probably waiting for the opportunity to go into action and therefore to plunge"Chinese" culture into deeper crisis. In any case, the Chinese cultural crisis in the twenty-first century, from external lash to internal conflicts, can be said to be concerned with the passing-on and reform of "traditional Chinese painting". So only the exploration of the issue of cultural acceptance,inside and out can bring about the opportunity to develop Chinese painting in the new century.