As I said before, posters are "instant art." A good placard must make people "at a glance" and make people "love at first sight." It attracts and looks forward to leaving a deeper impression. This requires that posters have superb ideas. No art can explain everything, especially the special art form like posters. With limited time and space, people can forget memorable and memorable, and then it needs to be “a little more than a win†and “as soon as possible.†ten". (3) p72 Of course, there are still viewers who demand art telling everything and ask the posters for multiple paintings. Just as the request to the sculpture for a comic strip, it is unrealistic to ask the Allegro for multiple scenes. "Use Less, More" and "That is the Other" are signs of artistic skills, especially poster art. It can only reproduce reality from one side of life rather than from all sides. Any image is nothing more than a part of the overall structure. It is important to be able to summarize other parts. In the posters, there are often facial features full of images, a pair of hands, a pair of eyes, a dynamic, a facial expression, as long as it is to select the most representative phenomenon, and emphasizes some of its characteristics, it can constitute a "concise" works. Although the composition is simple, it requires a certain and attractive mood. In the “artistic conceptionâ€, the essence of objective things has been dealt with in a centralized manner, which has achieved the fusion of scenes and can affect one's feelings, some experiences, and some associations. A scholar of the Qing Dynasty once said that a painting “is better than people’s love, it is better to think.†A good poster should be able to attract people, arouse people's associations, arouse people's good wishes, and express the artistic conception, we must have means. We call it "artist". The word "carpenter" has a derogatory meaning in the artist's mind, such as "geekiness." But there are also pleasant things like "ingeniousness", which is what people didn't think of. You thought of it. "Intention craftsman" is a special method of the artist's processing of objective things. The level of processing means, to a certain extent, shows the level of the author's artistic achievements. Du Fu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, said that "intentional craftsmen are in dire business" and "the language is not surprisingly endless", indicating that the artistic conception must be produced with the "ideographer" painstakingly. The “craftsman†specifically refers to the selection of material (the most refined part first), the tailoring (decontamination and preservation), the exaggeration (emphasizing the characteristics of the image), the management position (composition), and the performance (options of appropriate techniques) (5)p68. All of this is precisely the main means of designing poster designers in China.
Traditional Chinese art pays attention to the balance and internal rhythm. In China's seal cutting art, there is the so-called “ruleless, airtight†layout rule, emphasizing the balance in change, which not only conforms to the scientifically relative principle, but also conforms to the aesthetic beauty of art. law. This unified, vivid, rhythmic and rhythmic aesthetic sense, in our country's posters, is dynamic and static, sparse and dense, diverse and unified, the guests and the masters echo, the virtual and the real, the vertical and horizontal contrast, the black and white contrast, overlapping and other traditional composition Laws are also common. In addition, the ancient bronze patterns, stone reliefs, stone carvings, and especially Chinese paintings have been skillfully applied to the ingenuity of the white background. The black-and-white relationship between the folk paper-cut and the unrelenting bloom of the orchid cloth, the density of woodcut illustrations in the Ming Dynasty, and (2) p21 can all be confirmed in the composition of modern poster art.
Western traditional art, based on geometric concept of space, starts from the phenomenon of simulated life, in order to demonstrate the author's creative thinking. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle once pointed out: "All kinds of art are imitations of the real world," laying the foundation for the "imitation" (1) p24 of traditional Western art. Chinese artists are selective and focused. They use the artistic concept of “unlikeness†and “descend to write gods†as their artistic pursuit. When objects are often expressed in Chinese painting, the background is not worth a stroke. In addition to a simple table and chair, the traditional Beijing Opera stage has nothing to do. The audience does not appreciate the artist's paintings, but mainly appreciates what artistic techniques are used to express them. The focus of appreciation is on brushwork, composition, charm, and artistic conception. Just as the audience appreciates the traditional Beijing opera, it is mainly to appreciate the skills of the actors and the skills of “singing, reading, doing, and playingâ€. Traditional Chinese art has broken through the one-sided nature of naturalism and formalism and created a number of standardized formulas. These teachers and nature are naturally derived from life, but they have been thoroughly tempered, and the general and varied "formula" is highly refined. The beauty of beauty is the beauty of the form of content requirements (4) p68. Because of this, it has infinite vitality. With the requirements of the times, the artist has given it new vitality. It is often used and often new. This stylized treatment has also been used in the decorative image processing of posters in China, and it has displayed a dazzling brilliance.
We have never used realistic descriptions. Realistic reproduction requires traditional Chinese art. No one criticizes the principle that some landscape paintings do not conform to the focal point of view. No one criticizes the stylized mode of performance of traditional operas because we have traditional art of our own. A fixed concept understands the importance of abstract beauty in the plastic arts. Chinese traditional art pays attention to both shape and spirit, pay attention to generalization and transformation, and Qi Baishi's painting "Shrimp took decades to gain his gods" has a process of constant generalization and continuous deepening. He dared to abandon the secondary part of shrimp and highlight the main characteristics. Make the image of the female shrimp more perfect and more vivid. The statement made by Qi Baishi “between the similarities and differences between the paintings†is similar to that of Shi Tao’s “unable to act, but to the lawâ€. Contacting his works and his practice shows that what he advocates for “not like†is precisely for “similar†and “not like†is actually based on “similarâ€. It is by no means “paradoxicalâ€, but rather makes the image more vivid. There is generality, using the corresponding association of the viewer (4)p35. Let's look at some of our posters and examine them with the view of "likeness and dislike". To measure the conciseness of the image and the magnanimity of it, many images are obviously not simple imitations of life. Some of the general images are obviously related to material. The big difference, from complexity to simpleness to simplicity, must be recognized as a commendable improvement. The charm of the work is not merely shifted by the appearance of reality. Sometimes, the appreciator is not simply receiving propaganda, but also exploring, discovering and supplementing, and thus enjoys the appreciation. It is precisely because the apprehensive person has explored and discovered something. And creation, the theme of the work, can produce in-depth effects. This feature is in line with the requirements of the art of posters. Reluctantly advocating the graphic design of the “gold, wood, water, fire, and earth†posters of the works also fully shows the spiritual characteristics of this culture and art, and haunts the spiritual aura of an extremely strong modernist design.
The color processing of traditional art is mainly decorative color. Due to the characteristics of poster art, the role of decorative colors in painting is determined. Decorative colors have a certain degree of subjectivity, which is precisely what advertising screens are pursuing. "If you don't want color," it shows this relationship. Su Shi had painted bamboo in the Song Dynasty. Someone accused him of it. Is there any red bamboo? He asked: Do you have black bamboo? This means that since everyone is accustomed to "black bamboo," why is it not allowed to draw bamboo? This shows that the subjective imagination of color in traditional aesthetics is allowed and necessary. However, this subjective imagination is not equal to subjective fabrication. The decorative colors also come from the practice of life. They also need to absorb nutrition from objective things. People often inspired by natural colors such as colorful butterflies, neon lights and pink clouds to create colorful decorative effects. The subjectivity of the decorative colors makes certain associations and “personification†of natural scenery. Different characters have different opinions on objective things due to differences in personality, experience, and emotion. For some natural colors, they may be “green fat and thinâ€, or they may be “quick red and greenâ€. As for the different feelings of color in the ancient poets, such as “Sorrowful Biâ€, “Sai Yancuiâ€, “Green Liyuâ€, and “Green Living Coolâ€, whether it is “sad,†“cold,†or “cool,†the color is explained. People feel psychological factors. As early as in the painting theory of the Song Dynasty, there was a saying of "Yan Yan Han Bi" (6)p24. These psychological factors, the association of color is formed due to people in the concrete life. We oppose metaphysics to harden a certain color to represent a certain character, but not to form a relationship that people associate in a specific life. This is the precondition for using color symbolism in traditional aesthetics. In traditional Chinese paintings, the lotus flower is often painted red and bright. The lotus leaves only use dripping ink and ink to face these images. People naturally feel that the ink painting leaves are green. This is because the painter adapts to the scientific laws of the natural phenomena interlinking and uses the corresponding association of the viewers. Similarly, on a blank sheet of paper, draw a few small shrimps that move around. People will naturally associate large blanks into the rough water according to their own life experience. In the posters, there are often examples of this. A blue screen with a few brilliant fireworks on the upper corner will naturally be accepted as a deep blue sky. It is also a blue background, painted with a few white triangle sails, this blue will be seen as an endless sea. A pair of playful lambs was painted on a green paper, and the green became a lawn. Just because of the simple background, the space is bigger and the association is given more. This simpleness is imaginary, but it is also true. The imagination of the audience is abstract, but it is also specific. In this way, not only is the form not seen on its own, it is also due to certain revelations and associations in terms of content. Make it more fulfilling and richer. "The spring breeze is on the south bank of the green river," and the word "green" gives people full and profound meaning. “The sunrise in Jianghuai wins the fire, and the spring comes in the green and green†is the use of color symbolism by ancient Chinese poets. Isn't it worth our good reference when designing posters?
The above are just some of the impacts of traditional aesthetics on China's modern poster art. These aesthetics have subtly influenced our modern design ideas. Of course, we are constantly being impacted by foreign cultural design ideas and we have also benefited from it. We believe that in such world-scale cultural exchanges and competition, all the strengths of our nation will never be lost and will only flourish.
Author: Lou Wood Yantai Normal University Fine Arts Department
From: Media China