Courses
VART3125 Convention and Innovation in Chinese Painting (3 units)
- Prerequisite:
- VART2125 Visual Literacy in Chinese Painting or (VART2435 Chinese Painting: Gongbi and VART2436 Chinese Painting: Experimental Expression) or (VART2437 Chinese Painting: Xieyi and VART 2445 Chinese Painting: Landscape)
- Medium of Instruction:
- English
As Hong Kong serves as a point of convergence of Chinese and Western cultural narratives, "hybridity" comes to be a primary means for local artists, especially ink artists, to take into their art creation. For better understanding Chinese cultural heritage, the course requires students to explore the conventions embedded in guohua for thousands of years. The aim of such training is to enhance and build up visual literacy in Chinese painting. With the introduction of the concept of "hybridity", students are expected to reveal the local cultural identity on the basis of the integration of the convention(s) of guohua with Western mode of expression.
This course is divided into two sections: (1) exploration in conventional Chinese painting; and (2) innovative creativity with the concept of "hybridity". The former section aims at exploring possibilities of guohua (literally translated as national painting) based on the research of the conventional concepts and ideas. Both xieyi (free style) and gongbi (fine-brush, or delicate, style) are the focuses. The provision of the latter section is the concept of "hybridity", which is regarded as a crucial artistic means for ink artist to revive the ancient art form of guohua and reveal Hong Kong cultural identity. Through adapting, appropriating and revising the mode(s) of expression from Western art, students learn how to reconcile "Chineseness" and "modernism/ contemporaneity" to create Chinese painting with a contemporary new look.
While English is the major medium of instruction of this course, occasionally Chinese will be used in the teaching of materials and texts related to Chinese arts.