Sculpture art originates from the simple aesthetic concept of human beings in primitive society. It is closely related to human production and life, and is the common creation of all mankind. Later, with the gradual development of human society, the living standards, values, and aesthetic concepts of different ethnic groups have differed, resulting in different styles and appearances of sculpture creation. With the continuous progress of the times, even the sculpture style of the same ethnic group and country is constantly changing, and even forming new schools. From the perspective of the whole history of sculpture development, the more the era goes on, the more the creative style of sculpture will break away from the earliest simple aesthetic concept, and its close connection with human production and life will be increasingly replaced by religion, philosophy and the spirit of the times. To understand sculpture, appreciate sculpture and enter the door of sculpture creation, we must have some knowledge of the history of Chinese and foreign sculpture and the masterpieces of different periods.

In sorting out the history of Chinese and foreign sculpture and the masterpieces of famous artists in various periods, it leads readers to have a preliminary understanding of the history of sculpture, important works and general sculpture creation process. Among them, the introduction of Chinese and foreign sculpture history and works focuses on the Chinese part; The introduction of foreign sculptures focuses on European and American sculptures. In fact, the history of Chinese and foreign sculpture is thousands of years, and there are countless works. It is impossible to elaborate the entire history of sculpture and representative works in great detail. Even if it is necessary to elaborate the history of sculpture of a certain country, I am afraid it is not possible to accommodate this small book, so I can only select the important ones to briefly describe. At the same time, for the sake of smooth writing and complete layout, the author has to give up many important contents.

Chinese and foreign sculptures have the same origin but different development. Foreign sculpture, especially European and American sculpture, was deeply influenced by the ancient Greek and Roman culture. It has long established the artistic concept of taking the image of a person as the main creative subject. Although its history of development is also quite turbulent, and it is also subject to political and religious restrictions, but on the whole, it is always changing. Its typical people, such as European sculpture creation, succumbed to the influence of the church for a long time in the Middle Ages and became a tool of religious rule, but its creation was still dominated by character images. After the "Renaissance", European sculpture then entered the stage of a hundred flowers blooming, with numerous schools and theories, which produced many works and theories that had a profound impact on later generations, but there was no lack of a mixture of good and bad. Some so-called schools and theories were like a flash in the pan, and then disappeared into the historical tide after a moment of glory. In modern times, European and American sculpture has been influenced by various trends of thought generated by the rapid changes in society, and various innovative theories have come in a stream, which is quite dazzling. However, the root of this phenomenon is nothing more than the dissatisfaction of artists with reality and their artistic expression. When it comes to creation, it will either re sort out the tradition, or subvert the tradition, or do not look for the origin, or use scientific and technological means to innovate, and so on. In addition to the traditional human body shaping, his works also have a lot of new content, either focusing on realism, or abstract freehand brushwork, or exaggeration and distortion, greatly expanding the connotation of European and American traditional sculpture creation. However, some works are also "kidnapped" by entertainment factors due to excessive pursuit of personality, which breaks away from the original meaning of sculpture creation.

Different from foreign sculptures, Chinese traditional sculptures, to a large extent, serve religion and politics. Behind them are Chinese traditional Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. In the pre Qin period, Chinese sculptures were mainly bronze ritual vessels, followed by ornaments, which were mostly used to carry political, religious, ritual and other functions. After entering the Qin and Han Dynasties, sculpture creation gradually turned to figure sculpture, especially the tomb sculptures of emperors, generals and ministers. Most of them have outstanding works, such as the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin and the stone carvings in the tomb of Huo Qubing in the Han Dynasty. Until the Southern and Northern Dynasties, with the prosperity of Buddhism, religious statues gradually developed into the mainstream of Chinese sculpture creation. Since then, the statues carved on rocks and caves in all dynasties have also been representative works at that time. From then on until the Republic of China, with the introduction of western art concepts and art education into China, people of insight began to sort out and standardize traditional sculpture theories with western sculpture theories, and created with western sculpture concepts. Chinese sculpture also appeared a new situation. Since the founding of New China, Chinese culture and art have gradually flourished, and various sculpture creations have sprung up like mushrooms. Since the reform and opening up, with the advancement of China's urbanization, various outdoor sculptures have been found in every corner of the city, and sculptures on shelves have gradually entered the homes of ordinary people.

The distinction between Chinese and foreign sculpture is mainly due to the difference in philosophy and spirit of the times contained in the works, rather than the number of creative forms or historical materials. However, the latter point is often criticized for Chinese sculpture, and even some people regard western sculpture theory as authentic, and further believe that China has only craftsmanship, not sculpture. Admittedly, due to the low status and low cultural level of the craftsmen engaged in carving in ancient China, there is almost no systematic creation theory for Chinese traditional sculpture. However, if we think that there is no sculpture in China, we cannot avoid generalizing too much. Today, when we study sculpture and create sculpture, we should not only learn the western system of sculpture theory, but also not abandon the rich heritage left by our ancestors. Instead, we should look at and inherit all these from the perspective of development, and learn to create with the attitude of "taking the essence to remove the dross". Only in this way can we not be trapped in the position of bigotry.

Hainan Sculpture

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