The Development of Chinese Painting-Style Photography

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the developmental trajectory and evolutionary characteristics of Chinese pictorial photography. The study begins with theoretical origins, analyzing the aesthetic propositions of Western pictorial photography and its localization process in China, while examining the aesthetic differences and intrinsic connections between Chinese and Western pictorial photography. Following a chronological approach, the thesis traces the development of Chinese pictorial photography from the late Qing Dynasty to the contemporary era: first, it investigates how traditional literati painting aesthetics permeated early photographic creations after the introduction of photography to China, and how figures like Chen Wanli and Liu Bannong achieved theoretical awareness of the transition from "technique" to "art"; second, it analyzes how Lang Jingshan's "composite photography" borrowed compositional principles from traditional Chinese landscape painting, employing darkroom synthesis techniques to create an artistic effect of "vivid energy and rhythm," while exploring the era's impact of this model and its international dissemination status; finally, it examines the decline and reflection of pictorial photography under the impact of documentary photography from the late 20th century to the present, as well as how contemporary artists like Yang Yongliang and Yao Lu have reconstructed urban landscapes through digital technology and repurposed traditional motifs for social critique, achieving a transformation from aesthetic pleasure to the ideological core of social narrative. The research reveals that Chinese pictorial photography, as a unique art form, continuously redefines itself through the collision and fusion of Chinese and Western cultures, maintaining cultural confidence and innovative vitality in its developmental patterns.