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ISSN 1923-6697[Online]

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Canadian Social Science
Vol. 8, No. 4, 2012, pp. 194-197
DOI:10.3968/j.css.1923669720120804.1245

194Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture

The Comparison and Development of Color Between East and West

DU Xuehui[a],* 

[a]College of Fine Arts, Harbin Normal University, China.
*Corresponding author.

Supported by Youth academic Backbone support program of general 
institute of higher learning in Heilongjiang Province. Project number: 
1154G33.

Received 20 March 2012; accepted 14 August 2012

Abstract 
Take a panoramic view of the painter’s application of 
color, almost everyone strengthens his self-cultivation 
positively. Chinese ancient ancestors established “the five 
elements” as the symbol of color to the space, and it’s a 
kind of presentation of spontaneous philosophy. Chinese 
painting values verve highly, while Western painting 
lionizes are more about similarity in shape. But the 
appearance of modernism in the end of 19 century makes 
them close, in the mean time the art between east and 
west had achieved a considerable unification which means 
there is no border between the arts.
Key words: Color; The Chinese painting; The 
western painting; Development

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C o l o r  B e t w e e n  E a s t  a n d  We s t .  C a n a d i a n  S o c i a l  S c i e n c e, 
8 ( 4 ) ,  1 9 4 - 1 9 7 .  Av a i l a b l e  f r o m  h t t p : / / w w w. c s c a n a d a . n e t /
i n d e x . p h p / c s s / a r t i c l e / v i e w / j . c s s . 1 9 2 3 6 6 9 7 2 0 1 2 0 8 0 4 . 1 2 4 5 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.css.1923669720120804.1245.

INTRODUCTION
Profit from the difference of color theory and sense 
between east and west, we have more opportunity to 
appreciate and borrow ideas from each other. Western 
painting before impressionism can be defined as the 
server of the religious system, and the discovery of 
dynamical color in impressionism is originated from the 
chromatogram of the sun. The formative character of 

Chinese painting is namely the “five color” philosophical 
aesthetics of color. The color of western painting is 
scientific while Chinese painting is emotional. There 
are unique laws and processes of the color application 
in Chinese painting. It rules out the superficiality of 
nature and shadow. It emphasizes the inherent color of 
the materiality and expects less in color relationship. It 
has a direct relation to the “five color” philosophy and 
the similarity and difference of the material. An excellent 
painter should be a person with a keen sense of color. 
Because color in painting is not the pronoun of color 
we use in our daily life, it endows with more symbolic 
significance. It can be national, regional, hierarchical 
and personalized. The painters obtain a new cognition 
towards the harmony of color. And their own color-
discovery drives the development of epochal character on 
the knowledge of color. The reasonable cognition from 
Confucius saying “men’s natural instinct are much the 
same, but their habits are widely different”, before 2000 
years is the antecedent leading to the knowledge of color 
for the contemporary era painters.

Take a panoramic view of the painter’s application of 
color, virtually everyone strengthens his self-cultivation 
positively. So that it can play a dynamic role during 
the transmission of effects and emotion in the frame. 
Virtually every work with huge image beyond the idea 
that has been handed on from age to age has depended 
on vivid color and image. It transcends its intrinsic 
quantity and intensifies repeatedly. “The mountain is in 
the entirely imaginary” is the kind of artistic conception. 
T h e  a p p e a r a n c e  o f  i m p r e s s i o n i s m  e m b o l d e n s  t h e 
perceptual knowledge of color based on the foundation 
of rationality. As far back as in the 19th century, the 
impressionism exerts the function of color superlatively. 
They actualized “the dynamic expression of color” in 
heptachromic system and established the methodical 
system of color grounded on the physical optics. The key 
factor is the painter drawing directly with the inspiration 
of the heliolamp, namely to seek the variation of the 



195 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture

DU Xuehui  (2012). 
Canadian Social Science, 8 (4), 194-197

color relationships. It also sharpens the painter’s inner 
sensibility of color. Post-impressionism showed the power 
of emotional color adequately to personalize the color. 
Fauvism and expressional artists achieve the vivid flavor 
of various modern color elements via the comprehensive 
representation of color.

The Chinese painting color belongs to “inducible 
color” which is ruled as “enduing with the color based 
on the category” by Xie He. The author’s opinion is 
the color application in Western painting from the 
Renaissance to impressionism can be classified as above. 
Both are putting the inherent color on the observed 
image. The appearance of impressionism is to return to 
the rationality and scientific, while the Chinese painting 
color is perceptual all along.

THE AESTHETIC ANALYSIS OF CHINESE 
AND WESTERN COLOR
Chinese ancient color is on the foundation of “the five 
elements”. It established the stable color structure. The 
symbol of color is changed to the decorative function 
gradually from the Qin Dynasty. Chinese ancient color 
trended to a rich and varied development. The color 
aesthetic in this period is “the five colors”, and it’s the 
foundational character of eastern color art. It is different 
from the theory of optic in Western. The ancient color 
symbol is created on the spontaneous rational conception 
and it is distinguished from the western. Chinese ancient 
ancestors established “the five elements” as the symbol 
of color to the space. The symbol of “the five elements” 
is a kind of presentation of spontaneous philosophy. As 
“the painting is mixed by the five colors” recorded in The 
Chou Rituals, the articles about black, white, blue-green, 
red and yellow conveyed various color related cognition. 
It represents the earliest color rationality. Everyone who 
has seen the Silk painting in Mawangdui or the Dunhuang 
Mural can feel the demeanour of Chinese Strong coloring. 
The character of applying rich color leads the human 
beings. “The painters in ancient like to use the five colors 
together, so the gentlemen in Tang and Jin prefer the 
strong colors and delineation.” said by Dong Qi, Qing 
dynasty. Chinese ancient painting formed the Strong 
coloring of five colors which represented the whole world. 
Chinese ancient strong coloring of five colors related 
to the character of “the five elements” and “the five 
moralities”. It constituted the spirit and aura of Eastern 
people’s color activity. According to the color formation of 
structure, Chinese painting Strong coloring pertains to the 
comparison of the hue of color. Ancient painter inherited 
the necessity of spontaneously applying monochrome 
from the primitive instinct. It abuts the biotic color. And 
the creating of the juxtaposition of the saturated color 
and five colors products the relative and relatedness. The 
pure hue of color can be limited by coaly and gold or 
silver string in Chinese remote antiquity drawing from. 

Red yellow and blue-green has its own inherent quality 
in the limited district. These hues of colors on the entire 
painting produce the grave and strong characters of the 
strong coloring simultaneously. Chinese strong coloring 
painting realized the epochal character of human beings. 
The character is the change of spontaneous natural ability 
of color to color consciousness from remote antiquity to the 
ancient. Chinese remote antiquity strong coloring stands for 
the preliminary consciousness of color. The theory of “the 
Chinese ink has five different colors” in Chinese traditional 
drawing theories is the archetypal concept of “ink is a kind 
of color”. The ink not only means black in Chinese painting 
color but also a “color” to adjust the relationship of the 
frame. Chinese ancient ink and wash paintings manifest 
the extreme developmental character of mono-color in the 
period of human beings’ color consciousness.

T H E  A C A D E M I C  E V O L U T I O N  O F 
WESTERN COLOR
An ultimate change occurred to the Western oil painting 
from the last years of 19th century. The narrow art 
function and all-in-one realistic of Traditional oil painting 
had attained the high saturation for autologous’ system. 
Thus it tended to disassembly by the revolution of 
philosophy and art concept. The creative principles of 
oil paintings are not the copy or recurrence of the nature. 
Artistic images of oil paintings constructed freely by the 
painters are regarded as the new reality. The artists did not 
portray the nature by means of oil paintings but a medium 
to convey own spirits and emotions by it. The painters 
conceive their works by imagination and fantasy. Three 
painters after impressionism showed initiative to abandon 
the customary pattern of oil painting. Vincent Van Gogh 
chose untrammeled and fast or drawing to impart the 
power in the fully saturated and bright color, and by this 
means to express worry of the inner soul. Paul Gauguin 
preferred color and modeling to construct the painting. 
The space of the work is violated from the traditional 
form, and the works complete with an atmosphere of 
mystery. Paul Cezanne groped for using geometric figure 
to form art image, and the frame he created is a world 
with autologous order. Their works became the marks of a 
tremendous change in the oil painting history.

Among the oil paintings in the 20th century, different 
art conception formed different schools. And they 
protected the art situation from appearing so many 
trendy. Some elements of the traditional oil drawing 
skills are treated as embodying of art concepts. They 
were strengthened frequently or pushed to an extreme. 
The language of oil painting form is highly valued. For 
instance: the cubism ignoring the color and choosing 
the free construction of form and structure, the fauvism 
emphasizing the balanced effects in the strong color state, 
the expressionism using the disorderly application of 



196Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture

The Comparison and Development of Color Between East and West

color and brush work to express the innermost distortion, 
the abstract art constructing the frame with point, line 
and plane simply and the abstract expressionism drawing 
with the paint cast, splashed and dropped on the canvas. 
Schools of Western contemporary oil painting are 
numerous and complicated in the last 100 years. They 
subrogated each other in succession.

THE CONCEPTIVE CONFORMITY OF 
BLENDING THE EAST AND THE WEST 
Some Chinese artists counted the Western fine art as 
the reference object to their autologous artistic creation 
intentionally or unintentionally during the hundred 
developing and revolution. Especially for some Chinese 
painters who persist to explore the innovation from the 
traditional art and to absorb and appreciate the effective 
elements in contemporary western art so that they can 
enrich their art language. There are three aspects for 
giving a specific analysis of it. First and foremost, Chinese 
painters abandon the idealistic color completely and 
turn to present the intimate world of humanity under the 
influence of irrational philosophy. The substance is to 
deny the classicalism utterly and apply unsophisiticated 
and deeply expressive means to reflect the dignified and 
holy religion. From actual-life point of view, arrange 
a new angle to describe the objective world and life 
the artists scientifically and authentically by different 
quarters. So as express their cognition of perceptual and 
rational. Secondly, form comes first. They treated “raising 
forms into individual position” as the basic language of 
artistic creation. It displays the objective world and the 
abundant human’s subjective spiritual world. It expands 
human’s appreciated area of the beauty. The third point 
is to absorb the outstanding achievement of systematic 
progress positively. It means to create the painting with 
artistic character plus the style and features of modern by 
absorbing and combining dissection, modern chemistry, 
chromatology, composition studies, perspective science, 
sociology and psychology together. These three aspects 
are not only playing a positive role in the development 
of the western modern art, but also influenced profound 
and lasting in Chinese painting development. It changes 
Chinese painting from a traditional form to the modern 
form. Gao Jianfu, the archetypal figure of Ling Nan School, 
had gone abroad to Japan with his team, and he maintains 
to compromise the ancient and modern, western and 
eastern. It refers to the new Japanese painting school which 
formed by drawing lessons from the color and shadow 
of Western painting. It was named as “the mix school of 
China and Japan” by contemporaries. Nevertheless, in fact 
it was the result influenced by Western art. 

The discontentment of the Chinese painting color and 
the desire of pioneering the new thought precipitate some 
painters to reform and open-up of the painting system, 

while Four Books and the Five Classics are controlling 
them at the same time. The painting is no longer the 
simple following of tradition, because the old net cannot 
hold the hope of insatiable thirsts. The revolution of 
painting began with 1980s. Accompanied by the deeper 
revolution in 1990s, the innovatory view of Chinese 
painting color became stronger and stronger. Finally, 
the first Discussion Forum of Chinese Painting Color 
Problems was held in Beijing. The forum discussed the 
cultural value and the existing of painting forms, also 
it explored the material, skill and the language form of 
painting. It had compared the history and reality, Eastern 
and Western. It is the conclusion of these passing days and 
the securement for the future. The forum can be regarded 
as a theory pageant of carrying forward the tradition to 
Chinese painting color. In the colorful morphological 
space, the shape and color are the leading factors of 
painting system. Shape as the main elements of any kind 
of painting should not be despite. And color influences the 
visual psychology more directly and irritatingly. Chinese 
painting is one of the very important forms in world 
culture. It has the closely and nonseparable relationship 
with the shape, color and texture. We can be aware of the 
important value of color by the development of Chinese 
painting. The element of color had gone through the 
culture baptism from the early stone painting with the 
trend of color to the Painted Pottery culture, from the 
strong color of Tang and Song density to the elegant 
of Ming and Qing. So the painting field is a hundred 
flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought 
striving. The three main stream of contemporary art circle 
is Traditional Ink and Wash Painting, the Experimental 
Chinese Ink and Wash Paintings and the Chinese and the 
West union paintings. With looking back these histories 
help a lot to the cognition of color developing nowadays. 
The frame color is the main representative language in 
both Eastern and Western painting. And we concern more 
about impressionism when we talk about color. It was 
impressionism that exerted the perfection of color in 19th. 
But our Chinese painters are still arguing about the Chinese 
painting skills at that time. And only a few persons were 
supporting the color elements in Chinese painting. No 
one can deny that China Ink and Wash painting have the 
splendid accomplishment. “Chinese Ink Presenting Five 
Colors,” only says to express the material with several 
color gradation. With the fundamental interests of color, 
Ink and Wash painting is only a black tone painting with 
one single color. And it cannot replace the color expressing 
material. There are different forms, seasons and areas 
which can represent diverse color feelings and stimulate 
human’s sympathetic response of emotion. In this way can 
introduce the painter using color to express the emotion.

Chinese painting is swiftly developed during the 
Chinese revolution and open-up. The pattern-form theory 
of Western modern painting in 1980s made the young 
artists raring to learn more about Western. The aesthetic 



197 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture

DU Xuehui  (2012). 
Canadian Social Science, 8 (4), 194-197

concepts of modernism and post-modernism flooded to the 
painting circle. The young put their mind on the modern 
art after impressionism. And they tried to get help from 
the achievement of geometric modeling and chromatics to 
break through the immovable color and modeling. Painting 
with meticulous detail has a special growth in the modern 
time through the curriculum reform of Chinese painting. 
In that territory, except the viridity and gold-and-green 
landscape became the lost body of knowledge, Chinese 
realistic painting personages and fine brushwork flower-
and-bird painting have a high occupancy. There is also 
a large eclosion of meticulous detail painters. Excellent 
works like Tang Pictures of Music Players and Night 
breeze. During the development process, some expressive 
artists deviated from the traditional artistic interests and 
standard, such as Li Shinan and Li Jin. The latter intensified 
the power of string and color obviously in a series painting 
of Tibet. “The color does not bother the ink. So does the 
ink” became the unchanged persuasion of some painters. 
They inherited the tradition created by Lin Fengmian to 
introduce the color lump into the art of ink and wash when 
relied on the Western expressionism. Representatives are 
Hairihan and Zhu Zhengeng. Tian liming even put large 
color lump to analyze the relation between ink and pen into 
a facula effect. Ling had pointed out “it needs a definite 
correction of the painting material, skill and method so that 
it will not restrict or bind the trend of free description.” in 
the exploration of light, color and ink. It is not happening 
by chance that the pioneer who insisted on doing things in 
his own way finally won many successors.

Lin Fengmian is very learned in painting. He studied 
Chinese traditional chiefly when he was young, and later 
went abroad to France. He concentrated on studying the 
modeling and color of Western painting. That is why 
he has a deep realization towards Chinese and Western 
esthetic spice. He takes harmonizing Chinese and 
Western and revitalizing the Chinese art as his personal 
responsibility. His paintings unite the traditional line 
drawing of Chinese painting, folk interest, the style 
of cubism and fauvism and the conception of western 
color. He founded the new way to express the still life 
and landscape and created to paint with deep ink and 
color. It advocates the unique flag among the artistic sea. 
His works lay paint on canvas freely and completely. 
Moreover repeat pigmentation in the rich and gaudy 
area and lighten the elegant of pure and transparent. The 
paintings are endowed with the poetic sense of beauty 
for the inherent color and shadow. The infiltration of 
Chinese and Western makes the Chinese painting blend 
into literalism. The fundamental of Eastern and Western 
is totally different, so the expression of art before 
modernism is different too. Eastern art placed extra 
emphasis on subjective, while Western painting from 
objective. Eastern art is similar to the poem and Western 
art are more like drama, therefore Chinese painting is 
great at verve, and Western painting is strong in similarity 

of shape. The appearance of modernism in the end of 19th 
century makes these two paintings closer, and finally the 
art running up to a border less situation. 

The development of Chinese painting needs a new 
thread. The most effectual method is combining the 
ancient Chinese philosophy and the study of the color 
system in western painting. It is not the simple copy 
of Western phenomenon on the painting form, but the 
leading painters to bring the human color essence and 
modern color to further development and exploration 
of initiatively. Based on these thoughts, painters should 
continue the new visual angle to cogitate and research the 
main theory advocated as “deep thinking of philosophy”. 
The content of it is to improve the color conception and 
color creation to a theoretic knowledge, and exert the 
expressiveness of the Chinese paintings which have the 
splendid color potential. Thus to rich the thought and 
develop Chinese painting, furthermore, it is the direction 
of positive exploration of “the pen and ink should follow 
the age”. Following closely to the language character of 
the color in Chinese painting and digging deeper on its 
character in philosophy become the theme of promoting 
Chinese painting. The plenty cultural deposits and organic 
amalgamation of foreign culture provide a broader 
space and more expressive and visual impact power 
to the creation of Chinese painting color. Besides the 
elements above-mentioned the reflection of humanism, 
the formation of the painter’s creative appearance and the 
consociation of colors is more important.

The analyzed mentally philosophy theory leads 
the author’s practice field. As a university teacher, the 
teaching technique of philosophy and the color concept 
have influenced the students admiring the tradition and 
thirty to innovation. Chinese paintings value the artistic 
conception and it determines whether the frame is perfect 
or not. In conclusion, painters should exploit their private 
thought, disposition, emotion and imagination in the 
creation of painting, and make “self”, “foreign teachers” 
and “tradition” as a triunity. And let the specific and 
limited color converge to measureless color rhyme.

REFERENCES
Chen, Zhidong (1990). The Function and Significance of 

Chinese Painting Color. The Observation of Art, (10), 71-73. 
Kong, Xingmiao (2005). The Comparison of Chinese and 

Western. Henan Art Press. 
Li, Guangyuan & Li, Li (2006). The Comparison of Chinese and 

Western. Hebei Art Press. 
Lin, Fengmian (2006). Chinese Painting New Tradition Chinese 

Art Research Institution (Doctoral dissertation). 
Xiong, Wei (2005). The Collision of Aesthetic Conception of 

Chinese Painting and Philosophical. The Observation of Art, 
(12), 92. 

Zhao, Xinge (2001). The Century Collection of Chinese 
Paintings People (1st ed.). Art Press.