The Use of Chinese Traditional Art in Animation

As a form of artistic expression, animation’s style of expression, like other arts, is rooted in the culture of the country in which the artist expresses himself. The culture of each country is different, which makes the style of animation blossom. There are many traditional arts in China, and three of them are traditional ink painting, paper-cutting and ceramics. These traditional Chinese arts have been used in combination with animation.

Whenever we talk about Chinese animation, we have to mention Shanghai Film Studio. Shanghai Film Studio, an old Chinese film enterprise, is one of the three major film bases in China. It has produced a lot of animation works, and all of them are closely combined with Chinese traditional art. Among them, Tadpole Looking for Mummy, produced in 1960, is the first ink animation film that uses traditional Chinese ink painting as the main form of artistic expression. The story of Tadpole Looking for Mummy originated in China, and the character designs in the animation are taken from the characters of fish and shrimp created by Chinese ink painter Qi Baishi.

Tadpole Looking for Mummy, 1960

Qi Baishi, Fish and shrimp

Paper-cutting is a kind of folk art used to decorate life or cooperate with other folk activities by cutting patterns on paper with a knife. Paper-cut animation uses the same techniques used in shadow theatre to make the dolls move, so that the paper-cutting can also move. 1958, the first Chinese-style paper-cut animation film, Pig Eating Watermelon, but a more mature work combining the art of paper-cutting and animation is The Gourd Brothers. It tells the story of the Gourd Brothers who fight against monsters to save their grandfather.

The Group Brothers, 1986

China has been making ceramics for a long time, and the use of ceramics is very extensive, in which ceramic art crafts have a very high artistic value. Ceramics are hard and not easily deformed, unlike clay which is soft and malleable, which means it is very difficult to use this material for animation. However, Shanghai Film Studio’s animation Fish Plate was brave to use ceramics as the main material. Artist Geng Xue’s personal animation, Mr.Sea, was produced in 2014. Geng Xue made joints for the characters as well as for the flowers and trees in the background, overcoming the difficulties posed by the hardness of ceramics.

Geng Xue, Mr. Sea, 2014

The combination of traditional Chinese art and animation seems to be diminishing in recent animation works, but traditional Chinese art still has a potential influence on animation. (423 words)

Bibliography

A Brief History of Chinese Animation. Available at: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/113910071 (Accessed: 1 March 2024)

Geng Xue Interview 丨Crossing the Black and White World in the Name of Gold. Available at:https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/67512035 (Accessed: 1 March 2024)

Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio’s classic animation. Available at: https://www.zhihu.com/question/263902878 (Accessed: 1 March 2024)

Vermilion Art (2023) Geng Xue: Art is an Adventure. Available at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TWvTwo_WnOsN1tYM2CwRGg (Accessed: 1 March 2024)