Chinese Ink Animation: Oriental Aesthetics with the Combination of Heaven and Man

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During the preparations for the film, John Stevenson, the first director of Kung Fu Panda, led a team to collect a lot of Chinese painting and ink animation materials. Although "Kung Fu Panda" is an authentic Hollywood animation, he believes: "Since you want to tell a Chinese story, you should reflect the characteristics of Chinese animation in terms of technology and artistic style." So, he applied the technology of ink animation. In "Kung Fu Panda", use computer technology to render the natural background of ink style. It’s full of beauty and beauty.

Japanese animated master Takada Hyun is also good at using the techniques of white, smudge, white line and even Buddhist murals in Oriental art, showing the beauty of the whole East. In 2013, "Hui Ye Ji Wu Yu" is a work with ink style. It is completely different from Hollywood animation. It does not deliberately pursue the details of the characters, the environment, and the props. Instead, it uses freehand strokes to express emotions. Some people have commented that, with the style of ink and wash, Ghibli has recovered the kind of "floating and ethereal beauty" that has existed in cartoons.
Takada Hyun mentioned in the interview that this style is actually influenced by Chinese animation. Specifically, it was the ink-and-wash animations produced by the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio in the 1960s and 1980s.
So, what is the Chinese ink animation? How did it occur and how did it decline? (Related reading: Chinese paper-cut animation: the crystallization of folk traditional paper-cut and shadow-playing dramas, the “custom” of local tastes )
Nowadays, people often say that domestic animation is on the rise. However, looking at it, low-school animations occupy half of the country, and plagiarism works continuously. Only a few conscience enthusiasts are dedicated to producing excellent works. However, in the golden age of Chinese animation, the production level was world-class, and the animation producers in Europe, America and Japan had learned from China. It was also the era when cartoons were called "art films", and that was the era when the king of animation, "Shanghai Art Film Production" was the leader.
The earliest batch of animation production in China was after Jianguo, but it was accused by imitating Soviet animation. So Chinese animators are determined to create animations that belong to China. In 1960, Shangmei combined Chinese traditional ink painting and animation techniques to create a new film in the history of animation: ink animation.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Shangmei produced a number of ink-and-wash animations, each with its own characteristics, each with its own merits, and it has become an unforgettable childhood memory for many people.
"鹬蚌相争"
Traditional ink paintings pay attention to "ink is divided into five colors". The simple black and white colors can produce a rich sense of layering. The combination of shades and shades presents a vast, leisurely and ethereal realm.
Ink animation introduces traditional Chinese ink painting into animation production. The virtual and artistic conception and the light and beautiful picture make a major breakthrough in the artistic style of cartoons. Unlike the general animation, the ink animation has no outlines, and the ink is naturally rendered on the rice paper. It is a natural painting, and each scene is an excellent ink painting.
The characters in the ink animation have very few expression changes. Because of the effect of the ink smudge, it is not easy to express the subtle changes of the expression, so the characters use simple and clear movements to achieve the effect of “no sound here and sound”.
"Landscape"
The movements of the characters are beautiful and dynamic, the background of the splashing landscape is magnificent and the soft brushstrokes are full of poetry. The ink-and-wash animation embodies the aesthetics of the oriental art between “like and not like”, with a profound artistic conception and a long aftertaste.
The production of ink animation is a very exploratory but cumbersome process. Its mystery is mainly concentrated in the photography section. Every character or animal drawn on an animated paper must be layered and colored when it is colored. For example, a buffalo must be divided into four or five colors and applied to several transparent celluloid tablets. Each cello film is repeatedly shot by an animated photographer, and finally re-joined together to achieve the effect of ink rendering by photography. The time for filming an ink animation is enough to make four or five ordinary cartoons of the same length.
Naughty Golden Monkey
For Western animations that are time-sensitive, it doesn't take so much time to decompose, trace, stratify, and repeat and fix them repeatedly on the camera. The Chinese are naturally patient and can sculpt a statue of Buddha on a hair, and fill it with a grain of rice. With the kind of hard work and carefulness of dripping water, Chinese animators have created miracles.
The world's first ink cartoon
The first ink-and-wash animation "Oh, Mommy" was produced in 1960. This 14-minute animated short film is famous all over the world. Almost every shot is a beautiful ink painting. The shape of the fish and shrimp is taken from Qi Baishi.
"Little Owl Looking for Mom"
The story is full of childlikeness and educational. The little babies born by the frog mother could not find the mother. On the way, they encountered many small animals, chickens, goldfish, crabs, turtles, shrimps... They all had a part like a mother, but they were not mothers. Finally, the little ones I finally found my mother and played happily in the water. Soon, they grew up with small hind legs and forepaws, and they became more and more like mothers.



Qi Baishi's style of fish and shrimp

The film released a sensation as soon as it was released. The French newspaper Le Monde praised: "Chinese ink paintings, soft scenery, meticulous brushwork, and movements that express anxiety, hesitation and happiness make this film full of charm and poetry."
In 1962, Mao Dun saw this film and wrote a poem to the Shangmei Film Factory: "The white stone world is precious, the Junyi is fresh and fresh. Rong Bao is good at copying, often it can be chaotic. What period of film Yan Yan, creating surprise Ghosts and gods. The famous paintings are really moving, and the snorkeling is as vivid as life. The willow leaves are floating in the rain, and the scent of the scent is fragrant. I am looking for my mother and rushing to ask for help. I only insist on one, and I have repeatedly admitted the wrong mother. Mo Xiaoxiao is stupid, and people are also like this. The understanding is not comprehensive, and the good deeds do bad things. Mo laughs in the story, there is philosophy in this. Painting and poetry, Sanmei is all inclusive."

"Little Owl Looking for Mom" ​​won the Silver Sail Award in the 14th Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 1961; the Best Art Film Award in the 1st China Film Hundred Flowers Award in 1962, and the 4th Annecy International Cartoon Film in France Children's Film Award; 1964 was awarded the honorary prize of the 17th Cannes International Film Festival in France; 1st in 1978, the first prize of the 3rd Zagreb International Animation Film Festival in Yugoslavia; in 1981, the 4th Pompidou Cultural Center in Paris, France. Second Prize of the International Children and Youth (Movie) Festival.
After 20 years, it has won international awards, showing the incomparable artistic charm of Chinese ink animation.
"Murch": "The shepherd boy goes back to the cross, and the piccolo has no mouth to blow."
After a lapse of two years, Shangmei began to produce the second ink cartoon "Murch", which was not completed until 1963, and the film was 20 minutes long. The background design is from the hands of the painter Fang Jizhong. The buffalo is drawn according to the style of Chinese painting master Li Keran . Li Ke-dy's buffalo is imposing, unpretentious and unique. For this film, he specially painted four ink paintings of buffalo and shepherd boy for reference.
Li can dye buffalo illustration
This is an idyllic work. In the early summer morning, Jiangnan Tianye, a small shepherd boy riding a buffalo to release cattle. Snoring in the tree, dreaming that the cow was lost. It turned out that it was attracted by the waterfall that flowed thousands of feet. The shepherd boy calls it, pulls it, and it doesn't move. So the shepherd boy cut the bamboo into a flute and played a melodious music. The buffalo was attracted to the shepherd boy by the sound of the flute. He rode on the back of the cow, stepped on the twilight field, and went back leisurely...

The background is the scenery of the Jiangnan water town, the bridge is flowing, the willows are in the line, the bamboo forest is deep, and the fields are vast. By plotting "missing cows, finding cows, and getting cows", the performance of the shepherd boy and the buffalo is intimate, and the whole film blends the scenes, conveying the ideological realm of "harmony between man and nature" in Chinese culture.
The end of the film can be described as a god, the shepherd boy rides on the back of the ink buffalo, blowing the bamboo flute out of the willow tree, walking through the rice field in the evening light, reflecting the image of the cow and the shepherd boy in the water, and finally the surrounding scenery Blending into one, it also hides the meaning of "the shepherd boy returns to the cross cow, the piccolo has no mouth and mouth."

The behind-the-scenes lineup of the film is very powerful. Composer Wu Yingju is also the music writer of "The Big Miscellaneous Heaven", "Little Owl Looking for Mom", "Little Sisters of the Grassland". The sound of the flute throughout the film is played by Lu Chunling, the master of the Chinese flute master and the reputation of the "Magic Flute".
However, due to some reasons that everyone knows, the film could not be released after it was completed. It was not released until more than ten years later, and the production of Chinese ink animation was stagnant. In 1979, "Murch" won the gold medal of Denmark's third Odden City International Fairy Tale Film Festival. After the show in the United States, Japan and other countries, harvesting countless praises, a Japanese animator wrote in the message book after reading: "When I heard the ink painting can move, I can't believe it, but after reading it, I was really shocked. It is really hard to imagine what kind of work is used in such a work. The ability to make ink paintings into cartoons shows that Chinese people have deep feelings and deep understanding of their traditional art. Outsiders can only say ''' 'amazing''''!.
Girl and deer: "Deer Bell"
In 1982, there was finally another fairy tale ink animation "Deer Bell". The film was written according to an interesting legend in the "White Deer Academy" in Lushan, and it was given a new content: the old drug farmer and his little granddaughter rescued an injured deer while collecting medicine in the mountains. The little girl took good care of the deer and became an intimate friend. When the little girl was injured in the leg, the clever deer also hanged the basket on the antlers to buy food at the market. When the drug was collected, the deer met the separated parents. In the end, the little girl gave the bell to the deer and sent the tears to the deer.

"Deer Bell" was resumed after nearly 20 years. The crew of the film crew are mostly novices. With the development of film and printing technology, the past technical conditions and data are no longer applicable, and the standards must be redefined. After more than a year of hard work, the filming was finally completed.

In 1983, he won the Best Film Award of the Ministry of Culture and the Best Art Film Award of the 3rd Chinese Film "Golden Rooster Award". In July of the same year, he won the Best Cartoon Special Award of the 13th Moscow International Film Festival in the Soviet Union.
Green mountains and rivers, Yiyi farewell: "Landscape"
This elegant and free-flowing ink animation was filmed in October 1988. The story is very simple. An old violinist with a sacred temperament encounters a fisherman teenager on his way back to his hometown and becomes a mentor. The old Qinqin is very tempted, and the young and intelligent is eager to learn. Between the mountains and the waters, the old pipa gave the beloved guqin to the young boy, walking alone between the mountains and the white clouds. The young boy played the guqin, the melodious sound of the piano, and sent off for the old pipa...

In traditional ink painting, characters do not occupy an important position, and landscapes are the main body. Although "Shanshui Love" focuses on the old and the young, it divides a large part of the space into landscape painting. The photographer broke the previous method of shooting ink-and-wash movies, shooting on the original background, and then synthesizing with the animated shots shot by frame, which made a quite harmonious combination of the relationship between man and nature.
What is even more surprising is that when dealing with the climax of the teacher's separation, the painter's live painting, the photographer's live shooting techniques, and the animation lens are combined to make the film fully display the level of the artist's brushwork. Feeling and rhythm . Although the film is only 19 minutes, each picture is filled with the artistic conception of Chinese poetry and painting and the taste of ink and brush. The misty mountains, the smoky water, the real and the virtual, show the profound Chinese art. Tradition.

In 1988, the film won the first Shanghai International Animation Film Festival Art Film Award; in 1989, it won the Best Art Film Award of the 9th China Film Golden Rooster Award, the 8th Anniversary Film Award of the Radio, Film and Television Department, the 1st Moscow International Children's Film Festival Brave and Beauty Award, Bulgaria's 6th Varna International Animation Film Festival Outstanding Film Award; and several other domestic and international animation awards.
The Chinese ink animation has been shining around the world, and has inspired a group of animators. The Japanese comic book ancestor Tezuka has said that ink animation has benefited him a lot. Takata Hiroshi and Hayao Miyazaki were amazed when they saw the works in the 1980s.

However, the ink animation did not go any further. At that time, the tide of state-owned enterprise reforms struck, and the forms of collective creation and fixed pay in the 1950s and 1960s were facing elimination. In fact, it was the "socialist collective creation" of Shangmi in the 1950s and 1960s that gave birth to classic works such as "Little Owl to Find Mom" ​​and "Murch" . Then all the thinking that is in line with efficiency and income limits the development of ink animation.
The main reason is that ink animation is completely contrary to “efficiency”. This art is extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive, and each picture contains a lot of time and effort from the animators . In addition to Tewei, Qian Jiajun and other older masters of animation, even Li Kezhen, Cheng Shifa and other famous Chinese paintings are also involved. It is precisely the artistic pursuit of this work that makes Chinese ink animations attract worldwide attention.
Therefore, those Japanese who have mastered the ink animation skills will not try it easily after returning home.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese animation entered the stage of commercialization. The number of works invested and produced by the state decreased, the creation of short films was interrupted, and the integration of animation dramas was the main form. The Black Cat Sheriff, Shuke and Beta were the same. A classic of a period. Some people say that "Landscape" has become the swan song of Chinese ink animation, and it has become the last art piece before the commercialization of Chinese animation.
In fact, not only ink animation, but also the animation forms born out of traditional Chinese techniques, including clay animation, puppet animation, paper-cut animation, etc., are gradually disappearing due to the cumbersome production process and the mismatch between artistic value and commercial value. Since then, Chinese animation has gone further and further on the road of low youth and bad imitation...
Paper-cut animation "Golden Conch" (1963)
After the digital technology occupied the mainstream of animation, the ink animation made by the computer began to appear again. In recent years, there have been some short films of ink and ink, but they have always belonged to the niche. Ink animation effects are also used in some advertisements and promotional videos.
"Peach Blossom Spring" (2006)
Erhu (2012)
"A Chang and "Shan Hai Jing"" (2015)
Ink animations have a strong oriental color and are best suited for use in animations with Chinese elements. However, the way in which ink animation is created must be industrialized and scaled in order to have more beautiful works. Chinese ink animation is in a period of transition from experiment to industrialization. As long as we seize the opportunity, technology transformation, and ideological model change, we can seize the opportunity to realize its value.