At the beginning of the 20th century, people gathered their eyes on the study and reference of Western sculpture art. However, at this time people are concerned about the traditional realistic sculptures that have been glory in the history of Western art, but they have turned a blind eye to the modern sculptures that are maturing.
This choice is inseparable from the reality of Chinese social culture at the time. It is limited to the length of the book. The author is concerned about the impact of this choice on the development of Chinese sculpture in the future. In the more than half a century since then, Chinese sculpture has always been under the full influence of Western traditional realist sculptures. Although it has made remarkable achievements, it has been strongly intervened and controlled by many factors such as politics and society. The sculpture has lost the space of self-development and perfection. The “heteronomy” of art is higher than “self-discipline”, and it has been restricted in content and form, which constrains the development of sculpture art. In this period, there are many problems in the field of metal sculpture. Metal materials always exist as a tool for the transformation of material forms. There is no right to speak for self-expression. Moreover, due to economic reasons, there are very few sculptures of metal materials during this period. 2. Oil or acrylic paint is often used to imitate the effect of metal on other materials (gypsum, cement).
Since the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, with the deepening of the economic system reform and the improvement of the level of opening up to the outside world, the closed country has been opened, and the advanced science and technology and excellent culture and art of the world have flooded into China, and the society is stable. Economic recovery, political democracy. All these changes have greatly promoted the prosperity and progress of sculpture art. Western modern metal sculptures have been on the Chinese art stage in this context. As mentioned above, Western modern metal sculpture art is a modern art movement since the early 20th century in Western society. It is a revolution in Western sculpture tradition. It completely subverts the tradition of Western traditional sculpture art with the purpose of expressing volume and carving and shaping as the main language technique. It gradually forms a combination of metal casting, forging, welding and other metal crafts and sculpture art, and develops sculpture into one. The art of expressing space. The transformation of modern metal sculptures in terms of form and material has profoundly influenced the development of modern Chinese metal sculptures. Due to the influence of the reality of modern Chinese metal sculptures, a relatively unique view of form and material is formed that is different from modern Western metal sculptures.
It is the incompleteness of formal change. The typical feature of modern metal sculpture is that the artistic expression gradually abandons the “thematic image” and develops in a formal and abstract way. However, Chinese modern metal sculptures are embarrassed in the transformation of form. On the one hand, due to the lack of the violent social transformation factors of Western society in the early 20th century, young sculptors still stay in the exploration and study of modern metal sculpture forms. Simple imitation and reproduction stage; on the other hand, mature sculptors who are deeply influenced by realism ideas hope to take a path of eclecticism, avoiding the psychological loss caused by completely abandoning realism and achieving avant-garde participation. The possibilities of art keep up with the trend of the times. In this context, Chinese modern metal sculptures rarely appear completely abstract works in the West, but more are intentional works that are both realistic and well-considered.
The second is the relative singularity of material selection. In the transformation of modern metal sculptures, the transformation of material selection is a distinct feature. With the development of science and advances in technology, more and more new materials and processes have been invented and discovered and applied to the creation of modern metal sculptures. In the early days of its development, China’s modern metal sculptures faced an embarrassing situation, that is, China’s relatively backward industrial technology. This has led to many new materials and new process technologies that have appeared and used in the West. They cannot be used by modern Chinese metal sculptors. The choice of materials can only stay in a few metals such as stainless steel and steel, showing a relatively single feature.