Western
Different from Chinese philosophy of art, western artists often separate their consciousness (The Self) from their environment (The Natural World) in traditional paintings. They tried to seek true world in their art expression. We can find this reality in those masterpieces from Classicalism to Impressionism. As early as period of Revival of Learning, those celebrated art masters had reached a excellent level to control nature. They expressed the truth in their works by perfect skills of drawing, exact knowledge of anatomy and scientific theory of perspective. In 1860s, impressionist painters were fascinated by the relationship between light and colour. They painted free brushstrokes in pure pigment to express the reality of light and colour. Impressionism controlled the reality of art in this way. Compared with other eras, the 20th century was developed in a big way in art area with the progressing of technology. All kinds of art genre came into being. As a result, the art notion has also radically changed, it emphasized mentality and ideology of artists more and more rather than their ability of expressing the external world. In the field of modern design, the aim that bring art and design into the domain of daily life was offered by Bauhaus. Modern poster was demanded to convey message effectively and serve the society and people. Hence the art form has become more international. Both Chinese and Western artists have experimented with new visual language to express notions or convey message.
The different characteristics of contemporary graphic language in Chinese and Western posters
Poster designs deliver a message to the public through effective visual forms. With the trend of internationalization, there are still some differences existing in visual style of Chinese and Western posters for meeting different demands. Here follows a summary of some general characteristics below.
1.Harmonious and Contrastive
Comparing with western posters, Chinese posters have harmonious characteristic in their graphic language. It is not to say these posters have no contrasting factors. Contrarily, Chinese poster designers regard contrast very much, but they emphasize balancing the opposite things and reaching final holistic harmony. Chinese poster graphics are influenced by traditional aesthetics more or less. For example, in Taoism, Yin, Yang live together as a whole in Taoism, Zhong Yong (Middle of the Road) of Confucianism and so on. These factors influenced Chinese posters today. Many posters embodied this principle of Balancing Reciprocity. Alan Chan and Peter Lo of Hong Kong ever designed a pair of poster about Chinese handwriting. The graphics is a inkstone in shape of the symbol of Tai Ji (Yin-Yang). Each poster has half. They showed words and landscape respectively. This pair of poster are compact, generous and harmonize the opposites.
Different from Chinese poster, Western poster graphic language takes on the characteristic of contrast generally. It mainly showed in aspects of colour, shape and layout. Basically, Western poster convey to people the sense of reality or embodiment. This is partly due to Western traditional aesthetics; on the other hand, the movements of modern art and design also made great effect on Western poster styles. Today we are in the information era, graphic designers have to catch the eye of audience by effective graphic languages as quickly as possible. As a contemporary poster designer, if he/she fails to attract audiences by his/her images in a few seconds, then the piece of communication may fail. Therefore, many designers pursue visual shock. A poster is generally put up in public place and seen over long distances. Obviously, intense contrast is one of the best methods to make poster more noticeable. For example, the poster of appealing to Switzerland to join the European Union. This poster expressed the subject accurately without redundant words. More than half of Swiss national flag is covered by the flag of European Union. The two flags have same symbol---cross,they compare with each other and enforce the subject. Compact form and contrasting colours made this poster possess powerful visual appeal.