The Chinese nation has been a model of inheritance and innovation, and the integration of tradition and modernity since ancient times. Judging from the exoticism of the earliest Qizil mural, although it pays attention to the shape, it does not depict the shape objectively and naturally like the western Greek style, but expresses the shape in an oriental aesthetic way, forming a "Qiuci painting style" in which the eastern and western arts are integrated. This form of Qizil fresco is the earliest style of combining eastern and western arts in China on the Silk Road. The development history of Dunhuang murals has formed from the early "western painting style" to the gradual localization in the middle and late period and the transformation of the painting style in the Central Plains. This is a typical history of the integration of tradition and modernity. In the fifty-fourth year of Kangxi (17 15), Italian Lang Shining and other missionaries brought the colors and techniques of western painting to China, which was another great fusion of eastern and western cultures. The mid-20th century is another active and complicated period in the history of China fine arts. Lin Fengmian emphasized the integration of China and the West, Xu Beihong emphasized that the West should serve China, Pan Tianshou emphasized the distance between China and the West, and Li Keran emphasized that the light and quantity in western paintings should be brought into Chinese paintings. Think carefully about the background of these great cultural integration, all in the period when the country is opening to the outside world and the cultural and economic exchanges between China and the West are booming. Until the 1980s, with the reopening of the country and the re-integration of Chinese and foreign cultures, a new round of "Where is China Fine Arts?" In-depth thinking, with the awakening of nationalism after overseas students returned home, the word "rock color painting" was clearly and loudly put forward. Rock color, a major material in this local culture, was excavated by the awakened person from the bottom of the river in the long history of culture. It represents another transformation of China's fine arts, which means that China's colored paintings have once again turned a brilliant page.

"Rock color painting" has gone through a tortuous process from being put forward and controversial to being accepted today. From the research and development of materials in Tianya China Rock Paintings Research Institute to the popularization of teaching in the early 1990s, the opening of the advanced research class of heavy colored rock paintings in China Art Research Institute of the Ministry of Culture, the opening of formal courses in various art colleges, the promotion of media propaganda, and the holding of previous rock paintings exhibitions have all attracted great attention from the art world. This kind of painting has grown from scratch, and many rock paintings have won prizes in national art exhibitions. During this period, the pioneers paid amazing time, energy and painstaking efforts, just like filling depressions, weeding and reclamation in a wasteland.

Rock painting is an ancient and modern painting. In today's modern art expression, like the development of any painting, the initial experimental works may present a rigid and imperfect state, but it is a valuable exploration and a process from one shore to another, which is precious and full of courage. Innovation and experimenter's artistic exploration are often marginal art, which is directly excluded by the mainstream art under the traditional consciousness. Some of them died early, some struggled to survive and integrate into the mainstream, and then became a conservative mainstream tradition, which was once again criticized by non-mainstream art. This is the inevitability of historical progress. I think rock paintings will survive tenaciously and quickly become the mainstream culture and get attention, which will represent China fine arts to the world painting world.

The development of modern rock paintings can draw nourishment from three aspects: tradition, life and foreign art, and more importantly, real life. Contemporary people living in the contemporary social environment should observe and experience from it. However, it is not enough to have real life experience, nor can it be done without corresponding skills, methods and ways. Therefore, it is very important to learn traditional and foreign cultures, but just bring them here. What is more important is to turn them into their own personality and cultural aesthetics of their own nation.

The road that rock color painting has been pursuing is very worthy of our attention. We should learn from China's traditional temple murals and a lot of folk arts, and form the face of China's rock paintings through the training of orthodox modeling skills in art colleges, especially transforming the traditional painting style into modern artistic language forms and modern expression forms. We should make more efforts from these aspects. Chinese painting will inevitably present colorful landscapes, which will play a positive role in promoting the innovation and development of Chinese painting. In a sense, today's rock paintings come from traditional murals, but they are no longer ancient rock paintings. Although the materials used are mineral pigments, modern rock paintings can better represent contemporary life and fully show their own personality and unique creation. This is a modern rock painting in China. Moreover, it is very rich in creative content and form, and it is created with the eyes and feelings of modern people, which of course belongs to the category of innovation. Therefore, rock color painting will continue to go on, and its personality will become more and more distinct. It can be seen that the diversification and individualization of contemporary Chinese painting have become a common practice, and modern rock painting has also enriched the content of current Chinese painting innovation.

(The author is Wang Xiongfei, head of art rock color teaching in China)