In the eyes of modernist painters who are committed to pursuing pure art, traditional painting is mixed with too many "non-artistic impurities". In fact, western traditional painting does not emphasize art, but pays attention to many non-artistic aspects while paying attention to artistry. This is probably an important sign that traditional painting is different from modernist painting. The impurity of traditional painting in art is mainly manifested in two aspects: utility and description.
The Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Fini by Yang Fan Eco is an extraordinary work in the art history. However, such a masterpiece was not originally a portrait or genre painting as many of us thought when trying to define it.
Another feature of western traditional painting is the emphasis on description. For a long time, painters have taken it as their task to effectively express stories and legends and to describe specific plots to express certain meanings or symbols. This description is also fully reflected in Yang Fan Eco's The Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Fini.
The difference between western traditional painting and modern painting is also reflected in the different attitudes towards so-called reproduction. For traditional painting, reproduction is the root, and it can also be said that it is the basic goal of western traditional painting. Compared with modern painting, the main feature of western traditional painting is "representation", but this representation is by no means a constant description of nature, and this realism has strong style characteristics: the times, nationality and the artist's personal style characteristics.
Classical and anti-classical are the two main streams of western traditional painting art. Classical interest emphasizes rationality, and its formal characteristics are especially manifested in attaching importance to sketch and ignoring color. Anti-classicism is keen on emotion. Unlike classicism, it does not pursue the classical meaning of solemnity, quietness, simplicity and harmony, but emphasizes the spirit of free indulgence and the spirit of richness, grandeur and agitation, which is vividly manifested in baroque and romantic art. The former shows the reaction to the classical interest of the Renaissance, while the latter shows the incompatibility with neoclassicism.