EARLY WORK OF ZHANG YIMOU AND THE ART THAT INSPIRED IT (Inspiracje plastyczne we wczesnej tworczosci Zhanga Yimou)

We are used to the fact that an artist, being representative of a given culture, will use that tradition, the patterns of native painting and visual symbolic representation as a resource and inspiration in his or her film making. However a problem arises, when we consider the relationship between art coming from 'different' cultural sphere and Western culture, where the art of film making was born. The authoress writes about the incompatibility of the traditional Chinese system of representation with the system one inherited by film makers, with its roots in the culture of Renaissance. She describes the rules present in Chinese painting (especially landscape painting) and their relation to Tao and Confucianism, and then considers whether these rules could be applied in film making.