Cartoons use pictures to express the story, use plastic arts to draw inanimate hypothetical images, and present an extremely broad imagination space through the deformation of the material world. Behind the imaginary space composed of various images and plots, there is always a certain deep meaning hidden, and audiences at different levels can interpret according to their own understanding. Given that cartoons are "pictures of activity", good cartoons must have a fairly high degree of artistry. Thanks to international exchanges, technical means are no longer the bottleneck restricting the development of animation, and the visual interpretation of traditional classic materials is extremely scarce. Looking at it again, the Chinese animation "Nine Colored Deer", which was produced in 1981 and directly inherits the art style of Dunhuang murals, and the French animation "Twitter and the Witch", which is rooted in West African mythology and stories in 1998 and draws on the art of ancient Egyptian murals, present a high degree of artistic appreciation in terms of structure, shape, and color, and at the same time faithfully express the cultural background on which it is based.
Kushiki deer mural
"Long roll" composition
The story of the nine-colored deer originated in India and was in the form of a circular relief; later, with buddhism, it was introduced to Guizi and changed to the ling format. In the middle of the 5th century, the nine-colored deer story painting was introduced to Dunhuang, and now only caves 257 in the Northern Wei Dynasty. It inherits the Han and Jin episodic painting tradition and adopts the form of horizontal scroll continuous painting. The continuous story painting of the nine-colored deer develops from both sides to the middle, from south to north, including: 1, the drowning man cries out for help in the water; 2, the deer hears the sound to the shore and tells the drowning man not to panic; 3, the nine-colored deer jumps into the rapids, and the drowning man rides on the deer's back and holds the deer's neck with both hands; 4, the drowning man kneels long to give thanks; from north to south, he is: 1, the queen dreams, the king bounty; 2, the drowning man is greedy for money; 3, the king drives out of the palace, and the drowning man leads the way before the car; 4, the king rides into the mountain on horseback, and the waiter is covered behind him; 5, the nine-colored deer sleeps in the barren valley, Friend crow pecks and warns; 6, the nine-colored deer confronts the king and complains about the details. The narrative mode of the "Nine Colored Deer" cartoon also adopts this "long scroll style", and as the plot progresses, the picture unfolds little by little.
Poster of Twitter and the Witch
The story of the animated film "Twitter and the Witch" produced by French director Michel Ocelot is rooted in West African mythology, and the story begins in the vast and desolate african land, a newborn child named Twitter has the courage and wisdom to defeat the terrible witch in the local legend, and saves the witch with love and tolerance, and the child named Twitter has suddenly grown into a strong adult. The space in the animation is linear, from left to right are villages, woods, witch huts, and mountains where the wise man lives; the composition is also almost cross-sectional, twittering from the left side of the picture to the right, the scene of digging a hole in the ground is also flat, digging from left to right, with his movements at the same time to advance the storyline and picture.
Twitter reconciles with the witch
In "The Images and Narratives of the Nine-Colored Deer Bunsen Story Painting in Cave 257 of Dunhuang", Mr. Zhan Yuehai observed that the characteristics of the "long scroll" form itself have not been fully discussed, and not enough attention has been paid to why ancient Chinese painters preferred this form (in non-narrative painting, long scrolls are also a common form). But we have a deep feeling for the temporality and continuity it shows. David Hockney once lamented that watching the scroll painting makes you feel immersed, as if you have "passed" by the shop on the street depicted in the painting. "Passing by" and "peeping" are different ways of viewing, but the former provides an opportunity for the performance of the story painting and also enhances the initiative of the narrative.
Shapes that vary from time to time
In terms of styling, after investigation, the crew believes that the mural style of the Northern Wei Dynasty is clumsy but not fine, the Rich and Concise Tang Dynasty, and the Sui Dynasty. Mr. Feng Jiannan said, "Therefore, we finally agreed that the artistic style of the cartoon "Nine Colored Deer" should be based on the mural style of the Dunhuang Northern Wei Period, and then integrate some mural styles from the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty into it. Therefore, the animation "Nine Colored Deer" not only has a direct reference to the modeling elements and colors of "Deer King BunshengTu", but also integrates its later Sui and Tang Dynasty mural plastic art style. When discussing the art modeling of "Nine Colored Deer", Cui Boqun believes that the nine-colored deer has obvious feminine characteristics, abandoning the roughness of the desert and becoming gentle and moving; the five crescent-shaped colors on the body not only show the charm of the deer king, but also gentle and close; the merchant costume is a typical Persian style; the sharp-billed monkey cheek of the medicine-drinking drowning man is more prominent in typicality and symbolization; the maiko and the flying sky directly absorb the shape of the Tiangong Le trick in the Dunhuang mural; the queen's costume is very similar to the Tang Dynasty woman's tanco; in the scene, according to Mr. Feng Jiannan, The desert refers to the Silk Road, and the imperial palace and the imperial city, in addition to drawing on the murals, also drew inspiration from the Jiayuguan Great Wall.
Maiko and Flying Sky animation
Nine-colored deer warm little creature animation
In "Twitter and the Witch", the witch Kahaba and the toddler Twitter are a typical set of contrasting characters. Before the stinger is pulled out, Kahaba always shows herself in a positive image, her waist cloth is blue and green and printed with black geometric patterns, and she wears golden square gold pieces or rounded gold beads on the top of her head, neck, arms and chest. The lips were purple, and a pinch of sisal hair stood tall, and the teeth and claws danced, showing the witch's evil heart. Twitter is naked, very small, and the image of a naïve child is precisely the nemesis of the witch. In the village, men and women are naked, wearing monochrome waist cloth and combing various traditional hairstyles. Cottages also have strong African characteristics, grass roofs, conical volume, no door panels, grass huts neatly arranged in a circle, leaving only an opening on the circumference, belonging to the traditional African residential style. In addition, African sisal, thorns, flamingos, crown cranes and wild boars also appear in the film, and the scenes of African people's daily rice work are also displayed, and cultural elements are rich.
Twitter and the Witch Village
The article "African Culture in the> < Of Animation" also carefully discovers the black African sculptures in the film. The first is the wood carved totem at the outlet of the mountain spring. The spring water flows from the inside of the mountain through a narrow tunnel, and the surface of the mountain at the exit is carved with a mask totem. Totem's eyebrows were connected to his nose to form a Y-shape, and he squinted his eyes and pouted as if he were whistling, a leisurely look, while the spring water just flowed out of his mouth. In addition, the gate of the witch Kahaba's residence is also a mask totem. Inverted triangular eyes, sharp nose, a large mouth full of fangs, angular, majestic and terrifying. Before each time the witch walked out of the dwelling, the puppet guards chanted the mantra in unison, and then the totem wooden door parted from the middle, crushing the open door puppets on both sides to the ground, at which point the witch came out of the flame-like room. The original totem reinforces the eerie atmosphere of the witch's residence.
A wood-carved totem at the outlet of the spring
Quaint and simple subjective color
Dunhuang Grottoes existing murals and statues a total of 492 caves, of which the Northern Dynasty murals have distinct characteristics of the times and cultural connotations, the early stage of the earth red as the background color, supplemented by green ochre and other colors, warm and thick color, there are distinct western Buddhist characteristics. Since the Western Wei Dynasty, the background color is mostly white and the hue tends to be elegant, revealing the interpenetration of Western and Central Plains cultures and the localization of Buddhism. The west wall of Mogao Cave 257 is a typical representative of the Dunhuang murals of the Northern Dynasty. In the Dunhuang Mural <Lu Wang Bunsheng Tu > Painting Language Exploration", Gao Gao believes that the mural (and animation) uses subjective colors, and the setting of color expresses good and evil beauty and ugliness, which can turn needs into reality, and can also express wishes - among which the earth red background is similar to the color of the land, symbolizing the broad, generous and calm style; white symbolizes purity, cleanliness, as if the messenger of the Pure Land; the main color of the deer is white, and the green or white on the body is dotted with nine colors, showing the purity and vitality of the deer Men are brown, women are white, and the drowning person becomes black after informing, symbolizing the body of evil; the landscape in the background is interspersed in the picture with earth red or blue-green flat paint, forming a contrast between hue and cold and warm, which not only enhances the decoration, but also strengthens the visual impact. The white deer king symbolizes the body of light, with the bright colors of the rivers and rivers in the composition, forming a righteous charm; at the same time, the white deer king and the stable earth red background and the pure stone green mountain shape and flowers and grasses form a large unified and small contrasting decorative effect, and the flowers and plants filled in the space make the picture more vivid, lively and interesting.
Nine-colored deer rescue drowning man mural
The drowning man leads the king's army to hunt the nine-colored deer animation
The simple and ancient spirit of Egyptian art is also vividly reflected in the use of color. An image often uses only one color, no light and dark changes, and does not pursue light and shadow effects, and transition colors are extremely rare. The basic color spectrum of ancient Egyptian painting is limited, basically red, yellow, blue, green, black and white, and there is generally no mixed color. The men's skin in the paintings is mostly ochre red; the women are mostly light brown or yellowish; the hair and eyebrows are black; and the clothing is mostly white and pleated decoration. When painting, it is often painted flat and unfolded on the wall, giving people a harmonious and beautiful feeling. White is the color of purity, holiness, cleanliness. Sacrifices and deities are usually white, and unstained linen is often white. In "Twitter and the Witch", the skin of the man and the woman is not much different, both are yellow-brown, the eyebrows are black, the background is orange-yellow, and the contrast color is mainly red and blue, symbolizing the great contrast between anger and calm. For example, when the witch stole the witch's secret gold jewelry, the angry witch came out of the house with a red eye and a poisonous spear in her hand, and everywhere she went, the flowers and trees all withered and were gray. And when Twitter pulls out the witch's stinger with her teeth, everything immediately recovers, and on the blue background, pieces of white flowers bloom with soft music, making people feel the gentleness and tranquility of the soul after purification. At the same time, Twig's grandfather, as a wise man in the mountains, sat in the blue hall covered in white linen, symbolizing the clarity and purity of seeing through the world.
Angry witch
Wise men in the mountains
In addition to the above, the image lines in the animation of "Nine Colored Deer" are soft and soft, obviously absorbing the line drawing characteristics of Chinese murals, while the lines in "Twitter and the Witch" are simple, the faces of the characters present a sculptural style, and the brushstrokes of plants and animals are more delicate. Because "Nine Colored Deer" is derived from buddhist scripture stories, it emphasizes that "good and evil have retribution", which has a strong moral enlightenment effect; but "Twitter" adheres to the concept of "children are born philosophers", and is more integrated into the thinking of good and evil, not to speak falsely, not to judge, and also to highlight the redemptive power of love. This effort to properly visualize classic traditional footage should be a direction for animation to return, and its importance cannot be overemphasized.