White Space Is the Highest State of Beauty -- A Brief Analysis of Modern Cyanotype Works

: The art of leaving white space has a unique artistic aesthetic, which has been highly valued by artists since ancient times, and it can give people unlimited artistic imagination and spatial context through the ethereal spirit generated by the conversion of reality and emptiness. In modern blue and white paintings, with the artistic expression of "abandoning its straightness and taking its curvature", it not only expands the artistic context of two-dimensional plane painting and three-dimensional modelling of blue and white, but also demonstrates the charm and spiritual connotation of modern blue and white paintings, and it also realizes the pursuit of returning to the basics of the contemporary people in terms of materiality and spirituality.


Introduction
Qinghua works attach great importance to leave white, from the unique aesthetics, which will form the beauty of blue and white space, compared with the black and white space of ink painting, it shows another sense of beautiful and elegant.Zhang style in the Qing dynasty in the "painting talk" has said: "blank is not empty paper, blank is painting."This invisible white space becomes a special part of the picture, which sets off the tangible points, lines and surfaces, and at the same time makes the picture full of imaginative space, with a strong sense of formal beauty.

The Artistic Beauty of White Space
Mr Zhu Guangqian once said that "speechlessness and white space is the highest state of beauty"; "white space" is called "white space", as the name suggests, it is in the limited field space to make some space gap.White space is not only blank in the general sense, it is also the picture of nothing, is a kind of "ethereal" beauty, contains the beauty of silence, emptiness, speechlessness, is the face of a defect or stimulus unconsciously produced by a kind of "fill in the" "Perfection", in order to achieve intuitive balance of the state, which is not only a person in the physiological and psychological needs, but also the inevitable result of the development of human material civilisation to a new height.

The beauty of the original colour of white space
This form of artistic aesthetics and Chinese Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, law, ink thought has deep roots.Confucianism is concerned about the "Dan lacquer is not text, white jade is not carved, treasure beads are not decorated", which the "not text", "not carved", "not decorative "is the original theory of the art of white, they attach importance to the beauty of the original colour of things, opposed to deliberately carved decorative forms, the pursuit of yin and yang, interdependent mediocrity, that harmony is the real beauty.

Figure 1. Majiayao white earthenware pots
The expression of white space in Chinese aesthetics was initially embodied in the art form of painting, and we can see many examples of this along the trail of the history of painting in China, such as Fig. 1, this Neolithic Majiayao whitepainted earthenware basin, about 20 cm in diameter, with a wide rim, a folded mouth, and a rounded belly that converges at the upper part and the lower part of the belly.The belly is half painted and half blank.The pottery belongs to the Neolithic Majiayao culture Majiayao type, about 5,800 years ago, and is now collected in the Lanzhou Museum of Coloured Pottery Art.The "white" pottery basin belly is a water whirlpool pattern.One water vortex, slowly rotating, spreading to the left and right upwards, becomes 2 water vortexes.2 water vortexes continue to spread and form 3 water vortexes.The rest of the piece is half blank, leaving room for infinite imagination.Some people say that this is an unfinished work, but from the neatness and maturity of the brushwork, more people conclude that this is a conscious creation.

"White space" in the aesthetic perspective of the new era
White space is embodied in every aspect of life from the aesthetic point of view of the new era, and with the help of the contrast between black and white, real and virtual, motion and static, certainty and unknown, it has avoided the congestion, piling up and complexity, and formed a new state of size, priority, sparsity, and real and virtual, whether it be for people or objects, there is a space to breathe and exhale.The white space in the inkless place gives a vast and farreaching mood, giving people enlightenment and enjoyment of beauty.

The Beauty of Modern Blue and White Art
As a carrier of cultural and artistic expression, blue and white has its uniqueness.The aesthetic theory of "knowing its white, keeping its black" is an excellent form of artistic expression in blue and white; in artistic treatment, white means to give up, simplify and reduce, replacing irrelevant objects with white to simplify the complicated and trivial picture; although the white space is empty to the eyes, but the mind can feel its existence of the artistic image, so that people are full of gallivanting and daydreaming in this blank space.This kind of artistic expression not only enriches the blue and white porcelain This kind of artistic expression not only enriches the content and form of lapis lazuli art, integrates the unique warmth of life into the aesthetics of lapis lazuli, sublimates the aesthetic character of the works, and awakens people's sleeping senses, but also expresses a certain kind of thinking with the transformation of metaphor and realism, which unconsciously becomes an important bridge for the return of people's minds to their native land, and an important medium for the contact between human beings, between human beings and objects, and between human beings and nature.
As an aesthetic form that combines two-dimensional vision and three-dimensional space, the study of the art of white space has to be analysed in terms of the planar composition of blue and white, the new creation of containers, and the fusion of sculptural forms.In the two-dimensional plane, the modern blue and white composition is the same as the composition of Chinese painting, which can not only make the main subjects such as figures, animals, flowers and birds in the picture more prominent, but also form a state, a feeling, and a spirit with pure "meaninglessness".Such as Xin'an school of painting and Zhushan eight friends (Figure 1), Wang Bu (Figure 3) and others in the ceramic painting on the white has high artistic attainments, in the blue and white art composition, often using a large area of blank so that the main body of the image is clear, but also with no image of the blank space for the extension of the meaning of the space.And then reflect the beauty of the work of reality, the beauty of space, the beauty of the mood, so in modern blue and white is a special meaning of the composition elements, not only for the real blank, but also for the expansion of space, visual recreation and emotional continuity, "can only be imagined, can not be said" the beauty of the association.
A good work of blue and white, to the beauty of the mood as the core, can give people a piece of serene state of mind, white space seems unintentional, but actually unique, in the square inch can show the art of Chinese porcelain painting the pursuit of the unity of mankind, Taoism and nature; such as Lv Jinquan's series of blue and white works of the child series (Fig. 4), the painting method of relaxation, nature, peculiar, a large area of blankness in the background not only allows people to focus on the theme of the vision all the way!The large blank space in the background not only allows one to focus all one's vision on the subject, but also gives a sense of infinite space.Looking at the subject matter of the picture, the relationship between white and blue is handled in an orderly manner in terms of hue, intensity, and strength.The whole work, whether it is the blankness of the background or the white of the glaze, gives people a relaxed, open and free feeling.

Aesthetic Concepts Embodied in the Art of Leaving White Space in Modern Cyanotype Works
Modern blue and white works embody the Confucian aesthetic concepts of yin and yang, interdependence and mutual support through the white space.The blue and white on the blue and white works form a contrasting relationship between yin and yang, such as static and dynamic, real and imaginary, rigid and soft, heavy and light, etc., which are in harmony and coexist, such as the rhythm of life.Confucian aesthetics also places great emphasis on norms and rules, reflecting the word "etiquette", and the white space in modern blue and white compositions is also one of the manifestations of "etiquette".The modern blue and white creators, after waving their brushes to depict and render the works, leave white space to reflect the Confucian spirit of courtesy and tolerance, so that the appreciators can feel a kind of peace of mind, thus making the picture of the blue and white works achieve a Confucian ideal state of mind.
Traditional Chinese Taoist aesthetics has many similarities with Confucianism, but its most fundamental foothold is the so-called "Tao", which is a transcendent state of egolessness or forgetfulness, free from the hustle and bustle of the world and seeking tranquillity and emptiness.This Taoist aesthetic spirit has undoubtedly penetrated into the modern art of blue and white.Taoist aesthetics advocates the law of nature, opposes man-made forms of beauty, and pursues a natural and ethereal aesthetic realm.The white space of modern blue and white works reflects this aesthetic demand, which enables people to think freely in the blank space and enter the state of selflessness.Confucianism and Taoism aesthetics is a greater influence on the Chinese arts, deeply impregnated with the traditional cultural heritage of blue and white porcelain is no exception, under the influence of Confucianism and Taoism aesthetics formed the art of white space, which has become an aesthetic form of very traditional aesthetic meaning.

Conclusion
The technique of white space has existed since ancient times, which is the incarnation of a kind of chapter and technique, as well as the sublimation of a kind of wisdom and realm.Especially in modern blue and white works, white space has been widely studied and applied, which unites the unique aesthetic thoughts of the Chinese nation and is one of the important aesthetics of modern blue and white, which pushes the dynamic meaning of blue and white and inexhaustible poetic meaning to the peak, and is used by the masters of the art, forming not only a solid blankness, but also an ethereal and grandiose mood.White space is an indispensable element of modern lapis lazuli, which is transformed into the exploration of the space of the mind through the observation, perception and sublimation of the material space, which is the bridge of communication between the artist and the appreciator, and the key to the success of modern lapis lazuli works, as well as the expression of the inner soul of modern lapis lazuli works.