[[alternative]]The national style of Chinese water-ink animation -- Focus on visual iconographic content

[[abstract]]Animation had its birth in China when the four Won brothers shot their first cartoon commercial ad. In the period between the 1950s and the 1980s, China entered a golden era of animation, especially in the early 1950’s, when Te-Wei suggested that Chinese animation should have its own style and worked hard to develop it. Afterwards, Chinese animations created from all kinds of Chinese folk art media such as paper-cutting, paper-folding, puppets, water-ink painting, etc., prospered and enriched the world of animation at that time. These animation films also won numerous international awards. The unique artistic style of Chinese animation became known as the "Chinese School" worldwide. Among them, the most amazing and attractive were the water-ink animations; they inspired the viewers with brand new visual experiences. Unlike drawings with regular pens, water-ink animations used Chinese paintbrushes to achieve a unique Chinese artistic style and presented the viewer with a captivating perspective of the varying degrees of light and dark achieved by the brush strokes. The traditional Chinese brush-painting technique was so well incorporated into the animation that it created a classic mood of Chinese poetry and philosophy that had never been achieved before. Because Chinese animation is so different from Western animation both in form and content, this research will first cross-analyze related articles, records and animation works, and then attempt to explore the visual iconographic content of Chinese water-ink animations. This will be done in three components: the features of animations and their implements in the form of movies; the formal content presented from visual iconologies in Chinese water-ink animations; and the cultural significance and aesthetic ideas exemplified in Chinese water-ink animations. The conclusion of this research shows that these Chinese animations produced in the last century attempted to bring about the development of visual experiences of traditional Chinese water-ink painting into new techniques for making cartoon or animation movies. Their content of iconographic art consisted of traditional Chinese impressionistic painting forms. The strong feeling of traditional Chinese culture was expressed, and the Chinese national style was very obviously depicted. But from another standpoint, since the form presented by Chinese water-ink animation is originally taken from traditional Chinese water-ink painting skills, the opportunity for creative innovation seems to be lacking. Finding a way to break through the rigidity of tradition to improve the artistry and creativity of Chinese water-ink animation is a big challenge that lies ahead.