Painterly focused Chinese ink animation: Seeing through the cultural lens of the Xiang system.

Chinese ink animation has won worldwide respect for its ethereal and refined approach to ink painting. From the 1950s to 1980s, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio produced a number of award-winning ink animations. These animations share a unique traditional Chinese aesthetic based on Chinese literature and philosophy. However, the complex and long hand-made production process is one of the factors that caused the decline of Chinese ink animation following the 1980s. Since the millennium, three-dimensional ink modelling and digital painting technology have contributed to the revival of Chinese ink animation. This article summarizes the development of the production process of Chinese ink animation, together with its artistic features in both the analogue and digital age. Theoretically, this article focuses on a Chinese poetic framework, 'the Xiang system', as both a creative strategy for producing Chinese ink animation and an analytical lens to critique it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]