In modern China, the awakening of traditional consciousness and comparison of national cultures are closely associated with each other. Nationalists and traditionalists in the history of art established their own identity just in the historical context of comparison between Eastern and Western cultures. For the relationship between Chinese and Western art, traditionalists gradually established the conception of “both Eastern and Western origins” for culture and art in terms of cultural holism. They began to reinspect the traditional characteristics of Chinese art in the background of global culture. In addition, excavation and systemization of folk artistic traditions is apparently one of the significant accomplishments in modern and contemporary history of Chinese fine arts.By figuring out, imagining and explaining folk artistic traditions, Chinese intellectuals have gradually formed a new artistic taste， which even became a substitute for scholastic painting tradition in a time.

Chinese history of fine arts; modern and contemporary art; traditional consciousness; cultural tradition; sense of nationalism