Chinese painting
Photograph by holmanphotoon Flickr.
These three arts worked together to express the artist’s feelings more completely than one art could do alone. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made of are paper and silk.
One particular case of freehand style (xieyi hua) may be noted in the work of the child prodigy Wang Yani -born 1975- who started painting at age 3 and has since considerably contributed to the exercise of the style in contemporary artwork. . Along with these developments in professional art circles, there was a proliferation of peasant art depicting everyday life in the rural areas on wall murals and in open-air painting exhibitions. During the Cultural Revolution, art schools were closed, and publication of art journals and major art exhibitions ceased with major destructions done as part of the elimination of Four Olds campaign. Following the Cultural Revolution, art schools and professional organizations were reinstated.
Perhaps the most beloved modern painter was Qi Baishi, who began life as a poor peasant and became a great master. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer, rubbed brushwork.
Jieziyuan Huazhuan (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden), a five-volume work first published in 1679, has been in use as a technical textbook for artists and students ever since. Some painters of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) continued the traditions of the Yuan scholar-painters. Even when these artists illustrated Confucian moral themes – such as the proper behavior of a wife to her husband or of children to their parents – they tried to make the figures graceful. The Six principles of Chinese painting were established by Xie He, a writer, art historian and critic in 5th century China.
The time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period (907–1127) is known as the Great age of Chinese landscape . Some artists who studied in Europe rejected Chinese painting; others tried to combine the best of both traditions.
The implements were the brush pen, made of animal hair, and black inks made from pine soot and animal glue. One of the most famous artists of the period was Zhang Zeduan, painter of Along the River During the Qingming Festival.
Emphasis was placed on the spiritual qualities of the painting and on the ability of the artist to reveal the inner harmony of man and nature, as perceived according to Taoist and Buddhist concepts. He is most famous for his Six points to consider when judging a painting (绘画六法, Pinyin:Huìhuà Liùfǎ), taken from the preface to his book The Record of the Classification of Old Painters (古画品录; Pinyin: Gǔhuà Pǐnlù).
It was only during the Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) that artists began to represent the world around them. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guó huà 国画, meaning national or native painting , as opposed to Western styles of art which became popular in China in the 20th century. Artists such as Zhou Fang showed the splendor of court life in painting of emperors, palace ladies, and imperial horses.
Stone Age pottery was painted with spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals. Even so, Mongol Khagan Tugh Temur (r.1328,1329–1332) was very fond of this culture. Beginning in the 13th century, the tradition of painting simple subjects—a branch with fruit, a few flowers, or one or two horses—developed.
In ancient times, writing, as well as painting, was done on silk. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink; oils are not used.
His best known works depict flowers and small animals. Beginning with the New Culture Movement, Chinese artists started to adopt using Western techniques. In the early years of the People s Republic of China, artists were encouraged to employ socialist realism. Calligraphy was thought to be the highest and purest form of painting.
From their time onward, many painters strove to freely express their feelings and to capture the inner spirit of their subject instead of describing its outward appearance. During the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), painters joined the arts of painting, poetry, and calligraphy by inscribing poems on their paintings. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures.
They created a new kind of art in which they used their skills in calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing) to make ink paintings. These two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting. In imperial times (beginning with the Eastern Jin Dynasty), painting and calligraphy in China were the most highly appreciated arts in court circles and were produced almost exclusively by amateurs—aristocrats and scholar-officials—who had the leisure time necessary to perfect the technique and sensibility necessary for great brushwork.
Traditional painting also is done in albums and on walls, lacquerwork, and other media. There are mainly two techniques in Chinese painting, which are Artists from the Han (202 BC) to the Tang (618–906) dynasties mainly painted the human figure. Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world.
However, one Tang artist, the master Wu Daozi, used only black ink and freely painted brushstrokes to create ink paintings that were so exciting that crowds gathered to watch him work. This group of painters, known as the Wu School, was led by the artist Shen Zhou.
In the north, artists such as Jing Hao, Fan Kuan, and Guo Xi painted pictures of towering mountains, using strong black lines, ink wash, and sharp, dotted brushstrokes to suggest rough stone. Another group of painters, known as the Zhe School, revived and transformed the styles of the Song court. During the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), painters known as Individualists rebelled against many of the traditional rules of painting and found ways to express themselves more directly through free brushwork.
In the 1700s and 1800s, great commercial cities such as Yangzhou and Shanghai became art centers where wealthy merchant-patrons encouraged artists to produce bold new works. In the late 1800s and 1900s, Chinese painters were increasingly exposed to the Western art. Figure painting reached the height of elegant realism in the art of the court of Southern Tang (937-975). Most of the Tang artists outlined figures with fine black lines and used brilliant color and elaborate detail.
Some Soviet Union socialist realism was imported without modification, and painters were assigned subjects and expected to mass-produce paintings. From his time on, ink paintings were no longer thought to be preliminary sketches or outlines to be filled in with color.
The six elements that define a painting are: During the Tang Dynasty, figure painting flourished at the royal court. Much of what we know of early Chinese figure painting comes from burial sites, where paintings were preserved on silk banners, lacquered objects, and tomb walls.
Original writings by famous calligraphers have been greatly valued throughout China s history and are mounted on scrolls and hung on walls in the same way that paintings are. During the Six Dynasties period (220–589), people began to appreciate painting for its own beauty and to write about art. This regimen was considerably relaxed in 1953, and after the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956-57, traditional Chinese painting experienced a significant revival.
and refers to old and ancient practices. However, after the invention of paper in the 1st century CE, silk was gradually replaced by the new and cheaper material.
Yi Yuanji achieved a high degree of realism painting animals, in particular monkeys and gibbons. During the Southern Song period (1127-1279), court painters such as Ma Yuan and Xia Gui used strong black brushstrokes to sketch trees and rocks and pale washes to suggest misty space. While many Chinese artists were attempting to represent three-dimensional objects and to master the illusion of space, another group of painters pursued very different goals. At the end of Northern Song period, the poet Su Shi and the scholar-officials in his circle became serious amateur painters.
Exchanges were set up with groups of foreign artists, and Chinese artists began to experiment with new subjects and techniques. Many early tomb paintings were meant to protect the dead or help their souls get to paradise.
Instead they were valued as finished works of art. Beginning in the Tang Dynasty, many paintings were landscapes, often shanshui (山水, mountain water ) paintings. The finished work is then mounted on scrolls, which can be hung or rolled up.
Others illustrated the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius or showed scenes of daily life. Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting. Narrative painting, with a wider color range and a much busier composition than Song paintings, was immensely popular during the Ming period (1368–1644). The first books illustrated with colored woodcuts appeared around this time; as colo-printing techniques were perfected, illustrated manuals on the art of painting began to be published.
From this time we begin to know about individual artists, such as Gu Kaizhi.
