Prominent Painters and Painting from Song to Qing Dynasty Hee Dam Yoon (52775031)
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was the golden age of landscape painting in Chinese history. Many artists developed landscape painting during Five Dynasties so, the development in the Song period was smoothly started. Especially emperor Song Huizong enjoyed contribution on art cultivation during the Song Dynasty, so, the soaring of Chinese landscape painting was possible (Hough, “Sung Dynasty (1960-1179)”). Features of this period are vision of nature and scholarly officials’ participation in the art field. These officials expressed their political view and cultivated themselves through natural images (Department of Asian Art). Guo-Xi was one of the
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Also, he used Blue and Green coloring style from the Tang Dynasty. As a traditionalist, Zhao used Tang’s feature in a revival meaning. Besides the simplified style, he successfully described beauty of this region by giving a sense of classical elegance and calmness (Autumn Colors on the Que and Hua Mountains). The impression that I got from this painting is beauty of the simplicity. Compare to previous and later Chinese landscape painting, Zhao’s simple brushwork makes me to approach easily and appreciate the overall painting. Also, not just drawing the overall mountain included by numerous trees, I like how Zhao described each tree’s feature like its leaves, brunches or color. Zhao painted the mountain with color blue instead of green and I think this is creative and beautiful at the same time. He had an innovative choice which makes him more special. The reason why this painting is so popular and unique is because of Zhao’s innovation using calligraphy in landscape painting. The use of calligraphy is also shown well in other paintings by Zhao. We can see several written calligraphy around mountains and trees. For example, Four Anecdotes from the Life of Wang Xizhi is a great example of Zhao’s devotion on Calligraphy in Chinese art History.
Zhao Mengfu. Four Anecdotes from the Life of Wang Xizhi. 1310. Ink on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York. Zhao claimed to follow old style
During the Han period, poetry had started to flourish. The most popular form of poetry was fu, it is a mixture of rhyme and prose. At the time, poems were thought to be a more creative form of writing. Music and dancing was also a very important part of the Han culture. Many of the instruments required the user to pluck string. Many of the dancing contained many upper body movement and had many meanings to convey. Many forms of art also came out at the time. Many of which being wall painting, and embossed silk. Although artists were not high up in the social structure, they still were close to the
eventually melded some styles to have the art and work in general brought to a
The painting depicts a singular mountain with trees and abstract landmasses in the foreground. The trees are placed in such a way that they seem to echo the shape of the mountain. This is an example of Cézanne’s attempt to created a structured composition out of the scenes that he observes in nature. Cézanne was not depicting nature as it was, but rather he was, as he called it, making “a construction after nature” (Stokstad,1013). This is one idea that lead Cézanne away from the impressionists, who were more concerned with reproducing on canvas exactly what their eyes perceived. Another thing that was different between Cézanne’s style and the impressionists’ was the way that he applied paint to the canvas. For example, in this painting, the trees and land in the foreground are loosely painted in; their forms are created by an amalgamation of colored blotches. The blotches of color often bleed into each other, and the forms that they represent begin to dissolve. The image is flattened by the ambiguous forms in several spot in this painting, creating a disruption in the illusionistic space and bring the viewer’s focus on the inherently flat surface of the painting. The most effective technique that Cézanne employs in his attempt at depicting space in this painting is atmospheric perspective. Coloring the mountain with the same shades of blue
Beauty is an incredibly subjective thing; what might seem appealing to one’s eyes may be horrendously ugly in the eyes of another. However, the status of “beautiful” or “ugly” can be assigned rather objectively when art is examined from the perspectives of different philosophies. The beliefs and values of different philosophies can be used to find meaning and beauty in various art forms, allowing for a more straightforward determination of beauty. Because of the many layers of meaning most paintings entail, they are a perfect example of an art form that can be analyzed by numerous philosophical viewpoints to find meaning and beauty, and Ma Yuan’s painting Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring, which comes from the Song dynasty of Chinese and depicts a sole figure standing in a natural surrounding, is no exception. Ma Yuan’s painting is beautiful because it represents the ultimate achievements for the Buddhist, Daoist, and Confucian philosophies.
The Han China and Classical Athens’ culture also had a huge different to how the arts were created. The arts of the Athenians were more focus on themselves, the human body. For example, on the front cover page, there is a drawing or statue of a Greek man, the Greek man is standing in a weird position with his arms pointing down, there are a few lines emphasizing his muscles, torso, biceps, etc. (Front Cover). While the art of the Han China were more focus on the landscapes and scenes surround them, along with the serenity and balance of the world drawn on to canvases in great details (document L). In most paintings, the five Chinese elements called Wu Xing will most likely be included in the paintings; the five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Looking at Ch’iu Ying’s painting, you can clearly see the how Wu Xing is being presented in the painting, how the trees and mountains were presented in the background (document L). However, as you can see in the painting, there are only two men in the painting, this could mean that humans were inconsiderable in their arts (document L). As a conclusion, the two artistic styles were complete different from each other, the Han’s arts were more focus on nature in great details, while the Athenians’ art were more focus on the human body.
The work is very smooth and fluid making it appear much like a photograph. The oil is not built up on top of itself keeping it very two dimensional. The colors vary between dark and light throughout the painting. In the top right corner, the sun, outside the painting, shining down, aluminates the castle and also the lone tree at the bottom left corner. Besides the back cliff, the rest of the painting is in shadow and displayed in a much more melancholy tone. The colors that Cole focuses on, to display the sharp contrast between rock and nature, are mostly dark greens and gold. The striking blue of the river stands out dramatically from the rest of the colors and draws the eye after the initial citing. The grey in the cloud is the only place where I can find that shade of gray in the work, and it sets itself apart from the snow white clouds in the background. The color helps draw the eye immediately to the castle on the hill. My eyes then fallow the flow of the river down to the tree, which is illuminated by a beam of sunlight.
The texture of the canvas works very well with the subject matter portrayed in the painting. The grassy hill side and the leaves of the trees are especially complimented by the canvas. It makes the leaves feel like they are slightly moving, this combined with the lack of detail itself the leaves. This is contrasted nicely with the very detailed renderings of the trunks and branches of the trees, the
We can also see the use of black shades to create a hole at the bottom part of the rock. With his excellent use of colors, we can identify the good, healthy and green grass from the bad, unhealthy, brown grasses. Looking beyond the main focus of the painting, he uses colors to separate the sky from the land in the background creating a solid form of perspective on the painting. He also uses colors to create water forms as seen behind the young character. Now, for the sky, he uses shades of white to magnificently differentiate the thick clouds from the light ones. He also uses this to create a source to light to the whole area. All these put together creates a splendid, realistic and familiar atmosphere for the viewers to relate with.
Hill painted a perfect looking scenery which made it realistic as if a real scenery picture was taken with an advanced technology. Hill applied a wide range of vivid colors to help enhance this piece more. If I was to visit a senior citizen home and had to depict this painting to a blind fe/male. I would start off by saying firstly, my attention was drawn towards the upper atmosphere’s bright blue color which reflected from the large body of water underneath it. Which is often associated with feelings of breaths slowing down and when one reaches a certain state of relaxation. Secondly, by imagining one mashing a pillow against their palms I was able to feel the fluffiness of what floats in the sky. In order to picture, the way the sizes and shapes change I would compare it to when one
Zhao Mengfu, a main calligrapher of his time, set the course of researcher painting by solidly building up its two essential precepts: restoration through the investigation of antiquated models and the use of calligraphic standards to painting. In Twin Pines, Level Distance the scene figure of speech of the Northern Song experts Li Cheng and Guo Xi has turned into a calligraphic style. Instead of essentially portray nature as it gives off an impression of being, Zhao tried to catch its quintessential rhythms. The attributes of rocks and trees, felt by the craftsman and carried on through his calligraphic brushwork, are saturated with an increased feeling of life vitality that goes past insignificant representation.
This painting shows how close and codependent humans and nature were. How well humans worked together with one another and their world. How peaceful those that are close to nature are, which is why it (nature) must be celebrated and appreciated.
While Qiu’s work depicts the prosperity of Suzhou in the middle era of the Ming dynasty, Zhang’s painting shows the daily life of people in Kaifeng during the Song dynasty. Qiu Ying’s buildings are more structured and grand, even the shops appear more spacious. The scenes in this painting represent an important page in Chinese history by combining the history and reality of a genre painting. So many landmark buildings in Suzhou are clearly recognizable which show the developed economy and traditions of the Ming dynasty and the artist’s own style. Qiu Ying uses the traditional blue-and-green style in this painting, leading to a beautiful picture which is filled with bright green mountains and clear blue
In the next room I came across a very unique and interesting collection of pieces. If you especially like or have any interest in calligraphy, then you are going to love what Hongmo Ren has done. Calling it REN-script, Ren has created what he calls a calligraphy and linguistic “experimentale.” Consisting of seven English and six French pieces, he has combined the art and beauty of calligraphy with writing of equal stature. In ten of his pieces he elaborates on the beauty of nature during various seasons and includes a complete verse from the Book of Genesis. The rest of the pieces are large single word depictions again in calligraphy with intricate detail.
Paintings had little meaning compared to other arts such as sculpting and music. Artists turned to those arts to express themselves, and paintings rarely had meaning in them. China did not consider them very important compared to other civilizations.
He used oil paints, canvas and oil painting pens, the color of his oil painting are very heavy and bright, making his pictures colorful and powerful. The difference is that Guan Zhong Wu uses ink to draw abstract paintings. Ink is more diluted than oil paint because every time use ink painter need to put water in it, making his abstract paintings looks more concise and have different feeling. However, as long as painters understand this kind of painting, different painting tools will achieve different results. According to Zheng(2008:30-32),in the study of painting, students need to know the history of the development of painting tools, and the basic knowledge of how to use the painting tools, that will help them to create their own paintings. In conclusion, it is important for the painter to understand and use the appropriate drawing tools.