The Art of Chinese Figure Painting
Early-stage painting works nearly all took figures as the main theme.In terms of the
skills of the artisans of the officialdom and the populace,there was a difference between
them,meticulous vs. coarse and refined vs. unruly--the former being accurate in
depiction,terse and orderly in lines and exquisite and dedicate in coloration,showing
extremely good professional cultivation whereas the latter being bold and untrammelled and
tending to be coarse and crude in spite of showing some vivacity in the counternance.And
the former was the source head of specialized figure painting whereas the latter had all
along retain the simple and plain features prevailing among the people.However,in the
course of development,both of them influenced each other.
Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was considered as a mature master artist in pushing
up the techniques to the theoretical level in figure painting.In the heyday of the Tang
Dynasty the extraordinary creative power of Wu Daozi brought prosperity to this genre of
art as never before.The gorgeousness of the late Tang paintings,the exquisiteness of the
Five Dynasties paintings,the line drawing method of depicting both spirit and form of Li
Gonglin of the Northern Song Dynasty,and the free impressionist reduced strokes of Liang
Kai of the Southern Song Dynasty--all these displayed the scene of multifariousness in
colour and posture.
The momentum of figure paintings in the Yuan Dynasty was on the wane,but there was no lack
of excellent pieces executed by Zhao Mengfu,Ren Renfa and Zhang Wo.The figure paintings of
the Ming and the Qing days began to be stamped with the mark of being secular in the
favour and full of human interest.And the richness in individual styles and the mellow and
seasoned techniques were embodied in the works of such figure-painting artists as Dai
Jin,Wu Wei,Tang Yin,Qiu Ying and Chen Hongshou.
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Recommended:
Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting (The Culture & Civilization of China)
Chinese Landscape Painting for Beginners : A Practical Course
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