The Chinese Landscape Painting
Waters,mountains,trees and rocks in pictorial art were intended originally for serving as
a foil to the figures.Due to the phenomenal rise of interest,however,in the philosophy and
literature related to natural landscape,they in turn aroused the aesthetic charming
interest peculiar to the painters."On the Paingting of Landscapes"written by
Zong Bing under the Song dynastic rule in the Southern Dynasties period and "On
Painting" written by Wang Meng in the slightly later days were undoubtedly equivalent
to the declaration of the landscape painting as an independent genre of art.
Among the extant pieces,the earliest landscape works can be found in Zhan Ziqian's
"Spring Excursion".Li Sixun and his son Li Zhaodao in the heyday of the Tang
Dynasty were the representative artists of maturity.Their early-stage style of landscape
paintings was chiefly characterized by the use of blue and green to a new height.Their
contemporaries,Wu Daozi and Wang Wei explored the monochrome inkwashes of landscape
painting,forming a sort of system which reached its maturity later through the efforts of
Jing Hao of the Five Dynasties,whose successors--Li Cheng,Dong Yuan and Fan Kuan--became
the sources of various schools by virtue of their different regional styles.
During the two Song dynasties and the Yuan Dynasty,celebrated landscape artists came forth
in large numbers and leaped to the position of forming the mainstream of the pictorial
art.
The Song dynasties advocated "fa"(norms and laws) while the Yuan Dynasty
advocated "yi"(idea and suggestion).Their difference in style and expression in
the realm of landscape painting marked the unceasing maturity of this genre of art.The
late Yuan Dynasty saw the perfection of the consciousness of self initiation in doing
landscape paintings,thus enabling the subjective function as epitomized in the phrases of
wo you(literally,"to dream of traveling in bed") and chang shen
(literally,"to let the spirit unfold") to be carried forward and developed.The
landscape paintings executed during the Ming and the Qing dynasties paled before those of
the Song and the Yuan by showing constraint somewhat,but their artists were seeking
another kind of charming interest beyond "fa" and "yi"as the
objective.Because of this,there were not only the so-called "orthodox
school"artisits devoted to self-entertainment and self-perfection within the bounds
of the old laws and methods,but also the school of blazing new trails who put
individuality above everything else and let pen-and-ink execution submit to
feelings.Nevertheless,those works,after all,were incapabe to compare themselves with the
accomplishments in the preceding ages as to splendour and magnanimousness
and,instead,showed the signs of being of the wane and decline.
To date, I doubt that you would see a landscape as lovely in real life, either at Cancun hotels or hotels Dominican Republic, as each one has its own unique personality and charm.
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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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