- Chinese art -
A brief guide to the The ancient era
Art from the end of the ancient era to the modern era
Chinese art whether modern or ancient, is of great interest for Europeans, and Americans.
Early "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of
simple pottery and sculptures. This period was followed by art dynasties, most
of which lasted several hundred years.
Early forms of Chinese art are
found in Neolithic Yangshao culture, dating back to the 6th millennium BC. Archeological
findings such as Banpo have revealed the Yangshao made pottery; early ceramics
were unpainted and most often cord- marked. The Bronze Age in China began with
the Xia Dynasty. Examples from this period have been recovered from ruins of the
Erlitou culture, in Shanxi, and include complex but unadorned utilitarian objects.
In the following Shang Dynasty more elaborate objects, including many ritual vessels,
were crafted.
Early
Chinese music
The origins of Chinese music and poetry can be got from the
Book of Songs, containing poems composed between 1000 BC and 600 BC. The text,
preserved among the canon of early Chinese literature, contains folk songs, religious
hymns and stately songs. Originally intended to be sung, the accompanying music
unfortunately has since been lost. They had a wide range of purposes, including
courtship, ceremonial greeting, warfare, feasting and lamentation..
Early
Chinese music was based on percussion instruments such as the bronze bell. Chinese
bells were sounded by being struck from outside, usually with a piece of wood.
Sets of bells were suspended on wooden racks. For Confucius and his disciples,
music was vital becauseof the power to make people harmonious, or, conversely,
caused them to be quarrelsome. According to Xun Zi, music was as important as
the li "rites"; "etiquette" stressed in Confucianism.
In addition to the Book of Songs Shi Jing, a second early and influential poetic
anthology was the Chu Ci Songs of Chu, made up of poems ascribed to the semilegendary
Qu Yuan c. 340 – 278 BC and his follower Song Yu fourth century BC.
Chu and Southern culture
A rich source of art in early China was the state
of Chu, which developed by the Yangtze River. Excavations of Chu tombs have found
painted wooden sculptures, jade disks, glass beads, musical instruments, and an
assortment of lacquerware. Many the lacquer objects are finely painted, red on
black or black on red. A site in Changsha, Hunan province, has revealed the world's
oldest painting on silk discovered, showing a woman accompanied by a phoenix and
a dragon, two mythological animals to feature prominently in Chinese art.
From the end of the ancient era to the modern era
Calligraphy
In ancient China, painting and calligraphy were the most highly appreciated arts
in court circles and were produced almost exclusively by amateurs, aristocrats
and scholar officials who alone had the leisure to perfect the technique and sensibility
necessary for great brushwork. Calligraphy was thought to be the highest and purest
form of painting. The implements were the brush pen, made of animal hair, and
black inks, made from pine soot and animal glue.
Wang Xizhi was a famous Chinese calligrapher who lived in the 4th century AD. His most famous work, the Lanting Xu, the preface of a collection of poems written by a number of poets when gathering at Lan Ting near the town of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and engaging in a game called "qu shui liu shang".
Wei
Shuo was a well known calligrapher of Eastern Jin Dynasty who established consequential
rules about the Regular Script. Her well known works include Famous Concubine
Inscription Ming Ji Tie and The Inscription of Wei-shi He'nan Wei-shi He'nan Tie.
Gu Kaizhi is a celebrated painter of ancient China born in Wuxi.
Three of Gu's paintings still survive today. They are "Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies", "Nymph of the Luo River" , and "Wise and Benevolent Women". In ancient times, writing, as well as painting, was done on silk. However, after the invention of paper in the 1st century CE, silk was gradually replaced by the new and cheaper material. Papermaking, as we know it, was developed in China, and some of the earliest surviving folded models are from China. The history of Chinese paper folding has not been as thoroughly investigated as that of other countries (particularly Japan and the Spanish-speaking lands) mainly due to the political isolation of mainland China, but there are enough examples of traditional Chinese paper folding known which demonstrate that it is a well developed art in that country.
Beginning in the Tang dynasty 618 – 907, the primary subject matter of painting was the landscape, known as shanshui mountain water painting. In these landscapes, usually monochromatic and sparse, the purpose was not to reproduce exactly the appearance of nature but rather to grasp an emotion or atmosphere so as to catch the "rhythm" of nature.
During the Song dynasty 960–1279, landscapes of more subtle expression appeared; immeasurable distances were conveyed through the use of blurred outlines, mountain contours disappearing into the mist, and impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena. 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.
Dong Yuan was an active painter in the Southern Tang Kingdom. He was known for both figure and landscape paintings, and exemplified the elegant style which would become the standard for brush painting in China over the next 900 years. Zhan Ziqian was a painter during the Sui Dynasty. His only painting in existence is Strolling About In Spring arranged mountains perspectively. Because the first pure scenery paintings of Europe emerged after the 17 th century, Strolling About In Spring may well be the first scenery painting of the world.
Liang Kai was a Chinese painter who lived in the 13th century Song Dynasty. He called himself "Madman Liang," and he spent his life drinking and painting. Eventually, he retired and became a Zen monk. Liang is credited with inventing the Zen school of Chinese art.
Wen Tong was a painter who lived in the 11th century. He was famous for ink paintings of bamboo. He could hold two brushes in one hand and paint two different distanced bamboos simultaneously. He did not need to see the bamboo while he painted them because he had seen a lot of them.
Early
Qing painting
Giuseppe Castiglione, Bada Shanren, Jiang Tingxi, Shitao
Under the Ming dynasty, Chinese culture bloomed. Narrative painting, with a wider color range and a much busier composition than the Song paintings, was immensely popular during the time.
As the techniques of color printing were perfected, illustrated manuals on the art of painting began to be published. 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.
Painting
Beginning with the New Culture Movement, Chinese artists started to adopt Western
techniques. It also was during this time that oil painting was introduced to China.
In the early years of the People's Republic of China, artists were encouraged to employ socialist realism. Some Soviet Union socialist realism was imported without modification, and painters were assigned subjects and expected to mass-produce paintings. This regimen was considerably relaxed in 1953, and after the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956–57, traditional Chinese painting experienced a significant revival. 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.
Notable modern Chinese painters include Huang Binhong, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Chang Ta Chien, Pan Tianshou, Wu Changshi, Fu Baoshi, and Zhang Chongren.
Visual
arts
Radical Chinese art has continued to develop since the late 1970s. It
incorporates painting, film, video, photography and performance. Up until the
mid-1990s performance artists were regularly imprisoned by the state. More recently
there has been greater tolerance by the Chinese government.
Beginning in
the late 1980s there was increased exposure for younger Chinese visual artists
in the west to some degree through the agency of curators based outside the country
such as Hou Hanru. Also curators within the country such as Gao Minglu spread
the idea of art as a strong social force within Chinese culture. There was some
controversy to this as critics claimed a situation was being created where more
radical Chinese art would only be shown abroad with official support but not at
home. In 2000 a number of Chinese artists were included in Documenta and a large
number of Chinese artists were included in the Venice Biennale of 2003. China
now has its own major contemporary art showcase with the Shanghai Biennale.
Leading contemporary visual artists include Huang Yong Ping, Lu Shengzhong, and
Ma Qingyun.
China
221 BC – AD 220
Qin sculpture
The Terracotta Army, inside
the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, consists of more than 7,000 life size
tomb terra cotta figures of warriors and horses buried with the self-proclaimed
first Emperor of Qin Qin Shi Huang in 210–209 BC.
Buddhist
architecture and sculpture
Following a transition under the Sui Dynasty, Buddhist
sculpture of the Tang evolved towards a markedly lifelike expression. Foreign
influences came to be negatively perceived towards the end of the Tang dynasty.
In the year 845, the Tang emperor Wu-Tsung outlawed all "foreign" religions
including Christian Nestorianism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism in order to support
the indigenous Taoism. He confiscated Buddhist possessions and forced the faith
to go underground, therefore affecting the ulterior development of the religion
and its arts in China.
In the modern era Ai Weiwei is an impoprtant modern artist who uses taboo breaking art forms.
Han
poetry
During the Han Dynasty 206 BC–AD 220, the Chu lyrics evolved into
fu, a poem usually in rhymed verse except for introductory and concluding passages
in prose, often in the form of questions and answers.
Buddhism arrived in China around the 1st century AD, and through the 8 th century it became very active and creative in developing Buddhist art, particularly in the area of statuary. China incorporated strong Chinese traits in its artistic expression.
In the 5th to 6th century the Northern Dynasties, tended to develop symbolic and abstract modes of representation, with schematic lines. Their style is also said to be solemn and majestic.
The Sui and Tang dynasties 581–960
Yue fu are Chinese poems
composed in a folk song style. The term literally means "music bureau",
a reference to the government organization originally charged with collecting
or writing the lyrics.
The lines are of uneven length, though five characters is the most common. Each poem follows one of a series of patterns defined by the song title. The term covers original folk songs, court imitations and versions by known poets.
From the 2nd century AD, the yue fu began to develop into shi—the form which was to dominate Chinese poetry until the modern era. The writers of these poems took the five-character line of the yue fu and used it to express more complex ideas. The shi poem was generally an expression of the poet's own persona rather than the adopted characters of the yue fu; many were romantic nature poems heavily influenced by Taoism.
The term gushi "old poems" can refer either to the first, mostly anonymous shi poems, or more generally to the poems written in the same form by later poets. Gushi in this latter sense are defined essentially by what they are not; that is, they are not jintishi regulated verse. The writer of gushi was under no formal constraints other than line length and rhyme in every second line.
Jintishi, or regulated verse, developed from the 5th century onwards. By the Tang dynasty, a series of set tonal patterns had been developed, which were intended to ensure a balance between the four tones of classical Chinese in each couplet: the level tone, and the three deflected tones rising, falling and entering. The Tang dynasty was the high point of the jintishi.
Notable
poets from this era include Bai Juyi, Du Mu, Han Yu, Jia Dao, Li Qiao, Liu Zongyuan,
Luo Binwang, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, and Zhang Jiuling.
Li Po and Du Fu both
lived during the Tang Dynasty. They are regarded by many as the greatest of the
Chinese poets.
Over a thousand poems are attributed to Li Po, but the authenticity of many of these is uncertain. He is best known for his yue fu poems, which are intense and often fantastic. He is often associated with Taoism: there is a strong element of this in his works, both in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone. Nevertheless, his gufeng "ancient airs" often adopt the perspective of the Confucian moralist, and many of his occasional verses are fairly conventional.
Much like Mozart, many legends exist on how Li Po effortlessly composed his poetry, even or some say, especially when drunk; his favorite form is the jueju five- or seven-character quatrain, of which he composed some 160 pieces. Using striking, unconventional imagery, Li Po is able to create exquisite pieces to utilize fully the elements of the language. His use of language is not as erudite as Du Fu's but equally effective, impressing through an extravagance of imagination and a direct connection of a free-spirited persona with the reader. Li Po's interactions with nature, friendship, and his acute observations of life inform his best poems. Some of the rest, like Changgan xing translated by Ezra Pound as A River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, records the hardships or emotions of common people. Like the best Chinese poets, Li Po often evades translation.
Since
the Song dynasty, critics have called Du Fu the "poet historian". The
most directly historical of his poems comment on military tactics or the successes
and failures of government, or poems of advice which he wrote to the emperor.
Li Shangyin was a Chinese poet of the late Tang dynasty. He was a typical Late
Tang poet: his works are sensuous, dense and allusive. The latter quality makes
adequate translation extremely difficult. Many of his poems have political, romantic
or philosophical implications, but it is often unclear which of these should be
read into each work.
The Song and Yuan dynasty ran from 960 – 1368. Beginning in the Liang Dynasty,
the ci followed the tradition of Shi Jing and yue fu: they were lyrics which developed
from anonymous popular songs some of Central Asian origin into sophisticated literary
genre. The form was developed in the Tang Dynasty, and was most popular in the
Song Dynasty. Ci often expressed feelings of desire, often in an adopted persona,
but the greatest exponents of the form such as Li Houzhu and Su Shi used it to
address a wide range of topics. Well known poets of the Song Dynasty include Zeng
Gong, Li Qingzhao, Lu You, Mei Yaochen, Ouyang Xiu, Su Dongpo, Wang Anshi, and
Xin Qiji.
Yuan drama
Chinese opera is a popular form of drama in China. In general,
it dates back to the Tang dynasty with Emperor Xuanzong 712–755, who founded
the "Pear Garden" , the first known opera troupe in China. The troupe
mostly performed for the emperors' personal pleasure. To this day operatic professionals
are still referred to as "Disciples of the Pear Garden" . In the Yuan
dynasty 1279–1368, forms like the Zaju , variety plays, which acts based
on rhyming schemes plus the innovation of having specialized roles like "Dan"
, female, "Sheng" , male and "Chou" , Clown, were introduced
for opera.
Yuan dynasty opera continues today as Cantonese opera. It is universally accepted that Cantonese opera was imported from the northern part of China and slowly migrated to the southern province of Guangdong in late 13th century, during the late Southern Song Dynasty. In the 12th century, there was a theatrical form called Narm hei , or the Nanxi Southern opera, which was performed in public theaters of Hangzhou, then capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. With the invasion of the Mongol army, Emperor Gong Gong Di Gongdì, Zhao Xian Zhào Xian fled with hundreds of thousands of Song people into the province of Guangdong in 1276. Among these people were some Narm hei artists from the north. Thus narm hei was brought into Guangdong by these artists and developed into the earliest kind of Cantonese opera.
Many
operas performed today, such as The Purple Hairpin and Rejuvenation of the Red
Plum Flower, originated in the Yuan Dynasty, with the lyrics and scripts in Cantonese.
Until the 20th century all the female roles were performed by males.
Wang Meng was a Chinese painter during the Yuan dynasty. One of his well-known
works is the Forest Grotto.
Zhao Mengfu was a Chinese scholar, painter and calligrapher during the Yuan Dynasty. His rejection of the refined, gentle brushwork of his era in favor of the cruder style of the eighth century is considered to have brought about a revolution that created the modern Chinese landscape painting.
Late imperial China 1368–1895
Zhang Dai is acknowledged as the greatest
essayist of the Ming dynasty.
Wen Zhenheng, the great grandson of Wen Zhengming,
wrote a classic on garden architecture and interior design, Zhang Wu Zhi On Superfluous
Things.
Qing drama
The best-known form of Chinese opera is Beijing opera, which assumed
its present form in the mid-19th century and was extremely popular in the Qing
dynasty 1644–1911. In Beijing Opera, traditional Chinese string and percussion
instruments provide a strong rhythmic accompaniment to the acting. The acting
is based on allusion: gestures, footwork, and other body movements express such
actions as riding a horse, rowing a boat, or opening a door.
Although
it is called Beijing opera, its origins are not in Beijing but in the Chinese
provinces of Anhui and Hubei. Beijing opera got its two main melodies, Xipi and
Erhuang, from Anhui and Hubei operas. Much dialogue is also carried out in an
archaic dialect originating partially from those regions. It also absorbed music
and arias from other operas and musical arts such as the historic Qinqiang. It
is regarded that Beijing Opera was born when the Four Great Anhui Troupes came
to Beijing in 1790. Beijing opera was originally staged for the court and came
into the public later. In 1828, some famous Hubei troupes came to Beijing. They
often jointly performed in the stage with Anhui troupes. The combination gradually
formed Beijing opera's main melodies.
Qing poetry
Yuan Mei was a well-known
poet who lived during the Qing Dynasty. In the decades before his death, Yuan
Mei produced a large body of poetry, essays and paintings. His works reflected
his interest in Chan Buddhism and the supernatural, at the expense of Daoism and
institutional Buddhism—both of which he rejected. Yuan is most famous for
his poetry, which has been described as "unusually clear and elegant language".
His views on poetry as expressed in the Suiyuan shihua stressed the importance
of personal feeling and technical perfection.
Qing fiction
Many great works of art and literature originated during
the period, and the Qianlong emperor in undertook huge projects to preserve important
cultural texts. The novel form became widely read and perhaps China's most famous
novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, was written in the mid-eighteenth century.
Cao Xueqin is an author of the famous Chinese work Dream of the Red Chamber. Extant handwritten copies of this work some 80 chapters had been in circulation in Beijing shortly after Cao's death, before Gao Ê, who claimed to have access to the former's working papers, published a complete 120-chapter version in 1792.
Pu
Songling was a famous writer of Liaozhai Zhiyi «»during the Qing dynasty.
He opened a tea house and invited his guests to tell stories, and then he would
compile the tales and write them. Many of his tales have been made into films.
One of these films is called The Chinese Ghost Story by Tsui Hark, a Hong Kong
director.
Modern Chinese poems vers libre usually do not follow any prescribed
pattern.
Bei Dao is the most notable representative of Misty Poets, a group of Chinese poets who reacted against the restrictions of the Cultural Revolution. The work of the Misty Poets and Bei Dao in particular were an inspiration to pro-democracy movements in China. Most notable was his poem "Huida" "The Answer", which was written during the 1976 Tiananmen demonstrations in which he participated. The poem was taken up as a defiant anthem of the pro-appeared on posters during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Xu Zhimo is a romantic poet who loved the poetry of the English Romantics like Keats and Shelley. He was one of the first Chinese writers to successfully naturalize Western romantic forms into modern Chinese poetry.
"People's arts"
During the Cultural Revolution, art schools were
closed, and publication of art journals and major art exhibitions ceased.
After the Cultural Revolution, art schools and professional organizations were
reinstated. Exchanges were set up with groups of foreign artists, and Chinese
artists began to experiment with new subjects and techniques.
Performing arts
The Chinese government, to some extent, subsidizes the training of artists, performers
and athletes, which helps China to be prominent in many of the following fields:
Chinese
motion pictures - The Chinese film industry has continued to develop since film
was introduced to China in 1896, and has had a strong influence on "Western"
cinema. Notably popular are China's wuxia films and martial arts films.
Chinese
folk arts - Chinese folk arts include puppetry and quyi, which consists of various
kinds of storytelling and comic monologues and dialogues, often to the accompaniment
of clappers, drums, or stringed instruments.
Chinese variety arts - Variety
arts, including tightrope walking, acrobatics, animal acts, and sleight of hand
date back at least as far as the Han dynasty and have gained new respectability
in recent times.
China is a world leader in the field of toss juggling and
related skills such as devilstick manipulation, the diabolo or Chinese yo yo,
rola bola or "teeterboard" and balancing on the giant ball.
Chinese
rock music combines Chinese musical instruments with techniques of Western-style
rock and roll. It began in Mainland China during the mid-1980s and rose in popularity
by the 1990s
Cantopop - Cantopop, a variety of cpop, is a multimillion-dollar
popular music industry in Asia centered around Hong Kong.
Taiwanese hip hop
- Hip hop music emerged from the "underground" scene in Taiwan to become
more mainstream during the 1990s and 2000s.
Contemporary
Chinese photography includes both the photojournalism and fine art photography
traditions.
Artist
"Certain
areas, certain taboos can't be touched."
Much of China's contemporary
art scene is based in Beijing - but recently, artists from Shanghai have been
attracting major attention.
Exhibitors at the Shanghai Biennale art museum,
started in 1994, are becoming increasingly influential and many curators based
in Beijing and overseas are now becoming more interested in Shanghai artists.
In 2003 Martial arts epic Hero became the biggest - grossing Chinese film
just one month after its release.
Director Zhang Yimou's movie tells the
tale of Emperor Qin Shihuang's campaign to unify China more than 2,000 years ago.
And recent oscar nominated movies issue China is growing as a movie power.
After
one month on release in China Hero had taken 200 million yuan (£15m) at
the box office, according to studio estimates.
The National Palace Museum is an art gallery and museum in Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan). containing artifacts of ancient China.
Foreign names for Chinese art
Chinesische Kunst = German
Arte chino = Spain
Art chinois = France
Kinesisk konst = Swedish
Arte da China = Português
In
2005 China published the world's first gold newspaper, the Xinhua news agency
reported.
The most expensive edition uses 500 grams of gold and costs 69,000
yuan ($8,100), while another uses 200 grams and costs 29,000 yuan ($3,500).
Dragon economy: a Qing dynasty blue and white dragon vase sold for $1.6m at Sotheby's in 2005.
A Yuan dynasty pot, kept on a shelf for years in its owners' dog room, fetched £3m
birthplace of Australian PMs
birthplace of Canadian PMs
birthplace of Irish PMs
birthplace of European Union presidents
Birthplaces of Welsh First ministers and other Welsh political leaders
Index of web pages on subject of shares, stocks, FOREX and Finance.
An Index of web pages on Geography
An Index of web pages on the subject of shares, stocks, FOREX and Finance.
A to B - B to A Travel - fact guide
Birthplaces of Scottish First ministers, and other Scottish leaders
Worst regiemes of the 20th century
wall famous wall structures such as great wall of china
gates famous gate structures such as Brandenburg gate
solar system record breakers Record breaking facts about each planet of the solar system
weather climate and NWP prediction computer models.
Supercomputer supercomputer technology
River main rivers of the planet
Bank history History of banks