Download CHINA WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: Highlights of Chinese Art

CHINA WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: Highlights of Chinese Art from
Prehistory to the Present
The Dynasties of China
Not going to stick to chronological, not going to do a survey, for that you can read a book or
take a course. Instead, I will consider five themes: first some early work when art seems to
be the handmaid of beliefs and rituals; then Buddhist art in China; then landscape, then
humble subjects (bugs, weeds, rotting fruit); then a recent artist of international fame and
dual citizenship and how his postmodern international art also reflects and responds to
traditional China.
Chronology is to help audience to follow if they want to know when
1. Early art as participating in ritual, myth, & thaumaturgic function
Xia ?
Shang
ca. 1600-1050 BCE
Shang guang and a set of ritual vessels
Zhou - Taoism & Confucianism , books set the basis of traditions in Chinese culture
for the rest of time, I Ching begun to be written
Western Zhou
ca. 1050-771 BCE
Set of bells: Confucius music for ritual, moral force, should lead to proper behaviour,
sounds aid in right thinking and harmonious actions
Has parallel in Pythagoras ancient greek theory of the modes and how they affect
one’s soul and behaviour
Eastern Zhou 770-256 BCE
7-5 Bi disk set next to lindau gospels cover
Jade burial, burial suits, jade is to China what gold is to medieval christians
Body on back, on top a Bi, on bottom a Tsung, east a kuei scepter, west a tiger, north
a huang (1/2 circle), south a chang (short stubby kuei), the 7 openings of the body plugged
with jade, flat plaque han (usually shaped like a cicada (buries itself in ground for 17 years
and then emerges to live again) in mouth to protect body from harm and to seal so no evil
could escape from within
Tsou Yen
Warring States period
Qin
221-206 BCE
7-6 Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di
discovered in 73, revealed to world in 92
The philosophical/economical treatise of Kuan Tsu
“Lengthen the mourning period so as to occupy people’s time, and elaborate
the funeral so as to spend their money….To have large pits for burial is to provide work for
poor people; to have magnificent tombs is to provide work for artisans. To have inner and
outer coffins is to encourage carpenters, and to have many pieces for the enshrouding is to
encourage seamstresses.”
Confucius condemned burials of figurines of attendants & slaves, fearing it might
encourage a return to burying the living. Thought they should use straw instead of wood
(material used back in the Late Zhou) Qin and Han used cast pottery – cheaper than wood
and possibly more acceptable to Confucians.
Han 206 BCE – 220 CE
Arrival of Buddhism
2. Buddhist art
Period of Disunity
A lot happening! Xie He’s 6 principles, development of Chinese Buddhism (Chan)
and its art
7-11 Shakyamuni Buddha 338 very like Kushan style (Ghandaran)
7-13 Shakyamuni & Prabhutaratna 518 N.Wei
Tang 618-907
7-14 Vairocana Buddha, disciples, & Boddhisattvas Longmen Caves -676
Mahayana cosmic Buddha resembles gupta style, Bamiyan Buddha…
Historical Buddha limited in space & time
Cosmic Buddha not limited, tell waterfall allegory
7-15 Paradise of Amitabha, Dunhuang 8th century 10’ h wall painting
limited in space but not in time
7-25 Sixth Chan Patriarch Chopping Bamboo s. song 13th c
hanging scroll ink on paper, not a distant and god-like figure, humble,
puts emphasis on meditation as route to achieve enlightenment, but makes
no big deal of it
7-23 Foguang Si Pagoda 1056 Liao dynasty
compare with stupa, then show with section
timber beam construction, tallest wooden building in the world
Song
Northern Song
960-1127
Southern Song
1127-1279
3. Landscape painting: “mountains and water” painting
From NY times article Zhang Zeduan’s Along the River During the Qingming
Festival
12th c “China’s most famous painting”
But in US 7-1Fan Kuan’s Travelers Amid Mountains and Streams most often
reproduced
Kuo Chi Early Spring
Li Cheng Mountains with Temple
mountains and waterfalls?
Back in prehistory: widespread idea of sacred mountains and rivers…
Chinese mythology of the 5 sacred mountains,
Buddhism, Taoism & Confucianism = Neoconfucianism
Analects of Confucius = “Wise men find pleasure in water, the virtuous in
mountains”
Lao Tze’s Tao te Ching: EIGHT
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
Go to next page!!!
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
Rocks in river are the yang to the river’s yin… Like the wise the water doesn’t
fight the rocks, it flows around. But in the end, the weak water wears away the rocks. See
Tsou Yen’s cosmology. Rock scissors paper
Layers of meanings: Li Po’s poetry (story of student why she and her friends loved
Li Po (Li Bai) because each character in his poem has components and connotations which
have multiple meanings (true of all poems) but his are especially clever and deep. We who
don’t read Chinese or only superficially can’t understand,
All the 4 poems attached reflect 2 things also seen embraced by these paintings: retreat to
mountains for solitude and quietude and a joy in the transience of things
The three perfections (painting, poetry, calligraphy) and Xie He’s 6 principles
Yuan 1279-1368
Ming 1368-1644
Shen Zhou Lofty Mount Lu 15th c
A little bit of autumn color,
Autumn shows up most frequently, spring second most
Poems maybe opposite, see poems,
Spring & autumn annals in Zhou period, again emphasizing delight in the
momentary
As time passes, the style gets more personal and arbitrary
Dong Qichang Dwelling in the Qingbian Mountains Ming 17th c
I was taught he was most famous, the Caravaggio of China
Court official (very high office), poet, calligrapher, painter, collector, critic
Qing 1644-1911
Shi tao (Zu Da) Man in a House beneath a Cliff late 17th c
Individualistic , album leaf
4. The Literal school, “fur and feathers” painting, popular taste
Emperor Huizong N. Sung
Other examples
Mu Qi 6 persimmons and Xie He’s 6 principles
5. Modern China
1912--
Xu Bing Book from the Sky
Still Surface of a Lake