|
"An
Analysis of the History of Court Painting in the Yuan Period and Exemplary
Works"
Yu
Hui
Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 1998.3, 61-78
[reprinted from China Archaeology and Art Digest 3:2/3 (January
2000)]
Click on each image to enlarge. You need only
place the arrow on the highlighted word(s) to see the original Chinese
characters at left.
Click here for the text-only
version.
During the 97 years of the Yuan dynasty the literati yibi
style of painting, characterised by the use of rapid rhythmic strokes
rather than the careful delineating used in the gongbi style,
and realistic painting apprached their peak. The author traces the lives
of palace artists active during the Yuan and their influence on the
stylistic changes that took place during the period. He divides such
artists into three groups: 1. palace artists, who included literati
painters employed in civilian positions at the palace and full-time
professional painters; 2. painters from the region south of the Yangzi
River, mainly southern Suzhou and the Jiahu
Plain region of Hangzhou; and 3. artists in temples south of the Yangzi,
for example the Buddhist monk Yintuoluo
and the Taoist priest Fang
Congyi, although "ink
play" played only a secondary role. The first two groups,
however, were mutually influential and artists who worked in both the
north and the south, for example, Zhao
Mengfu, Gao
Kegong, Ren
Renfa and Zhu
Derun, helped facilitate inks between the two regions.
According to the author more than 30 artists whose names are known today
worked at the Yuan court, and during the reigns of Emperors Shizu
(1260-1294), Renzong
(1311-1320) and Wenzong
(1328-1332) such court artists were particularly numerous and their
artistic output correspondingly vigorous. The author subdivides the
painting activities at the Yuan court into two periods:
| |
1. 1271-1286, when organisations within
the palace associated with painting were first established and literati
and professional painters, including Hao
Jing (1223-1275), Liu
Yuan , Liu
Yin (1249-1293), He
Cheng (1223-1316), Shi
Gang, Liu
Guandao and Zhang
Kongsun (1233-1307), were brought from the Jin
state. During this stage jiehua,
paintings which encompassed architectural structures and boats,
were popular. For example, He Cheng's painting Gui
zhuang tu (Returning to the village), in the collection
of the Jilin
Provincial Museum, which demonstrates a combination of late
Jin and early Yuan styles. In addition to examining works by literati
painters, the author also looks at several figural paintings by
the professional painters Liu Yuan and Liu Guandao.
2. 1287-1320, when the literati painters Zhao Mengfu, He Cheng,
Pu Guang and Li
Kan (1245-1320), and the gongbi painters Liu Yuan
and Ren Renfa were active at court. The author discusses extant
works by these and other painters of the period, and their stylistic
development and influence. The article includes a useful chart showing
the periods at which the artists mentioned and others were active
at court during the Yuan dynasty. |
References:
Ren
Daobin, A
Chronological Biography of Zhao Mengfu (Henan
renmin chubanshe, 1984).
Zhang
Lu, "A
Brief Discussion on Gao Kegong," Meishu
yanjiu 1989.2. 
Click here to subscribe to China
Archaeology and Art Digest.
|
Yin Jinan
China Central Institute of Fine Arts
Nixi Cura
On the State of the Field
Scholarship in the History of Ancient Painting in the 1990s
by Xue Yongnian
Puyi's Legacy
New Discoveries of Calligraphy
and Painting from the Palace Museum's "List of Lost Works"
by Liu Jianlong
A Record-Breaking Purchase by the Palace Museum
Zhang Xian's Ten Odes
by Yang Lili
Zhang Xian's Ten Odes: Counterpoint
On the Inauthenticity of Ten
Odes by Zhang Xian of the Northern Song Dynasty
by Wu Gan
Select Bibliography on Chinese Painting
Palace Museum Exhibition
"Treasures of Painting
and Calligraphy Acquired by the Palace Museum over the Last 50 Years"
by Fu Dongguang
Palace Museum Exhibition
"Grand Exhibition
of Cultural Relics Collected over the Last 50 Years"
Palace Museum Symposium
Academic Symposium Accompanying
the "Grand
Exhibition of Cultural Relics Collected over the Last 50 Years" at the Palace
Museum
by Wang Qi
Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum
Holds A Symposium on Its Exhibition of Masterpieces
by Xue Yongnian
Liaoning Provincial Museum
An Assembly of Masterpieces,
Presented in Radiant Splendor: Record of the "Exhibition of Treasures from
the Ten Great Archaeological Discoveries in Liaoning"
by Ma Cheng
Important
Results from the Liao Tomb Excavation at Jarud Qi
by Tala, Yang Jie, and Dong Linxin
Three Eastern
Han Tombs with Wall Paintings at Otog
by Wang Dafang and Yang Zemeng
"Appreciation
and Analysis of the Murals Unearthed from a Song Tomb at Wang Shang Village
in Dengfeng, Henan Province
by Zhang Songlin and Zhang Deshui
"A
Breakthrough in the Interpretation of the 'Stone Carvings' at Junshan"
by Chen Xiangyuan
"Notes
on the Excavation of Han Tomb No. 1 at Huxi Mountain, Yuanling"
by Guo Weimin
"Animal
Designs and Chinese Script on the 'Five Stars of the East Favor the Central
Kingdom' Brocade"
by Li Ling
Extracts
from China Archaeology and Art Digest 3:2/3 (January 2000): Painting
and Pictorial Arts
Ding Xiyuan on Quehua
qiuse tu
Hao Junhong on Ma
Shouzhen
Shan Guoqiang on "Haipai"
Yu Hui on Yuan court artists
Macao Art Museum
"The Efflorescence of a Prosperous Age: Fine Works of Qing Dynasty Painting
and Objects of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong Reigns in the Collection
of the Palace Museum"
National Gallery, Washington, DC
"The Golden
Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic
of China"
by Andrew K. Y. Leung
The
Qingming shanghe Scroll and Qingming shanghe Studies
by Wang Qi
On Qingming
shanghe Studies
by Nie Chongzheng
Chai Zejun: Collected
Works on Ancient Architecture
Fifty
Years of Archaeology in New China
Volume 1, Issue 1 (October 1999)
|
