Chinese Art History: From Neolithic Culture to the Yuan Dynasty, Study notes of Art

Download Chinese Art History: From Neolithic Culture to the Yuan Dynasty and more Study notes Art in PDF only on Docsity! Introduction to Art History II Chinese Art Before 1280 Chinese characters • A character or calligraph: a word represented by its own picture • Pictographs: images that mean what they depict: • Ideographs: pictures that represent abstract concepts or ideas • Compound pictographs and ideographs combine one or more pictographs or ideographs to form new characters. Both component parts contribute to the meaning of the compound character. • Semantic-phonetic compounds combine a radical (which provides basic meaning) with a phonetic (which originally hinted at pronunciation) Bowl from Banpo, near Xi’an, Shaanxi, Neolithic period, Yangshao culture, 5000-4000 BCE, painted pottery, height 7 in. Liangzhu (jade-working) Culture • Emerged ca. 4000 BCE • Jade-carving: use of abrasive sand • Congs: square or octagonal jade tubes with a cylindrical hole in the center; found in burials; symbols of earth used for ritual worship (?) Jade congs, Liangzhu Culture. Above: c. 3300- 2200 BCE; Below: ca. 2000 BCE masks: priest’s helpers? Alter egos? The Shang taotie (the ancient mask motif) J / ee fo Lo : LO / Y | : Lower jaw Forehead Fang Snout Upper jaw or trunk Beak or fang / Bronze Age China • Zhou Dynasty: ca. 1100-221 BCE – Feudal society (nobility related to the king) – Tian: supreme deity; the king: the Son of Heaven – Initially marked by peace and stability until 771 BCE (defeat by a western nomadic tribe) – 77-476 BCE: Spring and Autumn period: emergence of largely independent states – 402-221 BCE: Warring States period – The age of great philosophers: Confucius, Laozi and Mozi – Importance of music (ritual) Marquis Yi of Zeng tomb, Suixian, Hubei, 433 BCE below: musical instruments found in the tomb Tomb of Emperor Shi Huangdi. Qin dynasty, ca. 210 BCE: diagram Views of the tomb - ; Army of Emperor Shihuangdi (life-size): close-up of clay figures Liu Sheng's jade suit and acupuncture needles Detail from a rubbing of a stone relief in the Wu family shrine, 151 BCE: Homage to the emperor and the archer Yi Ceramic tomb models of Han Dynasty structures: the watch tower, the house, the pigpen, the pleasure pavilion Wang Xizhi, mid-4th century CE Calligraphy: the art of highly ornamental handwriting -believed to reveal the character of the writer -seals: stamped calligraphs as personal emblems Buddhism (origin in India): 4 precepts • Life is suffering • The cause of suffering is ignorance • Ignorance can be overcome and extinguished • To do so one must follow the eight-fold path of right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration • Buddha: the enlightened one, who sees the ultimate nature of the world • Bodhisattva: the one on the brink of achieving buddhahood who has vowed to help others to do so first • Monks and nuns • Appeal to all social levels A monumental image of the Buddha at the Yungang caves, Northern Wei Dynasty, ca. 460 CE Caves: small for monks/pilgrims; large: wayside shrines/temples Right: Nanchan Temple, Shanxi, 782 CE Left: Great Wild Goose Pagoda (an East Asian reliquary tower built with successfully smaller, repeated stories, each marked by an elaborate projecting roof) at Ci'en Temple, Xi'an, Shanxi, first erected 645 CE, rebuilt mid-8th century CE Bays: a cubic unit of space, here framed by posts and lintels Pagoda: mixture of an Indian stupa (a bell-shaped or pyramidal religious monument that contains relics) and a Han watchtower -note false bays =+ Zhang Xuan, Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, Song dynasty copy attributed to Emperor Huizong (1101-25 CE), 12th c. Movement in visual arts • Mythocentric: reflection of worldview, of the mythical • Co-existence of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism: religious imagery and human action (the ethical) • Neo-Confucianism: landscape as a symbolic means of showing human condition (the philosophical and the aesthetic) Fan Kuan, Travelers Among Mountains and Streams, Northern Song dynasty, early 11th c. CE, ink and colors on silk (6’ 9.5’’) Focus on realism and detail: to master the outward appearance means to understand its underlying principle Lack of specific site Vehicle for emotional expression Xu Daoning, Fishing in a Mountain Stream (detail), Northern Song dynasty, mid-11th c., ink on silk (19’’ by 6’10’’) Lack of fixed point of view; wandering eye Movie camera effect: all-seeing and in flux Unfolding movement Xia Gui, Mountain Market in Clearing Mist, (Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers), Southern Song dynasty, early 13th c. Album leaf; ink on silk; 9 3/4 x 8 3/8 in. Simplified forms, intimate detail: fleeting world Guan ware vases, Southern Song dynasty, 13th century, stoneware with crackled glaze • 1279: the Southern Song dynasty falls to Kublai Khan • China subsumed into the Mongol Empire • Yuan dynasty set up by the invaders in Beijing (political center in north-east) • South: cultural center