Traditional Chinese Painting

1. Traditional Chinese Painting

2. Contents Introduction History Forms & Subjects Schools & Techniques Tools & Materials Celebrities

3. Warming up • Chinese calligraphy (Brush calligraphy) is an art unique to Asian cultures. Shu (calligraphy), Hua (painting), Qin (a string musical instrument), and Qi (a strategic board game) are the four basic skills and disciplines of the Chinese literati. Regarded as the most abstract and sublime form of art in Chinese culture

4. Introduction • In a broad sense, the Chinese Painting was incipiently(早期地) referred to as the Chinese-style painting in contrast to the Western contemporaries, taking into account the scroll(卷轴) painting, the mural painting(壁画), the engraved painting, the Spring Festival painting and other sorts; in a grimmer sense herein, it was meant the unequaled style of painting formulated by means of the Chinese writing brush and ink according to the long-established tradition.

5. Chinese traditional painting is highly regarded throughout the world for its theory, expression, and techniques. According to the means of expression, Chinese painting can be divided into two categories: the freehand（ xieyi写意） school and the meticulous（ gongbi工笔） school. The xieyi school is marked by exaggerated forms and freehand brush work. The gongbi school is characterized by close attention to detail and fine brush work.

6. Different from Western paintings, a Chinese painting is not restricted by the focal point（焦点） in its perspective. The artist may paint on a long and narrow piece of paper or silk all the scenes along the Yangtse River. It can be said that the adoption of shifting perspective is one of the characteristics of Chinese painting. Why do the Chinese artists emphasize the shifting perspective? They want to break away from the restrictions of time and space and to include in their pictures both things which are far and things which are near. Also, the artists find that in life people view their surroundings from a mobile focal point. As one walks along a river or in a garden, one sees everything on the way. The shifting perspective enables the artist to express freely what he wants.

7. Chinese calligraphy and Chinese painting are closely related because lines are used in both. Chinese people have turned simple lines into a highly-developed form of art. Lines are used not only to draw contours （外形）but to express the artist's concepts and feelings. For different subjects and different purposes a variety of lines are used. They may be straight or curved, hard or soft, thick or thin, pale or dark, and the ink may be dry or running. The use of lines and strokes is one of the elements that give Chinese painting its unique qualities.

8. Traditional Chinese painting is a combination in the same picture of the arts of poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal engraving. In ancient times most artists were poets and calligraphers. Su Dongpo (1037-1101), Ni Yunlin (1306-1374), and Dong Qichang (1555-1636) were such artists. To the Chinese, "painting in poetry and poetry in painting" has been one of the criteria for excellent works of art. Inscriptions and seal impressions help to explain the painter's ideas and sentiments and also add decorative beauty to the painting. For Chinese graphic art, poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal engraving are necessary parts, which supplement and enrich one another.

9. History Chinese traditional painting dates back to the Neolithic Period(新石器时代) about six thousand years ago. The colored pottery with painted animals, fish, deer, and frogs excavated in the 1920s indicate that during the Neolithic Period the Chinese had already started to use brushes to paint.

10. Chinese Painting in Primitive Period • The ancient Chinese painted or drew patterns of flowers and plants or figures of animals on pottery, which formed the art of the most primitive paintings.

11. Chinese Painting in Qin and Han dynasties • In Qin and Han dynasties, the artistic skills of painting saw a further improvement. Surviving Han paintings include mainly tomb(墓碑) paintings and colored paintings on clay and lacquer（漆）.

12. Chinese Painting in Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern periods • Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern periods experienced great development and changes in Chinese painting. Buddhist painting was improved greatly with the spread of Buddhism and dominated much of the achievements at these periods. Meanwhile, painting techniques advanced and significant achievement was made in figure painting(人物画). Gu Kai zhi(346-407),and his works are the representatives of this period.

13. Chinese Painting in the Tang Dynasty The Tang Dynasty (618-907) witnessed the prosperity of figure painting, where the most outstanding painters were Zhang Xuan(张萱)and Zhou Fang(周昉 ). Their paintings, depicting the life of noble women and court ladies, exerted an eternal influence on the development of shi nu hua() (painting of beauties), which comprise an important branch of traditional Chinese painting today.

14. Chinese Painting in the Five Dynasties Beginning in the Five Dynasties (907-960), each dynasty set up an art academy that gathered together the best painters throughout China. Academy members, who were on the government payroll and wore official uniforms, drew portraits of emperors, nobles and aristocrats that depicted their daily lives. The system proved conducive to the development of painting. The succeeding Song Dynasty (960-1127) developed such academies into the Imperial Art Academy.

15. Paintings in the Song Dynasty • During the Song Dynasty, The emperors gave support to painting and as a result enjoyed wide popularity, with a variety of paintings flourishing. A royal painting academy was established, and many fine artists were patronized(支持) by the court. Bird and flower themes were always popular with the royal family. The Song period is best known, however, for landscape painting, and then many painting masters were very active both in the Northern Song and the Southern Song.

16. Four Great Masters in Song Dynasty: • Li Tang(李唐)was a master of monumental style who painted with a wrinkle method and axe-cut strokes（釜劈皴）, which ultimately became a unique feature of academic landscape painting. • Liu Songnian（刘松年）excelled in landscape painting using the blue-and-green style. • Ma Yuan（马远）and Xia Gui（夏圭）developed a big wrinkle method under the influence of Li Tang, which eventually formed a landscape painting style known as the Ma-Xia school.

17. Chinese Painting in the Yuan Dynasty • During the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) the “Four Great Painters” -- Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wu Zhen and Wang Meng (黄公望、倪瓒、吴镇、王蒙) -- represented the highest level of landscape painting. Their works immensely influenced landscape painting of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

18. Chinese Painting in the Ming Dynasty • At the beginning of Ming dynasty, the court continued to patronize a royal painting academy, but the individual styles were restrained. The court painters were not free to follow their own inclinations. Therefore, some of them revived the colorful style of flower-and-bird painting popular at the court of Song and made it grander(更加华丽) and more decorative in conformity with the court taste of Ming.

19. Painting in the Ming Dynasty • Outside the court, many painters practiced a freer, less restrained form of painting and formed different schools of distinctive styles: the Zhejiang School（浙派）represented by Dai Jin（戴进）, the Jiangxia School（江夏派）by Wu Wei（吴伟）, the Songjiang School（松江派）by Dong Qichang（董其昌）and Four Schools of Wu（吴门四派）, which included many famous painters such as the Four Great Masters of Ming（明朝四大家） Shen Zhou（沈周）, Wen Zhengming（文徵明）, Tang Yin（唐寅） and Qiu Ying（仇英）.

20. Chinese Painting In Qing Dynasty In Qing Dynasty, some of the most prominent groups of painters were the Eight Masters in Jinling（金陵八家）, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou（扬州八怪）, and the Shanghai Group. The greatest of Jinling was Gong Xian（龚贤）, whose paintings are different for the strong effects of chiaroscuro (明暗对比法), a contrastive distribution of light and shade. The Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, represented by Zheng Banqiao（郑板桥）and Jin Nong（金农）, ignored the tradition and adopted a more individual attitude in painting.

21. Chinese Painting in Modern Times • By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Shanghai, which gave birth to the Shanghai Painting School, had become the most prosperous commercial city and a gathering place for numerous painters. Following the spirit of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, the Shanghai School played a vital role in the transition of Chinese traditional painting from a classical art form to a modern one.

22. The May 4th Movement of 1919, or the New Culture Movement, inspired the Chinese to learn from western art and introduce it to China. Many outstanding painters, led by Xu Beihong, emerged, whose paintings recognized a perfect merging of the merits of both Chinese and Western styles, absorbing western classicism, romanticism and impressionism. Other great painters of this period include Qi Baishi(齐白石), Huang Beihong (黄悲鸿) and Zhang Daqian(张大千). Oil painting, a western art, was introduced to China in the 17th century and gained popularity in the early 20th century. In the 1980s Chinese oil painting boomed.

23. Popular folk painting • Chinese New Year pictures pinned up on doors, room walls and windows on the Chinese New Year to invite heavenly blessings and ward off disasters and evil spirits - which dates back to the Qin and Han dynasties. Thanks to the invention of block printing, folk painting became popular in the Song Dynasty and reached its zenith of sophistication in the Qing. Woodcuts have become increasingly diverse in style, variety, theme and artistic form since the early 1980s.

24. Forms & Subjects The principal forms of traditional Chinese painting are • hanging scroll挂轴, • album of paintings画册, • fan surface 扇面and • long horizontal scroll.

25. Hanging scrolls are both horizontal and vertical（横披/立轴）. They are mounted and hung on the wall. • For an album of paintings the artist paints on a certain size of xuan paper, then binds a number of paintings into an album, convenient for storage.

26. The surface of both folding fans and round fans is painted. Before people had electric fans or air-conditioning, they used fans made of bamboo strips pasted with paper or silk. Artists painted the fan's surface as recreation. In time this developed into a form of painting that has been handed down to the present. Folding fans, usually made of paper, are used by men, while round fans, generally of silk, are used by women. When artists paint on the silk, the fan appears fine and elegant.

28. The long horizontal scroll is also called a hand scroll（手卷）. It is less than fifty centimetres high, but several to a hundred metres long. Pictures on long horizontal scrolls are not restricted as to time, whether seasons or decades. A hundred or a thousand human figures can be portrayed in one painting. After being mounted, it can be appreciated section by section. Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival (Qingming Festival, when Chinese people visit ancestral tombs, falls on April 5 or 6 each year) is a famous horizontal scroll from the Song Dynasty (960 -1279). The painting is 52.5 centimetres long.

30. Subjects Traditional Chinese paintings can be classified according to subject matter into • figure paintings, • landscapes and • flower-and-bird paintings. Landscapes represent a major category in traditional Chinese painting, mainly depicting the natural scenery of mountains and rivers.

31. by Tang Yin (Ming Dynasty) By Qi Baishi By Guan Shanyue

32. Schools & Techniques The technique of traditional Chinese painting is divided into two major styles: • meticulous (gongbi工笔) and • freehand (xieyi写意). Meticulous style requires great care and grace; the strict composition has fine elaboration. The effect is highly decorative. Freehand style generalizes shapes and displays rich brushwork and ink technique.

33. 长袖舞图（工笔画） 周子意的仕女图（写意 ）

34. Brush techniques • The use of ink • The use of color

35. Brush techniques • Lines play a decisive role in the formation of images in traditional Chinese painting, and the variations in lines are, in the main, determined by the method of using the brush. In general, the brush can be divided into three parts: tip, belly and root. Their properties and functions differ from one another. Sometimes you paint with the tip of the brush, as light as gossamer on the paper. Sometime^ you press the root of the brush heavily on the paper. Sometimes you use the belly of the brush to bring out charms full of vitality. There are also times you use several parts of the brush in one stroke. This depends entirely on how flexibly you use your brush to present an object. If you succeed, your lines will be vivid and forceful, and you will bring out the spiritual characteristics of the object you're portraying.

36. Tools & Materials • Brushes • Ink and Pigments • Paper and silk • Ink Slab • Color-mixing tray • Brush wash utensil

37. Brushes • There are three types of brushes used in traditional Chinese painting: soft, stiff, and mixed. • The soft brush is made mainly of fleece, with the addition of bird feathers. It absorbs a large amount of water and is suitable for painting flowers and leaves and applying water and colours. For instance, there are large and small soft ti brushes, large tai brushes for painting wider objects such as bamboo, and colouring brushes.

38. The stiff brush is made mainly of weasel hair. The artist uses a stiff brush to give the effect of strength, elasticity and resilience（弹力）. It is convenient for contour(轮廓)lines or painting hills, rocks or tree trunks. Such brushes include brushes for painting the veins of leaves and folds of garments, large and small brushes for calligraphy and painting, brushes for painting plum blossoms and large lanzhu brushes for drawing the bold lines（粗线） of bamboo or orchids.

39. The mixed brush is a mixture of soft fleece and weasel hair. The artist uses this kind of brush for the combined effect of strength and grace. For instance, the baiyun brush, made of a mixture of soft fleece and stiff weasel hair, can also be used for painting flowers and leaves. In addition, there are specially made stiff brushes, such as a brush made of short pig bristles or mouse whiskers.

40. Choosing the right brush for painting depends on your requirements or the circumstances in which you are painting. It is better for beginners to use the mixed brush. When buying brushes, it is better to buy in special stores for the four treasures of the study, as they have a complete assortment. Before you start to use a new brush, soak it in cold or warm water. After using the brush, you must wash it clean, squeeze it dry, arrange the brush hair neatly and hang the brush up. The brush can then be used for a long period.

41. Ink and Pigments（颜料） • The ink used for painting is made by grinding an ink stick on an ink slab. You can also buy prepared ink in bottles. The ink sticks consist of pine soot ink and tung-oil-soot ink. In general, tung-oil-soot ink is used, because it is of fine quality and the black has a bluish-purple lustre. Ink sticks with light glue are of top quality. Ink sticks made long ago that have lost their luster (光泽) and brightness should not be used. Pine-soot ink, which is black but lusterless, is used only occasionally when painting birds or butterflies in meticulous style. It may also be used when you wish a special effect. Ink sticks should be well protected against dampness, or sun, so that the glue will not be lost and the stick will not become dry and cracked.

42. Pigments are used in addition to ink for coloring in Chinese painting. They are mixed with water, instead of oil. Pigments for Chinese painting are classified as transparent or opaque. Transparent colors are made with plant pigments, including mainly vermillion, gamboge (橙黄色), ochre(赭色), cyanine(青蓝), rouge(胭脂) and carmine(深红色). Opaque colors, made mainly of minerals, are also called mineral colors, which include mineral blue, mineral green, titanium white(钛白), mineral yellow and cinnabar（朱红）. Mineral colors have strong covering capacity, but fade easily. Hence, it is necessary to mix mineral colors with an appropriate amount of liquid glue (animal and plant glue)

43. In addition, there are gold and silver powder, made of real gold and silver. Pigment stores in China‘s Suzhou add glue to gold and silver foil（银箔）, grind them into a fine paste and glue them onto a small porcelain cup, hence the name, gold or silver cup. You can use a clean brush soaked in water to dip up the gold powder in the cup. Gold and silver powder are used mainly to trace leaf veins and on metal objects, giving a sense of splendor in green and gold. However, they are rarely used.

44. Paper and silk • Xuan paper is the special material for traditional Chinese painting. It is so called because it is produced at Xuancheng in Jing County, An-hui Province. • Xuan paper may be processed or unprocessed. Unprocessed xuan paper absorbs moisture and ink, and colours sink in easily when water is added. When using this kind of paper, pay attention to the moisture of the brush and the speed with which you move the brush. If there is too much moisture and you move the brush too slowly, ink and colors will sink in easily. • Processed paper (treated with the proper amount of soybean milk or liquid glue) does not let ink and colours sink in. This kind of paper is suitable for doing paintings in the meticulous style. • Chinese artists also like to paint on silk fabric. In general, it is used after being treated and is used mostly for paintings in the meticulous style. Raw silk is used for freehand painting.

45. Ink Slab • The ink slab is the tool for grinding the ink stick. A good ink slab is a beautiful handicraft. Many materials are used for ink slabs. The most famous are duan stone, produced at Duanxi in Zhaoq-ing, Guangdong Province, and xie stone, produced at Longweishan (Dragon Tail Hill) in Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. Both are aqueous rock, fine, even and hard in texture. It is easy to grind the ink fine, even and thick, and the ink does not dry quickly. Ink slab for painting should be large (20 to 26 cm in diameter) and deep and have a lid to keep it clean. It can be either square or round.

46. Color-mixing tray This is a dish or plate for mixing colours. White porcelain is best, because the white reflects colourscorrectly. It is not suitable to use a coloured dish or plate or one with decorative designs to mix colours.

47. Brush wash untensil • This is equipment for washing brushes. It can be made of glass, porcelain or enamelware. It holds water for washing brushes. Its mouth should be wide, smooth and not rough, so that it will not impair the brush's hair.

48. Celebrities • Gu Kaizhi -- Originator of Painting （East Jin Dynasty） • Wu Daozi, Sage in Chinese Painting

49. Gu Kaizhi（顾恺之） • Gu Kai zhi(346-407), was a painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He was so talented thathe was not only good at poems but also at painting, especially the paintings of portraits, historical figures, birds, animals and landscapes as well. He is considered by many the greatest and the father of landscape painting (山水画). Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies (女史箴图) His famous works Ode to the Luo Goddess（洛神赋图） Ladies of Virtues（列女仁智图）

50. Gu was born into an official family in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province and served as a government officer at a young age. Having toured many beautiful places, Gu was proficient in writing poetry and essays; Chinese art history abounds in anecdotes about him.