Chinese art: Difference between revisions
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[[Image: ShangVessel.jpg|thumb|300px|[[13th century|13th-century]] spouted ritual [[wine]] vessel (''Guang''). This vessel dates to the early Anyang period of the [[Shang dynasty]] ([[1300 |
[[Image: ShangVessel.jpg|thumb|300px|[[13th century|13th-century]] spouted ritual [[wine]] vessel (''Guang''). This vessel dates to the early Anyang period of the [[Shang dynasty]] ([[1300 BC|1300]]–[[1050 BC]])]] |
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'''Chinese art''' is [[art]], both modern and ancient, that originated or is practiced in [[China]] or by Chinese performers. |
'''Chinese art''' is [[art]], both modern and ancient, that originated or is practiced in [[China]] or by Chinese performers. |
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==Historical development to 221 |
==Historical development to 221 BC== |
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===Neolithic pottery=== |
===Neolithic pottery=== |
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Early forms of art in China are found in the [[Neolithic]] [[Yangshao culture]] (仰韶文化), which dates back to the [[6th millennium |
Early forms of art in China are found in the [[Neolithic]] [[Yangshao culture]] (仰韶文化), which dates back to the [[6th millennium BC]]. Archeological findings such as those at [[Banpo]] have revealed that the Yangshao made [[pottery]]; early [[ceramics]] were [[Paint|unpainted]] and most often cord-marked. The first [[decoration]]s were [[fish]] and human faces, but these eventually evolved into [[Symmetry|symmetrical]]-[[Geometry|geometric]] abstract designs, some painted. |
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The most distinctive feature of Yangshao culture was the extensive use of painted pottery, especially human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later [[Longshan culture]], the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery-making. According to archaelogists, Yangshao society was based around matriarchal clans. Excavations found that children were buried in painted pottery jars. |
The most distinctive feature of Yangshao culture was the extensive use of painted pottery, especially human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later [[Longshan culture]], the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery-making. According to archaelogists, Yangshao society was based around matriarchal clans. Excavations found that children were buried in painted pottery jars. |
Revision as of 07:32, 20 November 2004
Chinese art is art, both modern and ancient, that originated or is practiced in China or by Chinese performers.
Historical development to 221 BC
Neolithic pottery
Early forms of art in China are found in the Neolithic Yangshao culture (仰韶文化), which dates back to the 6th millennium BC. Archeological findings such as those at Banpo have revealed that the Yangshao made pottery; early ceramics were unpainted and most often cord-marked. The first decorations were fish and human faces, but these eventually evolved into symmetrical-geometric abstract designs, some painted.
The most distinctive feature of Yangshao culture was the extensive use of painted pottery, especially human facial, animal, and geometric designs. Unlike the later Longshan culture, the Yangshao culture did not use pottery wheels in pottery-making. According to archaelogists, Yangshao society was based around matriarchal clans. Excavations found that children were buried in painted pottery jars.
Jade culture
Bronze casting
The Bronze Age in China began with the Shang Dynasty. The Shang are remembered for their bronze casting, noted for its clarity of detail. Shang bronzesmiths usually worked in foundries outside the cities to make ritual vessels, and sometimes weapons and chariot fittings as well. The bronze vessels were receptaces for storing or serving various solids and liquids used in the performance of sacred ceremonies. Some forms such as the ku and jue can be very graceful, but the most powerful pieces are the ding, sometimes described as having the an "air of ferocious majesty."
It is typical of the developed Shang style that all available space is decorated, most often with stylised forms of real and imaginary animals. The most common motif is the taotie, which shows a mythological being presented frontally as though squashed onto a horizontal plane to form a symmetrical design. The early significance of taotie is not clear, but myths about it existed around the late Zhou Dynasty. It was considered to be variously a covetous man banished to guard a corner of heaven against evil monsters; or a monster equipped with only a head who tries to devour men but hurts only himself.
The function and appearance of bronzes changed gradually from the Shang to the Zhou. They shifted from been used in religious rites to more practical purposes. By the Warring States Period bronze vessels had become objects of aesthetic enjoyment. Some were decorated with social scenes, such as from a banquet or hunt; whilst others displayed abstract patterns inlaid with gold, silver, or precious and semi-precious stones.
Shang bronzes became appreciated as works of art from the Song Dynasty, when they were collected and prized not only for their shape and design but also for the various gree, blue green, and even reddish patinas created by chemical action as they lay buried in the ground. The study of early Chinese bronze casting is a specialised field of art history.
Early Chinese music
The origins of Chinese music and poetry can be gleamed in 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 for courtship, ceremonial greeting, warfare, feasting and lamentation. The love peoms are among the most appealing in the freshness and innocence of their language.
Early Chinese music was based on percussion instruments such as the bronze bell. Chinese bells were sounded by being struck from the outside, usually with a piece of wood. Sets of bells were suspended on wooden racks. Inside excavated bells are groves and marks of scraping and scratching made as they were tuned to the right pitch. Percussion instruments gradually gave way to string and reed instruments toward the Warring States period.
Significantly, the characters for music (yue) was the same as that for joy (le). For Confucius and his disciples, music was important because it has the power to make people harmonious and well balanced or, conversely caused them to be quarrelsome and depraved. According to Xun Zi, music is as important as the li ("rites"; "etiquette") stressed in Confucianism. Mo Zi, philosophically opposed to Confucianism, disagreed. He dismissed music as having only aesthetic uses, and thus useless and wasteful.
Chu and southern culture
A rich source of art in early China was the state of Chu, which developed in Yangzi River valley. Excavations of Chu tombs have found painted wooden sculptures, jade disks, glass beads, musical instruments, and an assortment of lacquerware. Many of the lacquier 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 to date. It shows a woman accompanied by a phoenix and a dragon, two mythological animals to feature prominently in Chinese art.
An anthology of Chu poetry has also survived in the form of the Chu Ci, which has been translated into English by David Hawkes. Many of the works in the text are associated with Shamanism. There are also descriptions of fantastic landscapes, examples of China's first nature poetry. The longest poem "Encountering Sorrow", is reputed to have been written by the tragic Qu Yuan as a political allegory.
Early imperial China (221 BC – 220 AD)
Qin sculpture
Han poetry
Han architecture
Period of division (220 – 581)
Influence of Buddhism
Secular culture
Poetry
Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, Tao Qian
Calligraphy
Painting
The Sui and Tang dynasties (581 – 960)
Main article: Tang Dynasty art
Buddhist architecture and sculpture
Most wooden Tang sculpture has not survived, though representations of the Tang international style can still be seen in Nara, Japan. Stone sculpture have proved they have much great longevity. Some of the finest examples can be seen at Longmen, near Luoyang.
Golden age of Chinese poetry
Bai Juyi, Du Mu, Han Yu, Jia Dao, Li Qiao, Liu Zongyuan, Luo Binwang, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, Zhang Jiuling
Li Bo and Du Fu
Late Tang poetry
Painting
The Song and Yuan dynasties (960 – 1368)
Song poetry
Li Qingzhao, Lu You, Mei Yaochen, Ouyang Xiu, Su Dongpo, Wang Anshi, Xin Qiji
Song painting
Yuan drama
Yuan painting
Late imperial China (1368 – 1895)
Ming drama
Ming painting
Matteo Ricci, Wen Zhengming, Xu Wei
Early Qing painting
Giuseppe Castiglione, Bada Shanren, Jiang Tingxi
Decorative arts
Qing fiction
Modern Chinese art
Painting
Huang Binhong Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Zhang Chongren
Poetry
Influence of the West
"People's arts"
Contemporary art since 1979
Performing arts
The Chinese government, to some exent, subsidises 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.
- Cantopop (CPop) and popular music
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
Unsorted
Performing arts
- Chinese opera - Traditional drama grew out of the zaju (variety plays) of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and continues to exist in many (368?) different forms, the best known of which is Beijing opera.
- Chinese music - Traditional Chinese music appears to date back to the dawn of Chinese civilization. Modern Chinese music contain considerable western influences.
Visual arts
- Chinese painting and calligraphy - In imperial times, painting and calligraphy were the most highly appreciated arts in court circles. Calligraphy was thought to be the highest and purest form of painting.
- bronze sculpture, including ding, zhong, see also bronzeware script
- decorative art, including lacquer, porcelain, pottery (see Longquan celadon)
See also
- Arts of the Far East
- Buddhist art
- Chinese architecture
- Chinese cuisine
- Chinese literature
- Culture of China
- Music of China
- National Palace Museum (Taiwan)
- Palace Museum (Forbidden City, Bejing)
- Shodo (Japanese calligraphy; most of this is applicable to Chinese shufa as well)
Sources and further reading
- Barnhart, Richard M., et al. Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: 2002. ISBN 0300094477.
- Chi, Lillian, et al. A Dictionary of Chinese Ceramics. Sun Tree Publishing: 2003. ISBN 9810460236.
- Clunas, Craig. Art in China. Oxford University Press: 1997. ISBN 0192842072.
- Gowers, David, et al. Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing. Art Media Resources: 2002. ISBN 1588860337.
- Ebrey, Patrici, et al. Taoism and the Arts of China. University of California Press: 2000. ISBN 0520227840.
- Harper, Prudence Oliver. China: Dawn Of A Golden Age (200-750 AD). Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0300104871.
- Mascarelli, Gloria, and Robert Mascarelli. The Ceramics of China: 5000 BC to 1900 AD. Schiffer Publishing: 2003. ISBN 0764318438.
- Sturman, Peter Charles. Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0300104871.
- Sullivan, Michael. The Arts of China. Fourth edition. University of California Press: 2000. ISBN 0520218779.
- Tregear, Mary. Chinese Art. Thames & Hudson: 1997. ISBN 0500202990.
- Watson, William. The Arts of China to AD 900. Yale University Press: 1995. ISBN 0300059892.