The Relationship between Mounting and Display of Chinese Paintings

The relationship between Chinese painting mounting and display is as follows:

China's paintings and calligraphy are recognized as treasures of oriental art in the world. With the traditional painting and calligraphy mounting art, the painting and calligraphy mounting technology is also unique to the Chinese nation. Thanks to the mounting process, the treasures of calligraphy and painting in the past dynasties have been preserved for a long time.

Later, it spread to Japan and some Asian countries, becoming a unique craft in the East and cherished by all countries in the world. So, how did this unique national craft in China develop? Like other things, painting and calligraphy mounting also has a development process from scratch and from shallow to deep.

1973 A picture of a dragon king unearthed from the Chu Tomb of the Warring States Period in Hunan Province provides us with valuable raw materials for understanding this regular problem. This precious cultural relic is "wrapped in a thin bamboo strip at the top and horizontal edges and tied with a brown silk rope."

Later, there was a further discovery on the silk painting unearthed from the No.1 Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha: "The top of the D-shaped silk painting was wrapped with bamboo poles and tied with brown ribbons, and the two lower corners of the middle and lower parts were decorated with cylindrical tapestries made of cyan linen."

These specific characteristics show the original motivation of the ancients to appreciate painting, which plays a very important role in studying the origin of painting and calligraphy mounting. Although the history of painting and calligraphy mounting is long, there are not many written records left. Judging from the existing literature, the earliest record of mounting historical materials should be Zhang Yanyuan's Record of Famous Paintings of Past Dynasties in Tang Dynasty.

It mentioned: "The equipment was not good before the Jin Dynasty, but Ye Fan could carry it in the Song Dynasty." Ye Fan, the author of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the satrap of Xuancheng in the Southern Song Dynasty and a famous historian, is an early master of mounting in the history of mounting in China.

Emperor Taizong made great efforts to collect Wang Xizhi's calligraphy and famous paintings of past dynasties, appointed Wang Hang to mount them directly, and Wang Zhijing supervised them, which shows that the Tang Dynasty attached importance to painting mounting.

At that time, envoys from Nara, Japan, came to China to study mounting technology, and Emperor Taizong personally ordered Zhang Yanyuan to teach mounting technology. Since then, our mounting technology has spread to Japan and taken root and blossomed in foreign countries. In the Five Dynasties, mounting technology was further developed.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Huizong founded the Painting Academy, and put mounting into his official position, which became one of the six pending actions of Siwen Painting Academy. Under the advocacy of the royal family and on the basis of careful exploration by painters and mounters, the famous "Xuan He Mounting" format was finally formed.

This indicates that China painting and calligraphy mounting technology was introduced to the people, especially in the five hundred years of Ming and Qing Dynasties. Mounting technology became a specialized industry for opening shops to mount paintings, and many well-known painting and calligraphy mounting shops appeared in Suzhou, Yangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hunan, Hubei and Kaifeng.

In the middle and late 1970s, the situation has undergone profound changes. Calligraphy and painting mounting is like a awakened spring breeze, which has changed the previous silence and greatly increased the number of employees. Many explorations and reforms have been made in mounting technology and mounting materials, and they are moving towards the road of combining traditional technology with modern technology.

There are two main mounting forms of calligraphy and painting: one is the mounting form of calligraphy and painting hanging on the wall; One is a calligraphy and painting mounting form for desk viewing. Hanging on the wall to watch the painting and calligraphy mounting forms are divided into the following types:

Lens: a form of embedding calligraphy and painting works into a picture frame or decorative board, which is simple and convenient and easy to post and hang. If the glass cover is placed in front of the framed painting, it can also be wind-proof and dust-proof to avoid damage. In recent years, the process has been improved, and the overall weight of the lens can be reduced by using film instead of glass cover.

Vertical axis: vertical or square calligraphy and painting works are mounted into banners with axes, also known as "hanging axis" or "axis width" This form is the most widely used, mostly in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Due to the large building space in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the halls are spacious and bright, and long and wide axes are hung.

Vertical shafts are divided into brocade, silk, paper and half paper and half silk. According to color, there are monochrome mounting, two-color mounting and three-color mounting; According to local differences, there are Beijing mounting, Guangzhou mounting and Hunan mounting.

Couplets: The word width hanging on both sides of nave's calligraphy and painting was the most popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it was the most widely used form in calligraphy art. The choice of mosaic materials should be monochrome, and the mounting style of the upper and lower couplets should be the same.

Screen bar: also known as "screen bar", it evolved from large murals and was very popular in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties after the Song Dynasty. It is a common decorative form in ancient halls and rooms. Generally, four, six, eight or even twelve vertical paintings of the same specification are mounted and hung into a set.

The most common one is composed of four calligraphy and paintings, sometimes according to the scenery of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and sometimes according to the four calligraphy styles of truth, grass, official script and seal script, which are collectively called four screens. The combination of eight screens is the same as that of four screens. There is also a kind of "single screen bar", which refers to a small banner framed by a single piece of work.

Cross-string: After the calligraphy and painting works of banners are mounted, the scroll calligraphy and painting hanging horizontally on the wall is an ideal decoration for horizontal space.