A Brief History of China's Fine Arts

China has a long history of fine arts.

Due to economic reasons, the carriers of fine arts in China are limited to courts and universities. In addition, there are some lonely artists who create in rural and mountainous areas. This is often caused by some scholars and relegated officials who are dissatisfied with the current social situation and thus escape from reality. This situation often happens when dynasties change, such as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, when the Manchu invaded.

The influence of China's art can be observed in the whole East Asian cultural circle. Especially in areas once ruled by China, such as North Korea and Viet Nam, or places where China people immigrated, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Japanese art can't get rid of the influence of the central empire. In some areas, Japanese followers even surpassed their predecessors, such as lacquerware craft, which reached its peak in Japan. Since16th century, China's handicrafts, especially porcelain, have been exported to Europe in large quantities, which has also had an impact on European art.

Wei, Jin, southern and northern dynasties

Buddhism entered China in 1 century. In the 8th century, it showed outstanding effects in the field of art, especially in large religious statues. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhist art flourished, and Dunhuang Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes were excavated one after another. A large number of murals and clay sculptures reflect real life while depicting religious content. In addition to folk painters, a large number of literati painters have emerged. Gu Kaizhi's Picture of Women's History in the Eastern Jin Dynasty is a masterpiece of early figure painting. It is tight and continuous with a pen like a spring silkworm spinning silk, with both form and spirit and an ancient style. Its content is to publicize the moral cultivation of feudal women. This shows that China traditional figure painting pays attention to the educational function of "educating and helping others".

Sui and Tang Dynasties

Sui and Tang dynasties, "a gentleman is to learn, and a hundred skills are to learn, from the Han and Tang dynasties." Especially painting and sculpture, have made brilliant achievements. As far as painting is concerned, the ladies' paintings in Zhou Fang and Zhang Xuan in Tang Dynasty marked the further development of figure painting. Landscape painting has got rid of its subordinate position as the background of figure painting and become an independent painting. You Chuntu by Zhan Ziqian in Sui Dynasty is the first landscape painting in the world so far. Li Sixun's Jinbi landscape, Wang Wei's ink landscape and Wang Qia's splash-ink landscape have formed the embryonic form of the North-South school of China landscape painting. The cranes in Snow Ji, the peacocks in Bian Luan and the flowers and bamboos in Diao Guang Yin in the Tang Dynasty also show that flower-and-bird painting has begun to rise. The most striking sculpture in Sui and Tang Dynasties was the mausoleum sculpture. A group of reliefs depicting six war horses that Li Shimin rode before his death (commonly known as "Six Horses in Zhaoling") in Zhaoling Stone Carvings are exquisite in carving, accurate in modeling and vivid in image, and are masterpieces in the history of sculpture in China.

In the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty

The Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty were the heyday of China's painting art. With the establishment of the Academy of Painting, court painting showed a prosperous and active scene, and later literati paintings usually traced the painting tradition back to this time. Folk paintings and other new paintings began to appear, such as The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan in the Northern Song Dynasty, which vividly depicted the bustling scene of Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and truthfully showed the social life at that time. The last landscape painting of this period, Hao Jing and Guan Tong, who lived in the Central Plains during the Five Dynasties, lived in Dongyuan and Ju Ran in the south of the Yangtze River, respectively. They used different brush and ink techniques and different painting styles to describe mountains and rivers in different regions, which had an important impact on the development of landscape painting in later generations. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Li Cheng's Pingyuan painting style, Fan Kuan's mountains and rivers, Xu Daoning's wild trees and flowing water, Guo's huge high wall, Zhao Linglang's lyrical small scene, and Mi Fei and Mi Youren's father and son's Yunshan ink play made the landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty present a highly mature state. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the painting style of Dashan Tang Tang was replaced by a large number of blank paintings. Li Tang inherited the former dynasty, but developed a unique axe chopping technique to describe rocks. Later painters, such as Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, basically followed Li Tang's style, but paid attention to tailoring, rendering large pieces of blank space on the screen, showing an empty inspiration, called poetic landscape, which became slim, reflecting the continuous change and development of landscape painting. Flower-and-bird painting has also made great progress. During the Five Dynasties, Xu Xi's Wild Bamboo in Hua Ting and Yellow Flowers and Birds had two different styles, namely, wildness and wealth. The flower-and-bird painting in the Northern Song Dynasty changed from symmetrical decoration to realism and vividness, emphasizing realism. Zhao Chang's Canhua, Yi Yuanji's Ape and Cui Bai's Lost Goose can be regarded as the representatives of the early and middle Northern Song Dynasty. When Evonne was in power, he deliberately managed the painting academy, followed the imperial examination, recruited talents and improved the treatment of the painting academy, making Huizong Dynasty the pinnacle of painting in the Song Dynasty. The flower-and-bird paintings in the courtyard emphasize fine realism and vividness. Liang Kai and Chang Fa's flower-and-bird paintings in the Southern Song Dynasty were first freehand brushwork in ink and wash, and Wentong's ink bamboo was the earliest boneless flower-and-bird masterpiece. In terms of ceramics, the Song Dynasty also reached its peak. At this time, the technology of monochrome porcelain reached the extreme. The Ru kiln fired at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty is the ultimate development of monochrome porcelain so far. Warm color, pearl jade luster, made of glazed branches. With superb technology, there are few products handed down from generation to generation, less than 100. Others, such as Ding Kiln, Yaozhou Kiln, Cizhou Kiln and Jianshe Kiln, are highly developed and exported in large quantities, affecting neighboring East Asia and other places. The official kiln in the Southern Song Dynasty is considered as a high-grade porcelain inherited from Ru kiln and supplied to the imperial court. Longquan kiln and Jingdezhen are also mass-produced at this time.

the Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty lasted less than 100 years, but it played an important role in the development of China's painting. In terms of landscape painting, because the Mongolian court looked down on the Han people, many of them were belittled, and some Han intellectuals did not want to work in foreign countries, so they hid in the mountains and kept in touch with their relatives and friends, and some of them took calligraphy and painting as friends. At this time, painting broke away from the palace atmosphere, and literati painting achieved outstanding development. Literati paintings use landscapes, flowers and birds to express their "spirit" and personal ambitions. Painters show high fighting spirit, advocate algae interest, pay attention to pen and ink interest, get rid of similarities, emphasize verve, and open up the conditions for literati who attach importance to the cultivation of poetry and books. This kind of painters (Huang, Zhenwu, Ni Zan and Wang Meng) are the representatives, and created the mainstream of China landscape painting. Artists who entered the Yuan Dynasty also had an important influence on China's paintings. Such as Zhao Mengfu, the heir of Zhao and Song Dynasties, Gao Shangshu, and Zhu Derun, Ke, Ren Renfa, Tang Di, etc. Zhao Mengfu advocates retro, turquoise color setting and simple landscape composition, which can be represented by such famous works as Quehua Autumn Color Map. Due to the active Taoist art in the Yuan Dynasty, many murals and export paintings were circulated, and "Yongle Palace Mural" is the representative work of this kind of painting. The Yuan Dynasty was a truly famous period in Jingdezhen. The most famous porcelains are blue and white porcelain and underglaze red. At this time, the export of porcelain was very smooth, so some studies thought that the blue pattern appeared at the request of Islamic customers. Longquan kiln celadon is also very famous, which is exported to Japan and the Korean peninsula in large quantities, and also exported to Southeast Asia in large quantities.

the Ming Dynasty

In the early Ming Dynasty, court painters inherited the painting style of the Southern Song Dynasty and called it "Zhejiang School" (represented by Dai Jin and Wei Wu). Although belittled by Dong Qichang and others in the late Ming Dynasty, it has a wide influence in Japan, Korea and other places, and has been passed down by folk painters to this day. Today, the temple murals in Taiwan Province Province are still the continuation of Zhejiang School. On the other hand, the literati bureaucrats took the four masters of the Yuan Dynasty as the research objects, and later became the "five schools" of traditional literati painting (represented by Shen Zhou, Wen Zhiming, Tang Yin and Chou Ying). Zhejiang School is the two main schools in Paintings of Ming Dynasty. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the five schools became the mainstream of China traditional painting, and their influence lasted until the early years of the Republic of China. Even if the National Government moved to Taiwan Province, painting education was still dominated by Wu Pai's painting. In addition, Chen Chun's and Xu Wei's freehand flower-and-bird paintings have created a bold and unrestrained style and brought new vitality to China's traditional painting. Chen Hongshou and Cui Zizhong were famous figure painters in the late Ming Dynasty, known as "Southern Cui". The former works have contributed to the development of printmaking with exaggerated and even distorted images and lofty styles. This style of painting is often called deformism by later scholars.

Ching Dynasty

The Qing dynasty continued the tradition of respecting martial arts since the end of Ming dynasty, and the so-called four kings appeared, calling their painting style "orthodox painting school" But there is a brand-new style of painting among the people, and the composition is bold and unique. The most famous people in the past were the adherents of Badashanren and Shitao. In the middle of Qing Dynasty, Jiangnan area was relatively rich, and some literati painters made a living by selling paintings in Yangzhou. Their paintings and calligraphy are unconventional. Later, scholars called eight of them Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics. The Qing dynasty was also a period when western painting gradually entered. The most famous is ShiNing Lang, who served in the court during the Qianlong period. However, this western trend has not affected the people. But at that time, there were painters in Guangzhou, the only port open to the outside world in China, who painted oil paintings for European businessmen, which was the beginning of western painting entering China. In the late Qing Dynasty, Shanghai was turned into a trading port. Because it is located in the hub, it has become an important port, which has also promoted the demand and development of oil painting. China painters gradually learned western painting methods such as perspective and used imported pigments to paint, which influenced the traditional painting style. In the late Qing Dynasty, Shanghai replaced Yangzhou as a commercial center, professional painters moved from Yangzhou to Shanghai, and Shanghai School appeared, which can be described as the last vein of China traditional painting. In the early years of the Republic of China, Gao Brothers absorbed the western style of Japanese painting and founded Lingnan School of Painting. Both of them represent the new painting style of combining Chinese and western styles, and make a useful attempt for the development of Chinese painting. The prosperity of folk art in Qing Dynasty is commendable. Woodblock New Year pictures, a traditional folk art variety, achieved unprecedented development in the Qing Dynasty. Its production area covers some towns in the north and south of the Yangtze River, forming New Year pictures with local characteristics, such as Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Taohuawu in Suzhou and Yangjiabu in Wei County. At the same time, the earliest art higher education institution in China was born in Nanjing. After the Revolution of 1911, drastic changes have taken place in China society, and China traditional art has also developed with the sudden changes of the times.