Traditional Chinese Painting
AncientChinese paintingscan be traced back to as early as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, when people began to use minerals to draw simple pictures resembling animals, plants, and even human beings on rocks and produce drawings of amazing designs and decorations on the surface of potteries and laterbronzecontainers. However, only a few of the works have survived over time. The earliest drawings that have been preserved till today were produced onpaperand silk, which were burial articles with a history of over 2,000 years.
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Painting on the Silk
In 1949 a painting on white silk was unearthed in a tomb of the Chu Kingdom nearChangshainHunan Province. This Human,Dragon and PhoenixPaintingis the earliest traditionalChinese paintingfound so far. The painting was executed about 2,300 years ago on a piece of white silk used as a banner in traditional Chinese funerals.
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Scroll Painting
Chinese paintingcame a long way during the 300-year period that saw the rise and fall of theThree Kingdoms Period(220-280), theJin Dynasty (265-420)and theNorthern and Southern Dynasties(420-581). Although there was the chaos of wars and many dynastic changes during this period, active intellectual life of different schools provided a great impetus to artistic development.Gu Kaizhi, known as the founder of traditionalChinese painting, and hisscroll paintings, represented the painting style of the period.
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Wu Daoziof Tang Dynasty
The painting demonstratesWu Daozi's basic painting style. Unlike his predecessors,Gu Kaizhiand Lu Tanhui, whose stroke lines were slender and forceful but lacked variety, Wu's strokes were full of changes and vigor, expressing the internal world of the characters. Wu used simple colors or none at all. He was always in great ferment when he was painting, and his works exhibit an expressionist style.
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Skillful Court Lady Painters
Portrait paintingboomed in theTang Dynasty. There were two important portrait painters in the mid-Tang Dynasty, Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang. They were good at portraying court ladies. Their works symbolized a change in portraiture and were of special importance inChinese paintinghistory.
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The Imperial Painting Academy
Imperial painting academies were first established in theFive Dynasties. They were under the direct administration of the imperial government.The Song Dynasty united China again in 960 and expanded the imperial painting academy. It became the creative center of painting of the time.
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Qingming Festival by the Riverside
Qingming Festival by the Riverside is a long colored painted scroll portraying the noisy street scenes of Bianjing during the Qingming Festival (a festival for the mourning of ancestors).The painting has complicated scenes with rigorous structures. It is a great and rare realistic painting and provides vivid visual information about business, handicrafts, architecture and transportation tools in the big metropolis of theNorthern Song Dynasty.
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The Four Great Painters of the Yuan Dynasty
Like the flowers and bird paintings and figure paintings of the period, the mountains and water paintings of the Song Dynasty were very realistic. TheYuan Dynastypainters later developedlandscape paintingfrom this basis.Four Great Painters were the most famous artists of the time.
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The Wumen Painting School
With the demise of the Yuan Dynasty,Suzhoubecame a gathering place for Chinese intellectuals. These included many well-known painters.According to historical records, some 150 painters, about one-fifth of all theMing Dynastypainters, were in Suzhou, and they formed an influential school of painting. Historically Suzhou was also known asWumen, and this painting school was named theWumen PaintingSchool.
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Eight Eccentric Painters of Yangzhou
The eight painters' paintings did not follow the old brushstroke conventions, making them look strange compared with other paintings of the time. In addition, these painters were proud and uncontrolled and had bold personalities; thus they were named the Eight Eccentric Painters.
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Xu Beihong
Xu went to Europe to study Western classical realist painting, and then combined it with traditionalChinese paintingmethods. He was the pioneer of contemporary Chinese realist fine arts.
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Qi Baishi
Qi Baishi (1864-1957) was a famous painter whose life of nearly 100 years spanned two centuries.
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