Monday, October 10, 2011

Chinese Paintings


Similar to the paintings of the Northern Song dynasty, this painting has many features of a monumental style painting. With the mountains representing  permanence, water representing change, and clouds representing mystery, the artist captures the yin and yang spirit in this painting. 

This is another example of a monumental style painting. This painting features a small shack nearly hidden in the immense landscape. This represents the order in Confucian China, where "people and their accomplishments are always small in relation to nature". It is also interesting how both of the first two paintings feature boats in the bottom right corner.

This painting almost captures a combination of the Tang dynasty style and Northern Song dynasty style. The mountains and water match the scenes in monumental style paintings, but the blue and green colors applied to the painting pick up on decorative style paintings in the Tang dynasty.


This very simple painting is one of great importance in Chinese art. Bamboo was the quintessential symbol for the virtuous Chinese gentleman. Bamboo was very important in China as it represented Confucian order, it's characteristics relating to Chinese life. This painting could possibly be perceived as a Southern Song dynasty painting, because of it's simplicity, but it might also be considered amateur, or literati painting.

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