ARTH183 1st Edition Lecture 16Outline of Last LectureI. Tang Dynasty Chinese Art: “Vairochana and Attendants” ContinuedA. IconographyB. Stylea. Guptan influenceC. Buddhist figure grouping characteristics; how are they visible herea. The 4 Heavenly Kings; iconography, styleb. Vajrapani figures; iconography, styleII. Dunhuang Cave Temple SiteA. Historical significance of siteB. “Western Pure Land”; definition/description of Pure Lands, use of imagerya. Amitabha, his cult and identifiersb. Typical composition, features of Pure Land imagesc. Style-Significance of shading and highlighting-Guptan influenceC. “Bodhisattva Guide of Souls”; format, origina. Subject; how we can tell-Avalokiteshvara; who he is, iconography-Cartoucheb. Style-Distinctive aspects (color, depiction of bodhisattva and female soul)III. Tang Dynasty Court ArtA. “Thirteen Emperors”; artist, format, dating issuesa. Tang court artist familiesb. Subjectc. Style; figures set against blank ground, character of lines and paletteOutline of Current LectureI. Tang Dynasty Court Art ContinuedA. “Night-Shining White,” Han Gana. Significance of subjectb. Significance of formatc. Style; typical Chinese elementsII. Song Dynasty Chinese Art (960-1279 CE)These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.A. The Song Dynasty; history, Northern and Southerna. Development of landscape paintingB. “Travelers among Mountains and Streams,” Fan Kuana. Historical first; significance of format for periodb. “Monumental landscape style”; characteristicsc. Capturing appearance, variety of nature-Line quality, “raindrop texture stroke,” detaild. Use of black vs. color-Use of areas of unpainted silke. Role of human figures-Buddhist monk and temple; temple location f. Multi-point perspective; what it tries to showC. Bird-and-flower painting; political subtext, role/importance of the Huizong Emperor toarts in Chinaa. “Five Color Parakeet on Blossoming Apricot Tree,” Huizong Emperor-Role of Huizong Emperor in creation-Original format-Significance of calligraphy-Elements typical of style for genre (“cut branch” composition, careful arrangement, realism, detail)Current LectureTang Dynasty Court Art Continued“Night-Shining White,” att. Han Gan (act. ca. 742-756 CE). Tang Dynasty, 700-800 CE: HanGan is another court artist who comes from multiple generations of artists; there is a story that he told his sons not to become artists, which shows how court artists struggled with feeling like they are not regarded with due respect or are just seen as a craftsperson at the service of the emperor. Horses=Very popular in the Tang Dynasty; subject of lots of painting, poetry, collecting…there was a huge number of horses in the imperial stable, some trained to perform. This is an actual horse that would have been at court.-A handscroll; only original feature is the horse, with all the seals and writing added later. Very unusual at the time for being painted on paper (may have been a preparatory work for a later final version on silk)-No indication of setting and spare rendering of horse is typical; Chinese art is more an art of outline, learning how to control a brush and make precise lines. Also includes some shading, variety of brushwork, use of ink wash for shading or creating darker areas, attention to fine detail. Done entirely in black ink except for some brown in the eye-Tries to capture liveliness of the horse in the image through active pose, open mouth, curling tongueSong Dynasty Chinese Art (960-1279 CE)Another period of fragmentation follows the Tang Dynasty; foreigners invade the North and there are multiple small kingdoms. In 960 a new Chinese dynasty emerges, resulting in a period of a lot of growth (economic, agricultural, population). The Song Dynasty is divided intothe Northern Song (960-1172, unified rule under one emperor at capital of Kaifeng) and the Southern Song (invasion by foreigners in the North forces court to move South). The greatest artistic advancement of the period is the art of landscape becoming very important subject matter and eventually a vehicle for style.-“Travelers among Mountains and Streams,” att. Fan Kuan (act. ca. 990-1030 CE). Northern Song Dynasty, ca. 1000 CE: Fan Kuan was a professional artist working at the court, many of whom we don’t have much biographical information for. This is the 1st known painting with a signature on it believed to be the actual signature of the artist-it doesn’t draw attention to itself, reflecting how this was a painting made for the emperor. Example of a hanging scroll (10th c. sees this format become popular), probably not a particular place but based on landscapes Fan Kuan would have seen living in the North.* Very large painting in the monumental landscape style. Monumental landscape=composition dominated by 1 large mountain on its central axis; tripartite division both horizontally and vertically (foreground, middle ground, background); leads you back into the background but doesn’t use atmospheric perspective (less detail and lighter color with distance), which creates a not entirely convincing representation of spatial recession.*This is a period of concern for developing techniques to try and capture how things look in nature and the natural world’s variety and chaos: see use of varying quality of line to describe different surfaces and textures. Texture strokes in a teardrop shape (the “raindrop texture stroke”) used on surface of mountains and rocks is thought to be an invention of Fan Kuan and is associated with his style. Painting has an amazing amount of detail-every leafis outlined, the temple is rendered methodically and mathematically*Uses both black and some colored ink, but is very subdued and shows the movement toward strictly monochrome (just black ink) painting. Areas of unpainted silk are often used to represent areas of sky, water, mist or fog*Human figures included tell you about the scale of the landscape-the focus is not on the human element and there is no narrative, a big change from earlier painting. The hat of 1 figure indicates he is a Buddhist monk (upper parts of landscapes often have temples, both reflective of real life building practices and represents the upward movement towards a more spiritual place)*Use of perspective: Single-point perspective (parallel lines come together