Week 9 Song - Pia Brancaccio PDF

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Pia Brancaccio...

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Song Dynasty (960-1279) 1. Northern Song (960-1127) - ruled by Mongols, State of Jin 2. Southern Song (1127-1279) - didn’t want to be ruled by northern barbarians B. Great economic and technological development - ceramic production, large scale manufacturing C. Inventions - compass, gunpowder, printing with woodblocks and movable clay type D. 100 million people, cities grew tremendously E. Scholars - officials greater role in society 1. Education becomes essential to succeed 2. Many academies and schools are created with introduction of printed book and corresponding standardization of culture and aesthetics F. Urbanite and mass have same taste, access to same sources G. Song literature on art is very extensive, unprecedented in range and diversity - writings about calligraphy and painting, architecture, antiquities, technical → imperial collections, catalog 1. Historical self consciousness 2. Genre classifications and catalogues 3. Awareness of social status of artists - art criticism 4. Debate on paintings - should a painting be form-like or illusionistic? 5. Painting = poetry → narrative, captures a mood, political commentary H. Landscape painting - Shan Shui = Mountain and water 1. Not painting but calligraphic stroke → signature of painter 2. Relates to ziran, natural spontaneity emphasized by Confucian scholars a) World outside of the court = nature 3. Nature is not idyllic, it mirrors the people; it’s a metaphor for ethical values and can be associated with Daoist and Buddhist religious experiences 4. Importance of geomancy, energy flows (feng shui) 5. Monumentally, organization and order (physical/moral) → mirror; so organization and balanced landscape = balanced and order society 6. Awareness of historical models, observation of phenomena, introspection/principles 7. observed and painted in doors a) Landscape of mind; product of natural observation and filtered through own thought b) Very ordered and harmony, big strong mountain - very certain, flowing of water 8. Did not circulate, not printed, for the elite by the elite → can talk about painting (scholars) 9. Atmosphere rendered by ink tones 10. Water is always unpainted, negative (yin yang) 11. 3 fields - foreground, midground and background a) Guides viewers that guide eye through depth b) Handscroll (1) Opening scroll from right to left → people on boat → river takes us back to mountain (2) Things in foreground - ink is crisp and detailed; as progress to background - less defined, ink is more watery, more dots and finer brush stroke, fading c) Vertical scroll - everything in front of eye (1) Fan Kuan - Travellers Amidst Mountains and Streams ; Northern Song (a) Monumentality of mountain is background (b) Middle ground is unpainted water droplet of waterfall (c) Front is smaller mountains and river, very detailed (d) Travellers is on bottom right → small vs. monumental landscape; becomes scale

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(e) Able to render different textures, trees, rocks by using brushstrokes (f) Impressionistic technique → dots that define body of mountain, edges marked by continuous line 12. Colophon - commentary placed after painting on moat (blank silk sections) a) No signature of artists, artist is recognized through artist’s brush stroke or commentary of viewer 13. Guo Xi (1000 - 1090) a) Art historical treatise entitled “The Lofty Message of Forests and Streams” (book) b) Landscape art is for busy officials (passtime) - symbolic of court (1) Mountain = emperor (2) Hills around the mountain = court (3) Pin trees = assistants, nobleman c) Landscape as an organism (1) Rock = bones; filled with brushwork → skeleton of painting (2) Water = blood; fills the painting, guides eye and circulate landscape (3) Foliage = hair d) Early Spring (1) More negative space (2) Two confucian scholars represented by strong but old pine trees on rocks (3) Unclear midground, foreground and background (4) Brushwork guides you through painting → rocks and lines drives eyes up (5) Rocks defined by lines and pines are short brushstrokes Southern Song A. Emperor Huizong (1101-1125) 1. Training of painters at National University 2. Competitive exams for painters 3. Catalogues of imperial collections of bronze and paintings 4. Cranes Above Kaifeng a) Commemorating auspicious phenomena associated with it’s reign b) Courtly aesthetic - clever subtlety over monumentality c) Color = courtly d) cranes - elegant, refined, associated with pleasure e) Not a landscape, simply zoom up of particular thing - focus on cranes f) Kaifeng palace is hinted through roof g) Using silk as figural process → natural blue for sky and clouds h) More color; symmetrical 5. Prisoner of jurchen invade from the north Jin dynasty 6. Gaozong, junior son - Souther Song Dynasty (1127-1276) capital in Hangzhou B. Ma Yuan - painter in academy put by Huizong 1. Apricot Blossoms a) Lonely branch, not a smooth linear path but branches are broken stroke → hardships of experience by painter b) Focus on flowers - patches of color with outline; not glorious or powerful; placed in corner c) All previous works have sense of symmetry and balance but here is unbalanced (1) Most of silk is unpainted, minimally painted (2) Half (diagonally) is unpainted, asymmetrical, unbalanced - placement is odd 2. A Mountain Path in Spring a) Brings sense of emotion - sense of displacement, melancholy, nostalgia (1) Brushwork also mirrors sense of loss

(2) Mountains and rock used to be represented solid line but his mountain is watery and gray, fast quality of brushstroke - no solid presence (3) Two willow trees vs. Guo Xi’s pine trees (early spring) (a) Contrast breaking of roots - mirrors mood of artist b) Past is the trees and future is the negative → poetic - two verses of poetry c) Still a landscape painting but completely different → expression and feelings of artist as individual d) Landscape painting no longer represents emperor and court but transfers to expression (1) From solid linework to fast and watery strokes C. Song Buddhism - middle class, no court patronage 1. Triumph of more secular forms of Buddhism - Chan & Pure Land a) Chan Buddhism (aka Zen - Japanese name) - found in China (1) Meditation and search for personal Enlightenment (no longer external but internal quest) - everyone has potential; comes spontaneously → like nature (a) Self-discipline (b) Important of teacher (c) Denies the importance of sutras (d) Iconoclastic (2) Chan art = radical style (a) Unconventional subjects, extreme abbreviation (b) Dynamic performance, fast and spontaneous brushwork - act of painting = meditation 2. More secular, don’t require deep knowledge of sutras 3. More approachable figures a) Guan Yin - Bodhisattva of Compassion, secular figure, more approachable (1) Genderless, position of royal ease b) Lokapalas, Guardians - familiarity with Chinese bureaucracy c) Luohan (arhat) - disciple of Buddha, enlightened by worldly and real (exotic and visionary imagery) (1) Doesn’t help people, represented as a monk - more real but less approachable (2) Portraits made in ceramic - lots of experimentation 4. Cult of the 16 Great Luohans: disciples of the Buddha (monks) elected to protect Buddhist Law until the arrival of the Buddha of the future era D. Mu Qi - zen monk 1. Guan Yin, Monkeys and Cranes a) Reflects zen fate of artist b) Outlines aren’t strong, lot of ink wash, fast c) Trees reaching across painting, diagonally placed, part of trees (segment), no symmetry d) Broken branches e) Mom and baby monkey - exercise of calligraphy 2. Six Persimmons a) Minimal, persimmons expressed in various of colors b) Persimmons may be full or empty E. Liang Kai - court painter retired to Chan monastery 1. Sakyamuni (Buddha) Descending from the Mountain a) Fragment and pieces of branches b) Shakyamuni (birth name before Buddha) looks torn

2. Portrait of Hui-Neng Cutting a Bamboo a) Very minimal b) Very harsh and bold strokes → quick, more calligraphic c) Bamboo has no outline - thick brushstroke d) Quick representation of body parts → very minimal, almost caricature-like 3. Sericulture: process of making silk a) Industrial activity in China b) Increase in depiction of urban environment in paintings c) Documentation of mass production - seamless process (1) picking cocoon d) Enthusiasm in making things, representing life, what happens in city F. Street Sellers - Li Song 1. Round painting - format of fan 2. Bamboo stick carrying products - fans, lanterns, toys, etc. 3. Captures urban life, abundance of things a) Middle class urbanites able to afford these things b) Celebrate the things made in Song, celebrate urban life c) Access to material culture that exists across classes d) Mobility of taste → elite is tastemaker and spread to lower class G. Ceramics: Kaolin 1. Urban life - kiln sites supported local economics and trade 2. Song society - complexity of social structures and roles a) Buyers of ceramic wares - imperial court, scholars/officials, merchants, landowners, Buddhist institutions 3. Mobility of taste - style is market of status a) Spontaneity that was in painting that they cherished → lower class pottery circulates upward because of spontaneous and roughness 4. Styles if about craftsmanship and design, often influenced by the literati’s  values of avoidance of artifice, individuality and spontaneity (zi ran ) 5. Goes hand in hand with painting and silk - cultivated by elites, spontaneity, etc. 6. Ceramic types: technique and style (glaze, decor, shape, taste) 7. Glaze = slip, fluid made with watery clay, also contains silica → glossy surface a) Must make sure ceramic body can withstand multiple firing b) Glaze underneath may not withstand and cracks while body and upper glaze is intact 8. Tang dynasty - 3 colors/tastes (tang sancai) a) Slips of different colors b) Likes the look of dripped glaze - distinctive taste → spontaneous results c) Earthenware - thicker, delicate 9. Mass production process - more efficient firing, multiple products a) Create kilns that can fire multiple pieces → faster, less time 10. Guan - stoneware/porcelain - produced by kaolin → fine white clay, withstand high temp multiple firing a) Produced near Hangzhou (Southern Song) for palace use b) Vessel body is thinner than the glaze (1) Thicker, more resistant, lighter (2) No pigment (3) Underneath glaze cracked - cherished look → very controlled but unpredictable and spontaneous

(a) Highlights quality in calligraphy, painting c) Exclusively for court - simple, elegant and refined 11. Cizhou - body covered by white and black slip under a transparent glaze with sgraffiato decoration revealing the contrasting slips beneath a) Middle class demand b) Thicker, more decorated c) White ceramic (not pure kaolin) - cover body with white slip, then black slip and transparent slip d) Sgraffiato - incise the glaze to reveal white glaze underneath 12. Jian - made in Fujian Province (southern harbor city) a) coarse ware covered with thick iron black glaze patterned into spots, blue cobalt (1) Can’t predict pattern, very random b) Teabowls - fisherman drink tea in it c) Popular style adopted by scholars because of the spontaneous and ‘natural’ decoration...