Chinese Painting

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A hanging scroll painted by Ma Lin in or before 1246. Ink and color on silk, 226.6x110.3 cm.

 

Loquats and a Mountain Bird, by an anonymous painter of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279); small album leaf paintings like this were popular amongst the gentry and scholar-officials of the Southern Song.

 

Painting from the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Animalistic guardian spirits of midnight and morning wearing Chinese robes, Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) on ceramic tile

Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guóhuà (simplified Chinese: 国画; traditional Chinese: 國畫) or (simplified Chinese: 中国画; traditional Chinese: 中國畫), meaning "national" or "native painting", as opposed to Western styles of art which became popular in China in the 20th century. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or colored pigments; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls. Traditional painting can also be done on album sheets, walls, lacquerware, folding screens, and other media.

The two main techniques in Chinese painting are:

• Gongbi (工筆), meaning "meticulous", uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimit details very precisely. It is often highly colored and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. It is often practiced by artists working for the royal court or in independent workshops.

• Ink and wash painting, in Chinese shuǐ-mò (水墨, "water and ink") also loosely termed watercolor or brush painting, and also known as "literati painting", as it was one of the "Four Arts" of the Chinese Scholar-official class. In theory, this was an art practiced by gentlemen, a distinction that begins to be made in writings on art from the Song dynasty, though in fact, the careers of leading exponents could benefit considerably. This style is also referred to as "xieyi" (寫意) or freehand style.

Landscape painting was regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting, and generally still is. The time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period (907–1127) is known as the "Great age of Chinese landscape". In the north, artists such as Jing Hao, Li Cheng, Fan Kuan, and Guo Xi painted pictures of towering mountains, using strong black lines, ink wash, and sharp, dotted brushstrokes to suggest rough stone. In the south, Dong Yuan, Juran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer, rubbed brushwork. These two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting.

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From Wikipedia