Comparing and Contrasting Sung Painting with Northern and Southern Sung Styles - Article Example

PAINTING Chinese court and landscape painting grew under the Sung Dynasty, despite the fact that the dynasty was not a particularly expanding or strong in other regards. This does not mean, however, that a dynastic power that was not especially militarily or economically strong in comparison to other dynasties, could not develop a sense of the power of art. Painters in the Sung dynasty during this period of Chinese history enjoyed a strong court patronage and also developed and perfected of a certain naturalist, poetical style, especially in landscape painting, which is often widely recognized today as typical of Chinese art that is based on nature. The sweeping views of cliffs and trees, often with small human figures added to show the scale, amid watery brush-strokes that stipple rocks and poetically provide a intimate sense of nature’s importance, is typical of Sung painting. The current research looks at Sung painting, comparing and contrasting Northern and Southern Sung styles. By continuing to advance previous styles in a spirit of inspired realism that embraced the idea of the painter’s unity with nature, and therefore the link between art and nature, painters of the Sung dynasty crafted many unique and lasting works. During this relatively peaceful time (roughly 960-1280CE), “…artists had at their disposal an array of fully developed brush techniques which they used to create individual, distinctive styles” (Ross). Especially impressive were the watering techniques used to make stones look particularly real, although this is not to say that realism was the key goal of Sung art: it was more a dramatization and joyous celebration of nature than, necessarily, a completely or strictly accurate depiction of it in and of itself. While the Northern Sung painters were more traditional, with the movement of the capital city south, a Southern Sung school of painting also emerged, which was, according to some mainly a derivative school of the established Northern Sung which made some minor changes in composition and, obviously, subject matter, but kept many of the ideas and philosophical inspirations of the Northern Sung painters, including their use of poetic unity, faded washes to invoke perspective, and, though the brush-strokes were slightly less so under the Southern Sung capital, dramatic and intricate brushwork. The Sung emperors were great patrons of the arts, as they established intricate court schools of painting and encouraged the development of art as it applied to the court and as it applied to nature. That is, the Sung emperors were interested in the presentation of nature by landscape artists in that they, in essence, brought this nature to the court, so that the court did not have to go to it. Court painters also portrayed favorite subjects of the court such as babies, kittens, and flowers, but it has been the landscape painters of the Sung dynasty who have maintained more of a lasting impression in a global reckoning. The Sung emperors were perhaps more well-known for their patronage than any other dynastic emperors in Chinese history. Although there were dynasties that were richer and more progressive than the Sung, none of these dynasties did as much to elevate the status of the Chinese landscape artist. What had once been a relatively minor distraction or past-reliant collection at court turned into a mandated and approved, vibrant presentation of living culture through living artists, who developed and produced many masterworks. With increased patronage, the respect that artists received from both the court and the community at large increased dramatically, and more young and talented artists were encouraged to pursue their artistic goals in a manner that would realistically place them in great social status. In previous dynasties, there was more of a tendency to establish court calligraphers than a court school of painters. But in the Sung dynasty, painting was encouraged as arguably superior to letters in its ability to directly convey its subject matter. In this favorable climate, there was also arguably none of the “artist as rebel” mentality of governments who are not active patrons of the arts, even if a Zen school developed during and after this time that mocked at court conventions and favored a more energetic and spontaneous and less detailed and crafted sort of line. Even though these Zen painters were often frowned upon by the court establishment, one could not deny that the government was doing everything possible to support the arts… “Emperor Hui-tsung of the Northern Sung established the Hanlin Imperial Painting Academy in an effort to attract artists… Court painters were awarded with official ranks… according to their level of skill” (Ross). Where scribes had thrived previously, painters took up their positions. Li Cheng was perhaps the most famous artist of the Northern Sung period, even though it is doubtful that we can now see this as a visual certain. He assumedly painted natural landscapes with a sense of poetic spontaneity that was held back by a responsible and detailed brush method, achieving a balance between form and expression. “The grandeur of Northern Sung landscape, the supreme achievement of Chinese painting, probably owes more to him than to any other single figure” (Cahill 32). The reason that we must only assume that he was the greatest is due to the absence of any clearly- documented paintings that were definitely and actually his. Many paintings that were believed to be done by Li Cheng have since been discovered to have come from later imitators. Although several paintings, including “A Buddhist Temple in the Mountains,” have been attributed to him, there is much doubt of the claims’ authenticity. Cahill seems to believe that “A Buddhist Temple in the Mountains” was actually painted almost a century after Li Cheng’s death. Looking at the painting, we see a dramatic landscape in which several different forms of brush-work are immediately visible in their relation to the different elements which they represent. The trees and shrub in the foreground is dramatic and energetic in stroke and line, and upon close inspection reveals itself to be a series of textured horizontal and vertical hatches that overrun each other in a manner that is almost calligraphic. The details of the boulders in the foreground appear to be the result of some sort of washing technique that gives them a very realistic look. The energy of the foliage is clamed in the middle-ground by the exactness shown in the lines of the temple, which is partly obscured by a tree that clings precariously to the edge of a steep cliff. In the painting’s background, the viewer can see its true greatness, as the looming mountains rise up past the area of the scroll’s coverage and imply a sense of vastness that is contrasted by the presence of a unifying waterfall falling in the upper right. One must keep in mind that the poetry of the brushwork and the dramatic scale represented in the paintings made nature something, especially in Northern Sung paintings, that was dramatized and perfected through the artist, not simply or strictly represented. Fan Kuan, who began his artistic journey as a disciple of Li Cheng, especially emphasizes this sense of creative process in his “Traveling Among Streams and Mountains,” a poetic landscape painting. The foreground of the work is composed of intricately stippled boulders, while the middle-ground is occupied by a small stream and cliffs with trees. It is the immensity of the background, though, that gives this work its true greatness: just as in the painting attributed to Li Cheng, dramatic mountains and cliffs rise (though now from a bed of mist) to tower over the rest of the painting, while a sense of balance and design-scan is kept by the waterfall that streams down from the right-side cliffs to provide the work with balance. Southern Sung painting began as an extension of the Northern Sung masters who followed the court south to below the Yangtze River in Hanzhou when it fled in the 12th century under pressure from the Tartars. The dynasty changed names at this point, from the Northern Sung to the Southern Sung dynasty. The move was not necessarily turbulent in that it resulted in social disorder, as no real turbulence was conveyed in the art, which continued to be produced by the Imperial School, which moved with the emperor. Initially, the paintings produced by the artists under the Southern Sung dynasty were very similar in form, technique, and execution to the Northern Sung school, as established artists like Li Tang, who was seventy years old when the dynasty moved, “managed to so dominate the newly reorganized Painting Academy that there was scarcely a single Academy landscapist during the whole of the Southern Sung period who was not in some way his follower” (Cahill 39). Li Tang, in turn, was a noted follower of Fan Kuan and Li Cheng. Therefore, there was not a dramatic break with tradition and the start of a new school in the Southern Sung court; it was primarily business as usual. This is one of the reasons why I believe that the differences between Northern and Southern Sung painters is often over-stated: a few formal differences and a change in the general landscape being portrayed do not, in my opinion, constitute the emergence of a new school. One thing that did change from Northern to Southern dynastic painters was the size of the working area. It was as if the dynasty, which was forced to flee its capital, was further shrunken in its artistic representations. Hand-scrolls and album leaves began to replace the more traditional large hanging scrolls. A change in medium does not necessarily mean a change in inspiration or execution, however. Although Li Tang’s “Myriad Trees on Strange Peaks” is a much more open composition executed within a smaller space, it still shows his reliance on Fan Kuan and Li Cheng, both Northern Sung painters. The same intricate hatching and watering treatments are visible on the boulders and trees, and the division of the space is similar. What is missing, though, is the looming might of towering mountains: in “Myriad Trees on Strange Peaks,” the strangeness of the peaks lies mostly in their relative invisible. While Fan Kuan used mist to separate the different dramatic elements of his paintings like “Traveling Among Streams and Mountains,” mist in “Myriad Trees on Strange Peaks” becomes more a part of the composition itself than a separation of its elements. The painting is therefore more misty in its presentation of mountains. Later painters in the Southern Sung took this feeling of enhanced empty space further. Painters like Ma Yuan and Hsia Kuei took the vast spaces of mist between mountains in Li Tang and their primary position in his composition to new levels in paintings like Yuan’s “A Scholar and His Servant on a Terrace,” in which roughly half of the diagonally-divided space is empty. Hsia Kuei’s “A Pure and Remote View of Rivers and Mountains” equates purity with obscurity: past a detailed foreground, mountains and rivers are hinted at by just a few watery brushstrokes. The formal elements of the foreground, however, are the same as those of the Northern Sung: the only difference between the schools, in my opinion, is that one of them, the Southern, was derivative of the other, and suggested more use of negative space. WORKS CITED Cahill, James. Treasures of Asia: Chinese Painting. Albert Skira, ed. New York: Rizzoli, 1977. Ross. “Sample.” MICI-DC. http://datas.ncl.edu.tw/catweb/metadata/mici00070518.PDF. Chinese painting. http://www.wikipedia.org Read More