THE T'ANG AND SUNG DYNASTIES
At this point, read George Rowley's Principles of Chinese Painting,
which will provide information on the relationship between Taoist thought and
landscape painting. Rowley notes that landscape painting was practiced in both
Northern and Southern Sung. Northern Sung is the period 960-1125 A.D., the time
before the Jurchen Turks raided the capital at Kaifeng and captured the whole
court, including the emperor. Southern Sung began in 1127 when a young prince
and the remaining officials fled south, where they wandered for ten years before
establishing a court at Hangchou along the Yangtze River. At this time many of
the Mandarins, who had painted in the north, fled to the south, where they
instructed a new group of scholars who continued the landscape tradition. But
the Southern Sung literari painted in a new style that reflected the more
pleasant, less rugged terrain of the south. While the symbolism in the paintings
of both Northern and Southern Sung is the same, the style differed. In the north
the painters employed a detailed realism, piling up elements to suggest the
vastness of the universe, while in the south, the scholars simplified, flowing on
an abundance of watercolor mist to embody the notion of the void and to suggest
infinity that lies beyond perception.
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Click on an image below for a larger view.
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Choose one of the Northern Sung landscapes in Rowley (plates 16 through 19), and
discuss the symbolism of the landscape and the effect of the detailed realism.
Then take one of the Southern Sung landscape paintings (plates 20 through 23)
and compare it with the chosen example of Northern Sung. This will be the second
part of your long integrative essay. You may use paintings from other sources
which have better reproductions but if you do so, identify the painting and source,
and include a Xerox copy. (Some additional sources for the principles and practice
of Chinese landscape painting are James Cahill, Chinese Painting; Skira, N.D.
and Michael Sullivan, Symbols of Eternity, Stanford, 1979).
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Additional sources for a Study of Chinese Landscape Painting:
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