Page 354 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Large-scale historical works (cat. 287, 302), as prototypes, while his figure painting (cat. 297) of the "heterodox" school of painters applies as
well as almost as large "fur and feathers" scrolls derived — though not slavishly, particularly in well to the court-professional group.
(cat. 303, 305), were needed to decorate the physical proportions — from late Tang paintings 1. The size of paintings was limited only by
enormous palace buildings. Such grandiose of court ladies, such as those by Zhou Fang. Qiu the size of the ground. The few existing very
works were not much required by the predom- Ying's command of whatever past style suited large works on paper (cat. 301) are large only in
inantly private patrons of the south. Landscapes his purpose was always remarked upon with the vertical dimension. Vertical and horizontal
were the dominant subject of the professional wonder, though the works easily recognizable as extension seems to have been possible only on
artists in Suzhou, usually on a smaller, domestic his are so recognized by virtue of the variations silk, or in dry fresco on temple walls, which was
scale (cat. 298). "Fur and feathers" was not a he worked on the style he appropriated. The the province of professional muralists specializ-
major category for any of the southern painters, forgeries he painted for various distinguished ing in Buddhist and Daoist painting.
perhaps because no court-academic tradition patrons, including one of the great collector- 2. Subject matter ranged widely. A majority
required them to use the subject. Among the dealers in Chinese history, Xiang Yuanbian of the paintings may have been landscapes, but
three major professionals of Suzhou—Zhou (1525-1590), present a different and most diffi- not an overwhelming majority, as was the case
Chen, Tang Yin, Qiu Ying —Tang Yin's Mynah cult problem. in literati painting. Figure paintings, or large
Bird (cat. 299) is exceptional for its subject The view of middle Ming Chinese painting figures in natural or architectural settings, were
matter. Shen Zhou's relatively numerous bird outlined here is confirmed by the literary substantially represented, and knowledge of
and plant paintings (cat. 314) place him closer to criticism of the same period. As Wai-kam Ho the great prototypes and the ability to produce
the court tradition, albeit in subject matter only. has demonstrated, the art criticism owes much believable and expressive representations were
In brief, a variety of subject matter was shared to the propositions of literary criticism, embod- the province of the professional and court
by most of the court-professional painters from ied in writings more numerous and more sym- painters.
the Xuande reign until the early sixteenth cen- pathetic to the Chinese scholar of the period 3. Techniques used to represent nature and
tury. than the writings on art. Until late in the six- humanity were also widely varied. The continu-
All the painters of the period, professional or teenth century conservative and eclectic stan- ous, fine "iron-wire" line of even width was
literati, used the same materials save for the dards of judgment represented the majority necessary for delineating figures or architecture
ground. The vast majority of the literati paint- opinion in literature and in art. Song dynasty in the archaic styles of Six Dynasties and Tang
ings are on paper; the majority of the court traditions, including those of Southern Song (cat. 294) and for representing figures in an
artists and the professionals most often used (1127-1279), were admired and followed. So elite domestic setting (cat. 293). But repre-
silk. Aside from tradition, a major factor, it is were the Yuan masters, but those fourteenth- sentations of fishermen, unfortunates (cat.
hard to know why this was so. Perhaps tradition century masters were not elevated above the 296), or Daoist sages permitted rapidly exe-
was the main reason. But since paper was Song painters, nor were the Southern Song cuted, varied brushwork, expressive sometimes
customarily used for calligraphy practice, it masters denigrated — a reversal that would to the point of wildness. In the works of the
must have seemed the appropriate ground for shortly come to pass at the hands of the over-
the literati's new "written paintings." whelmingly authoritative painter-theorist Dong
Qichang (1555-1636). The formulations of the
major critic Wang Shizhen (1526-1590), for
Range of Styles example, recognized the "changes" (read "inno-
The nature of painting in the time we are con- vations") effected by all the major schools of
sidering is quite clear. All of the schools of the Chinese painting, from earliest times to middle
past were honored by imitation as well as in Ming. In his reasonable, pragmatic, Neo-
critical or art-historical writings. The court and Confucian interpretation the history of Chinese
professional artists, reasonably designated as painting was seen as continuous and creative.
conservative in the best sense of that often mis- This approach was reversed by Dong, whose
used word, tended to the common Chinese newly formulated principles, retroactively
practice of choosing from the past the stylistic applied, simply bypassed Southern Song and
model that best suited a given subject. As early relegated the Ming dynasty Zhe school and
as the decade of the 10705 Guo Ruoxu (nth most court and professional painters to the
century) had written in his Experiences in "dustbin of history." These biases, lasting to
Painting (Tu Hua Jian Wen Zhi, trans. Alexan- the present day, distorted subsequent readings
der C. Soper, American Council of Learned of the history and achievements of Chinese
Societies, 1951), that religious and secular painting.
painting of the past (especially the Tang
dynasty) was superior to and a model for his
present, but for landscape and other subjects Distinguishing Traits
drawn from nature "then the ancient does not What were the shared characteristics that dis-
come up to the modern," i.e., the Northern tinguished the works of the court and profes-
Song dynasty, (960-1127). The creative eclec- sional painters? Not all of the traits discussed
ticism engendered by this attitude was found below will be found in any one work or even in
particularly sympathetic by the painters of the oeuvre of one master, but most can be found fig. i. Ma Yuan (act. before 1190-0. 1230). Winter:
1420-1520. Thus Tang Yin's landscapes (cat. in a majority of the works of these schools. Egrets in Snow. Chinese. Collection of the National
298) were often indebted to Northern Song Much of Richard Barnhart's excellent discussion Palace Museum, Taipei.

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