Ancient Chinese landscape paintings

Ancient Ink: A brief teaser of Chinese landscape painting

Poet on a Mountaintop by Shen Zhou (Image: S Zhou, Wikimedia).

China has produced a lot of beautiful things. Forbidden cities, terracotta warriors, great walls etcetera. However, none of them are more beautiful than Chinese lanscape paintings. Inspired by the shapes and techniques of writing the Chinese language, Chinese landscape paintings are as beautiful as they are ancient. They represent one of the oldest artistic traditions in the world, with examples of paintings that are almost 2,000 years old. And despite this tradition, each period and dynasty’s paintings say something special and unique about the culture of that period of Chinese history. Let’s dive in, to Chinese painting.

Introduction to Chinese landscape paintings

These five paintings are by Lu Yanshao (1909-1993). They don’t really have a title, but people refer to them as “Poetic Images of the Tang Dynasty”. They have a lot of the characteristics of early Chinese landscape paintings, minimal, mostly mono-color paintings with no people. This style originated in the Tang Dynasty (Image: L Yanshao, Wikimedia.

Chinese ink paintings are one of the oldest, most recognizable and unique artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings come from the Tang Dynasty roughly 1,500 years ago. However, all subsequent Chinese dynasties had their own unique styles and variations. Subject matter varied but included natural landscapes, human figures, portraits, animals and plants. Many of the earliest examples of Chinese painting were influenced by Buddhist and Taoist notions around the importance of nature, but later paintings were more imperial glorifying particular empires and rulers.

The paintings were generally done on scrolls. The scrolls were made of silk or paper, depending on the expense of the image and the image was generally painted vertically and hung on a wall. The paint was a form of ink, water-based from lampblack made by burning pine resins or tung oil, as opposed to the oil-based paints used in the West. This allowed for more impressionistic effects like watercolours that only developed in the West almost a millenium later, directly influencced by these asian inkscapes. The other colors were developed from other vegetable or mineral pigments. Accompanying the images were often poems written in beautiful calligraphy summing up the feeling meant to be conveyed by the image. Many of the paintings themselves were stamped by various Chinese collectors to signify their ownership, often to an extent that actually disfigured the images.

This post is not going to go through the full history of Chinese Ink painting. That would be very hard, and also, we don’t know that much about them, we’ve just been really enthusiastically reading some Wikipedia pages. We’d be very interested to hear from you guys, if they are a particular interest of yours. We are just going to do a brief overview and dive into a few of our favourites (see more on the culture of other ancient civilizations here).

Earliest Paintings: The Tang Dynasty

The earliest Chinese ink paintings come from the Tang Dynasty. These paintings are generally sparse and monochromatic natural landscapes designed to give an impression of a natural view, rather than reproduce it accurately. Many of these early paintings were influenced by Buddhist and Taoist writings and ideas about the importance and connection to nature and people’s insignificance in comparison to it. The long-lasting tradition of the “Southern School” of paintings starts from the Tang Dynasty.

A copy of a pre-Tang painting, Manjusri Debates Vimalakirti. The painting is from the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, a site of a large number of early Tang paintings. Note the bright use of colors, many human forms and focus on Buddhist themes. It almost looks more Indian than what we’d associated with Chinese paintings (Image: P Hermit, Wikimedia).

A Tang style Chinese painting by one of the founders of the style, Wang Wei. He lived from 699 to 759 and was one of the most famous artists in the history of Chinese painting. He was a public servant, scholar, and poet as well, but in his older age, for reasons unknown, he withdrew from court life and became somewhat of a hermit living in the mountains. *This happened to a lot of the Tang artists (Image: W Wei, Wikimedia).*

Song Dynasty paintings: The art becomes glorious

The Song dynasty is when Chinese landscape painting really took off. Most of the landscape painters of the Tang dynasty were reclusive artists who retreated to the mountains to escape the destruction at the end of the period. However, the Song dynasty emperors paid for paintings to be attached to their court to glorify their power. The paintings tended to be a bit more realistic and much larger than the paintings of the Tang dynasty, with more of a focus on people and buildings in nature, as opposed to just nature itself. Many of the artistic traditions in modern China, such as theatre and opera also originate from this period, as well as much of the traditions of the civil service and postal system. The “northern school” of Chinese painting originates from this period.

This is one of the most famous Chinese paintings – Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan). It’s really hard to get a sense of the enormity of this painting from images on the internet. The best we can do is pass you on to the wikipedia page that has a full image of the 5 meter long painting that you can scroll. The above images are all sections that show it’s incredible detail. It’s basically just a bunch of people feasting in boats and taverns along a river for the Qingming festival. It is one of our favourite works of art here at the Universal Story and one that almost everyone in China knows – it’s almost as recognisable as the Mona Lisa. The above images are all sections of the original scroll showing the detail and joy of life oozing from the painting (Image: Z Zeduan, Wikimedia).

Ming Dynasty Paintings: Colour is the new black

The Ming Dynasty is probably the most famous era of Chinese paintings. The techniques developed during the earlier dynastys were expanded upon and made more sophisticated. Many of the great painting traditions in the Song Dynasty were brought together into imperial courts and a greater uniformity of styles emmerged. More colour was introduced as well, instead of the almost entirely monochrome works from the Song.

This is actually a more modern painting, immitating the style of the Ming Dynasty painting by Plumartist Pu Zuo (1918-2001). It demonstrates just how connected many modern Chinese artists are to this historical past (Image: P Zuo, ChinaDaily).

And look, frankly, this entire article was written so we could show off the two paintings below. This is our favourite artist, Shen Zhou. He is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese painters, one of the Four Masters of Ming (明四家), which also includes Wen Zhengming (文徵明), Tang Yin (唐寅) and Qiu Ying (仇英). He is best known for his very gentle and beautiful landscapes, which were incredibly popular even with common people at the time the paintings were made. Just look at them. They are so subtle, and gentle and alluring. You can just stare at them and feel your heartrate lower, your mind clear and some beautiful calm descend.

This is one of the most famous Shen Zhou paintings ‘Poet on a Mountaintop’. The image is of a single figure on the top of a mountain gazing out across the view. A poem is also superimposed on the painting. The general vibe of a small human symbolizes man’s insignificance in comparison to the powerful natural environment. The poem translates to:

*White clouds sash-like*
*wrap mountain waists,*
*the rock terrace flies in space*
*distant, a narrow path.*
*Leaning on a bramble staff*
*far and free I gaze,*
*To the warble of valley brook*
*I will reply, whistling.*

(Image: S Zhou, Wikimedia).

This is Shen Zhou’s other most famous painting, Lofty Mount Lu. It’s a real mountan in Lushan. But the painting, like most Chinese landscapes, is more an impression than a reproduction (Image: S Zhou, Wikimedia).

Conclusion: We have a lot to learn

A modern 100-meter-long painting by Mr Chen Minglou in the traditional ancient chinese paintings (Image: C Minglou, Random Art Daily).

The tradition of Chinese landscape paintings continues well into the modern world. And they often pick up some of the same themes and deal with the same issues as the original Taoist and Buddist paintings of more than a millenia ago. The above are sections of a 100 meter long landscape painting called “A trip to Hills and Lakes in Spring” by Mr. Chen Minglou, the general manager of Zhejiang Huate Environmental Protection Equip. Ind. Co. It took him more than 18 months painting it in his spare time. The painting is about 70 centimeters tall and 108 meters long and include rolling hills, trees, temples, human figures, boats all merged into one long beautifully colourful but subtle image. Mr Chen is a technology entrepreneur who has created a wide variety of technologies to try and protect China’s natural environment, for which he has recieved many awards and national recognition. The painting is very much an extension of his activism and work, as are many of the famous modern Chinese landscape paintings.

It’s curious how different these Chinese landscapes are to western paintings. Western paintings tend to be obsessed with people, figures, faces and their power. Think portraits of kings in castles in furs, or refined ladies in there dresses. It was almost a radical act when the first landscape paintings were done in the West, only about 500 years ago. It’s almost as if we couldn’t understand why someone would want to paint nature. Surely the people are the most important? The trees are just for the background.

We have a lot to learn from the world view underneath these paintings. The continual integration of the human and natural world, in a way grounded in tradition and repsect for our past and the environment. They are so devoid of human ego and vanity. In a world of instagram selfie induced body-dismorphia and environmental destruction, let’s hope we can learn the lessons, we so dearly need to learn, before it is too late.

Share this post: