In 550, Xie We established his six points to consider when judging a painting:
- The energy that flows through the painting
- The way the brush is used and how the painter’s personality is shown through it
- The form in the painting
- How color is used
- How things are placed and arranged
- How things are copied.
Even by the point of 550, many core values of art and painting were established such as color, space, form, and technique. However, things still had a long way to develop over the next 1,000+ years. Styles emerged and fell out of practice up through the Ming dynasty, which brought up an important style.
The Wu style was more personal, often containing inscriptions with reasons for why the painting was made. The credited founder of this style is Shen Zhou.
Shen Zhou had a rather well off upbringing. His family was rich which allowed him to spend as much time as he wanted painting rather than having any official job. Despite that, Shen Zhou wasn’t lazy. He put time into studying past painters and learning to paint. He later used the styles of his favorite painters and put them together to make something of his own.
One of his biggest paintings was called Joint Landscape. It was painted near the end of his life in 1509 and scrolled over fifty feet. As it came at the end of his life, it was modeled in the style of Wu Zhen, a man considered one of the best of the Yuan dynasty. The focus is clearly on the terrain as any people and buildings that appear in the scroll are brushed in a small way, often only in a few lines, while the mountains and trees are much more detailed and have more effort put into them.
In the Qing dynasty, Europeans began to interact more with China, creating a blend between Chinese and European dynamics. The best example of that comes in the form of Giuseppe Castiglione or Lang Shining which is the name he took on in China. He was a jesuit sent to China and through the entire rest of his life spent in China, he never forgot, even speaking to the emperor about his mission a few times to no avail. Still, he put in the effort to change his art to mesh better with Chinese painting.
In the painting Eight Horses, it’s easy to see the mix of European and Chinese styles. Compared to Joint Landscape, Eight Horses looks less flat. The 3D realistic detail is clear on everything in the painting and is reminiscent of European works. On the other hand, the look of the tree shows some sense of flatness like Chinese paintings. The use of color also adds to the contrast as the horses stand out as being particularly European in a Chinese setting.
Ultimately, the Ming and Qing dynasties were home to many innovations from new schools of artistry to the beginning of western influence creeping in. There are many other prolific painters of the time. I just think Shen Zhou and Lang Shining are some of the most important.
Sources:
Masterworks of Ming and Qing Painting From the Forbidden City
Painting At the Shore: Chinese Painting of the Early and Middle Ming Dynasty, 1368-1580
