Chinese Painting Blog » landscapes

Zhao Mengfu a Chinese Scholar and Painter

CNArtGallery — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 03:48:38 +0000

Zhao Mengfu has been honored as an early master within the tradition of the literati painters, who sought personal expression rather than the representation of nature.

Zhao Mengfu paintings were among the first after the collapse of the Song dynasty and its academy of painting to show an interest derived from subjects and styles of ancient masters. Zhao is popularly remembered as a painter of horses in the manner of the Tang dynasty (618–907) master Han Gan, but he also painted other animal groups, landscapes, and bamboos. Referring to the antique, he generally avoided superficial beauty by utilizing deliberately simplified color and compositions and a schematic, even childlike, rendering of forms and scale. His works often display a great variety of brushwork.

Zhao Mengfu paintings

Waterfall in Chinese Landscapes

CNArtGallery — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 06:49:57 +0000

Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting. By the late Tang Dynasty (618-907), landscape painting had evolved into an independent genre that embodied the universal longing of cultivated men to escape their quotidian world to commune with nature. As the Tang Dynasty disintegrated, the concept of withdrawal into the natural world became a major thematic focus of poets and painters. Faced with the failure of the human order, learned men sought permanence within the natural world, retreating into the mountains to find a sanctuary from the chaos of dynastic collapse.

In Chinese culture, water symbolizes wealth, and the waterfall represents profits pouring in from all sides. Therefore, Chinese waterfall painting is a well-received theme for Chinese painting.

Mountains and waterfall - Chinese Painting

The Differences between Chinese Landscapes and Western Landscapes

CNArtGallery — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 08:40:35 +0000

Landscape painting is the major theme of Chinese paintings in china, it origins from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which is 1600 years ago. In china, landscape painting is called “Shan Shui”, which means mountain and river (Shaw 1988). Usually the purpose of Chinese landscape painting is not only represent the exact appearance of nature, but also reflects the painter’s feelings and emotions to the landscape and his philosophy of life.

In contrast, western painting originated from ancient Greece and Rome and its development was contemporaneous with other art forms such as music, dance and sculpture. The contents that western paintings portrayed were closely associated with people’s daily life.

Mountains, water - Chinese Painting

Chinese landscape painting is created using ink brush, ink stick, ink stone and Xuan paper. Oil painting is the main type of western painting. Painters usually draw contents on cloth, board, canvas or thick paper with oily pigments. The characteristic of oil painting is the rich of colour that has a strong artistic expression and can express the realistic sense of the objects.

A River 1899

Mountains and Water in Chinese Landscape Paintings

CNArtGallery — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 03:28:50 +0000

Landscape painting is traditionally at the top of the hierarchy of Chinese painting styles. The Chinese term for "landscape" is made up of two characters meaning "mountains and water".

Chinese artists do not usually paint real places but imaginary, idealized landscapes. Chinese painting in general is seen as an extension of calligraphy and uses the same brushstrokes. The colours are restrained and subtle and the paintings are usually created in ink on paper, with a small amount of watercolor.

Mountains and water - Chinese Painting

Four Vertical Pieces of Chinese Paintings

CNArtGallery — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 06:18:12 +0000

For Chinese four screens paintings, the most popular theme is four seasons Chinese painting. Chinese paintings four seasons include spring, summer, autumn and winter. Chinese painters often use different colors or different plants to portray different seasons. Other themes are also applied to four screens.

Chinese Landscape Painting, set of 4

Four Nobles Chinese painting themes: plum blossom, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum Painting are known as the "Four Gentlemen" painting in China. Their qualities are: fortitude, fragrance, tenaciousness and indifference respectively. Chinese people often use these four kinds of flowers to express their ideals, and they are the most common themes in the Chinese paintings.

Chinese Mountain and Water Paintings in Landscapes

CNArtGallery — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:14:45 +0000

Chinese landscape painting, in general, is the famous paintings art that take landscapes as themes, treats the natural mountains and rivers as major description objects. As the saying goes, mountains represent population and water is emblem of property. It means that if somewhere have a flourishing population is related to mountains, and whether wealthy is connected with water.

Chinese mountain and water painting forms its own artistic tradition and system. Through mountain and water paintings, people can taste both artistic conception and the artistic style of Chinese paintings well.

Mountains and water - Chinese Painting