Chinese Painting Blog » Song dynasty

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

Chinese Orchid Paintings

CNArtGallery — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 11:41:17 +0000

The beauty and grace of the orchids, which belong to the category of bird-and-flower painting in Chinese art, are fragile in form, with no violent tendencies. They are highly valued for their delicate fragrance and always associated with elefgance.

The most Chinese Orchid Paintings are specially associated with women, love, and beauty; and secondly, with virtue, moral excellence, and the "refinement of the superior man (a learned and cultured gentleman), whose reputation precedes him like perfume."

Zheng Sixiao, who was famous for his refusal to collaborate with the Yuan court, which overthrew the Song Dynasty. He specialized in ink paintings of the orchid and the bamboo. This painting Ink Orchid depicts an orchid in light ink, with its leaves evenly distributed on two sides. Although lacking in the varied poses characterizing works by later painters of orchids, it is a neat composition with every brushstroke making an impact. It also successfully adapted calligraphic brush techniques to painting. This is a representative orchid painting of the artist in his late years.

Cymbidium-ray of fragrancee - Chinese Painting

Four Gentlemen in Chinese Paintings

CNArtGallery — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:38:37 +0000

In Chinese art, plants including the orchid, the bamboo, the chrysanthemum, and the plum blossom are called The Four Gentlemen. The Four Gentlemen, also called the Four Noble Ones, The term compares the four plants to Confucianist junzi, or "gentlemen". They are most typically depicted in traditional ink and wash painting and they belong to the category of bird-and-flower painting in Chinese art.

The Four Gentlemen have been used in Chinese painting since the time of the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279) because of their refined beauty, and were later adopted by artists in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. As they represent the four different seasons (the orchid for spring, the bamboo for summer, the chrysanthemum for autumn, and the plum blossom for winter), the four are used to depict the unfolding of the seasons through the year.

Four Gentlemen

The Four Gentlemen are an important subject matter in learning to paint in the aforementioned Asian traditions, as they embody all the basic brush styles. They are also depicted in Mahjong tiles.

Related to the Four Gentlemen are the Flowers of the Four Seasons, which consist of the orchid (spring), the lotus (summer), the chrysanthemum (autumn) and the plum blossom (winter). They contain three of the elements of the Four Gentlemen.