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Example research essay topic: Ming Dynasty Metropolitan Museum - 2,834 words

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Chinese Art Nowadays, the government of China places a great emphasis on the importance of making the Chinese people conscious of their cultural heritage. In a variety of ways the government has encouraged them to participate and take pleasure in the practice of such traditional art forms as calligraphy, classical styles of Chinese painting, as well as ceramics. Sustained efforts also have been made to familiarize the people with the literary masterpieces of the past and with the philosophy of their ancestors. In ancient China, literature, calligraphy, and painting were traditionally the province of the scholar-gentry group, whose members had both the education and the leisure to seek opportunities for expressing themselves in these forms. They also cultivated skill in playing and composing for traditional musical instruments. All these skills were developed for the private enjoyment of small groups of people with similar tastes and accomplishments; the common people respected this type of creative expression but usually did not understand the values involved.

Among the common people, unwritten music and literature were passed from generation to generation. Their stories and songs were similar to those of South China from which most Taiwanese immigrated, but Taiwanese names and heroes were substituted for the main characters. As on the mainland, the musicians called on to perform at weddings and funerals were looked down upon as mere artisans, painters, sculptors, and architects of temples and mansions also were held in low esteem. (Fong, 1992: 94 - 98). The earliest known Chinese landscape painting in existence, Dong Yuan's 10 th-century "The Riverbank, " went on view this week as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's opening of its newly renovated and expanded Chinese art galleries. One of the most important monumental landscape scrolls in the history of Chinese art, it's one of 11 major works from the C. C.

Wang Family Collection given to the museum in New York City. The new gift, together with the paintings and calligraphic that the museum has acquired over the past 25 years, makes the Metropolitan's collection the most comprehensive repository of Chinese painting outside China. "The Riverbank, " an ink-and-light color hanging silk scroll more than 7 feet tall, predates all the famous landscape hanging scrolls remaining in China. "It's the tallest of all existing early Chinese landscapes, and was once part of a large painting mounted as a freestanding screen, " says Maxwell Hearn, Metropolitan's curator of Chinese painting. It set the style for later 11 th- and 12 th-century, Song dynasty monumental landscapes with its emphasis on deep space and rolling, resonant mountain shapes. The artist is revered for inventing the distinctly "southern" regional landscape art of softly contoured hills with ropy, textural strokes. (Sickman and A.

Soper, 1956: 66 - 78). Mr. Wang, 90, who trained as a lawyer and painter in his native China, assembled one of the greatest private collections of Chinese painting since the late 16 th and 17 th centuries. It was at that time that private art collections last flourished in China, as most of the important early paintings in private collections had entered the Qian long emperor's imperial collection by the 18 th century. Mr.

Wang and another noted artist-collector, Zhang Debian, managed to own between them most of the finest Song and Yuan dynasties masterpieces that came onto the art market at that time. (Mr. Zhang was honored with an exhibition of his work, "Challenging the Past, the Paintings of Chang Dai-chien, " at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in 1991. ) The earliest decorative efforts, in the form of intricately marked pottery in red, black, brown, yellow, and white; date from prehistoric times. Bronze, jade, and stones were decorated with primitive drawings and designs. In the Chou dynasty (1122 - 255 B. C. ) artists ornamented lacquered boxes and trays with pictures of birds, animals, clouds, and thunderbolts.

Later a freer, more natural style in painting developed which was strikingly different from the earlier style. The development of calligraphy with its free-flowing strokes of the brush was probably the source of this new style. Ku K'ai-chih, of the Eastern Chin dynasty (A. D. 386 - 419), was the first to paint landscape as a background.

His time landscape or "mountain and water" painting has been a favorite of Chinese artists. Buddhist influences began to appear in the colors and motifs of Chinese painters by A. D. 240. Painting was divided into two schools during the T'ang dynasty (A. D. 618 - 906).

The Southern school painters used subdued colors, and their work had a dreamy quality; the Northern school was forceful and used bright colors. Li Ssu-sung, who was born in A. D. 651 and made a career as a general, was the founder of the Northern school. "Sailing Boats and a Riverside Mansion, " which has been attributed to him, was done in wintry colors of browns and dark greens. Each line is distinct, and trees and rocks stand out sharply, giving an almost photographic clarity to the painting. (Sickman and A. Soper, 1956: 66 - 78). Wang Wei, eighth century poet, physician, and painter, was of the Southern school and started a tradition of monochrome landscapes in ink.

In the centuries that followed, Chinese painters evolved methods of representing the general characteristics of nature in conventionalized forms so that they were left free to explore the essences of nature. For example, "Wood Peonies" by Hsu Hsi is a painting which in essence shows the pinkness of peony blossoms and the hand-like shape of their leaves. The peonies are almost real in their color, shape, and softness. The remaining blossoms on the tree, however, are shaped like dogwood, rosebuds, and lilies. Having shown peonies as they appear in reality, the artist seems to have gone on to explore the possibilities of peonies in other shapes, growing in different ways from the tree.

Because of the special objective of traditional painting, Chinese painters had little interest in the technical problems of perspective, light, and color. An educated person who could use the brush competently and who learned the type forms was able to turn out an acceptable and pleasing picture. It was, however, the extent to which the painter succeeded in using the conventionalized types to penetrate the objective forms and reveal the inner harmony of nature and man that distinguished a good painting from a mediocre one. Significant Western influences occurred only in the twentieth century when the breakdown of traditional Chinese society and values sent many Chinese students to seek their artistic training abroad. Some, upon returning to Taiwan, have continued to paint in the manner and style of contemporary Western artists. Others have attempted to evolve a new style that aims to blend both Western techniques and native Chinese traditions.

Several traditional schools of Chinese painting, however, have continued. (Cahill, 1979: 35 - 38). Art courses of both Chinese and Western styles are included in the curricula of colleges and high schools. Basic lessons in drawing are given at all elementary and middle school levels. In addition, private tutoring by renowned artists to people of some means has become fashionable among those who want to cultivate painting as a hobby. One of the best known contemporary Chinese artists is Professor Huang Chun-pi, chairman of the Department of Fine Arts of Taiwan Provincial Normal University. Professor Ma Pai-sui, who is also at the University, is a well-known proponent of the new trend in Chinese painting which tries to fuse the imaginativeness of Chinese presentation with Western techniques.

In 1949 many of the art treasures from the mainland were transferred to Taiwan. Art museums of Taiwan are numerous, and public and private exhibitions are frequent. Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung are the principal centers of activity. Exhibitions include both Western and Chinese artwork in painting, sculpture, carving, calligraphy, and photography. Taiwanese artists also enter international exhibitions; they attended 21 in 1964 - 65 and 15 in 1966 - 67. (2). Chinese art is an art of continuity, one that reuses and reinvents themes, forms and materials over many centuries and dynasties.

The Chinese believe that art should be intimately tied with nature's rhythms and reflect the harmony of the universe. Touted as the most comprehensive exhibition of Chinese art at the National Gallery of Art ever mounted, including 343 rare and little-seen masterpieces of painting, calligraphy, jade, bronze, ceramics and lacquer ware, the show is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Because the exhibition is politically controversial in Taiwan, some outstanding objects were withdrawn and much of this work is not likely to leave there again. Though figurative painting is a great tradition in China and is well represented here, Chinese works are known most for their landscapes.

Monumental landscape painting developed in China earlier than anywhere else. This exhibition, more than any other and with more paintings, traces the development of landscape art in China with its deeply spiritual underpinnings. (2). The painting of landscapes was thought to be a way of connecting with nature's rhythms and those of the universe. In the successful Chinese landscape, the artist becomes merged with his subject and the essence of that subject is translated through him in the painting. Also through the artist, the spirit-energy, or "ch'i, " of the landscape would be transmitted, rather than a realistic likeness of the scene.

Like the Fan K'us "Travelers" not in the exhibition, a 12 th-century landscape in the style of the famed Sung landscapist Chu-jan presents a vision of hierarchical cosmic order. The silk has yellowed, and the ink is faded, but the painting's energy is still intense. As with most landscapes, the viewer is invited to enter the painting with the figures traveling the steep road in the foreground. Depth and recession are created by ink and mist. Trees, also, demarcate each mountain cluster retreating into the distance. (Cahill, 1979: 35 - 38). With the succeeding Yuan period (1272 - 1368), founded by Mongol nomads who conquered China's northern borders, landscape becomes more astringent in its approach.

Gone is the balanced cosmic order of Sung. The changes are evident in Ni Ts " an's "Jung-hsi Studio" and in Huang Kung-wang's "Dwelling in the Fu Ch " un Mountains, " which was shown in New York but not here. (2). These artists's partly drawn trees, mountain peaks and lakes depend on empty spaces and calligraphic brushwork for their appeal. Ni Ts " an, who spent most of his life on a houseboat on China's lakes, created what probably were the most transparent Chinese landscapes by alternating sparse and complex elements.

Huang Kung-wang used similar empty spaces, also delineated by a dry brush, but with a brush more heavily loaded with ink. With the Ming dynasty, and its palatial halls and temples, come monumentally scaled landscapes, some averaging 11 feet in height. We can walk up to them, walk around them and almost swim in them. According to one of the curators, Maxwell K. Hearn, Ming painters were attempting to emulate the monumental Sung-period wall paintings with large hanging scrolls. (Sullivan, 1984: 25 - 27). Nowhere is the intertwining of art and politics better told than in the history of this Chinese imperial collection, comprising about 600, 000 paintings, calligraphic, jades, bronzes, ceramics and lacquer ware spanning the Neolithic period through the 18 th century.

Collected for thousands of years by Chinese emperors and later primarily amassed by the Ching-dynasty emperor Ch " ien-lung, who reigned from 1765 to 1795, the collection began its long journey in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and its first move from Peking south to Nanking. In 1937, the treasures were moved again, this time separated into three groups and shipped over three routes to southwestern Szechwan Province. They were spirited out of Nanking the night before Japanese troops' infamous Rape of Nanking, narrowly escaping destruction. With the threat of a communist takeover in 1948, the art was uprooted again and sent to Taiwan. There it was first stored in caves in the middle of the island and later housed in Taipei, when the National Palace Museum was built there in 1965. Among those held back were brush-and-ink landscape masterpieces from the Sung period (960 - 1279), such as Fan K'us's towering "Travelers Amid Streams and Mountains" (often called the most important painting in the history of Chinese art and comparable to Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" in the West) and the lyrically undulating "Early Spring" by Kuo Hsi, who lived from 1000 to 1090.

By no means did the elimination of these works destroy the exhibit, but it downgraded the Sung dynasty landscape section, which is considered by many to be the apogee of Chinese art. (5). To the ancient Chinese, calligraphy was the highest and purest form of art. It required great skill with the brush pen made of animal hair. Writing, as well as painting, was done on silk; with the invention of paper, however, silk gradually was replaced by the new and cheaper material. Black ink was made from the soot of burnt wood, such as pine or fir, and molded with some glutenous substance into sticks, rectangles, and other shapes. The calligrapher rubbed the ink stick with water on a stone slab to produce a fresh supply of ink.

Original writings by famous calligraphers were valued greatly and cost as much as original paintings. A scholar was required to undergo rigid training in calligraphy; he started in early childhood soon after he was able to read and write. Elegant penmanship, with its emphasis on the symmetry, balance, and vigor of the brush strokes, was an accomplishment greatly admired in the scholarly world. It was also a requirement for success in the literary examination, which qualified educated gentlemen for work in the civil service.

With the abolition of the examination system in 1904 and the introduction of many new subjects into the modern school curriculum, calligraphy began to be neglected as part of a child's education. (2). The respect formerly accorded scholarly calligraphers has continued on Taiwan, however, where this traditional mode of Chinese artistic expression is still revered. President Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly has emphasized the restoration of traditional culture, and more and more attention has been devoted to calligraphy by government civic associations. Applicants for civil posts are required to use a brush in taking examinations. Lessons in penmanship are given in elementary and junior middle schools, and penmanship exhibits are held from time to time in many schools on the island.

The presence on Taiwan of outstanding calligraphers, such as Professor P'u Ju (1896 - 1965) of Taiwan Provincial Normal University, serves to stimulate interest in the ancient art. (Sullivan, 1984: 25 - 27). The ceramics and jades, as well as the lacquer work, ravish the eye. Calligraphy, well represented here, is considered by the Chinese as the highest of their arts - higher than painting - because Chinese characters are considered vivid, shorthand pictures of the operations of nature. Many of these writings are pure, visual abstractions and need not be read and understood to be appreciated. A 17 th-century Qing dynasty red porcelain vase, acquired in 1929.

Red is an auspicious color for the Chinese, and the object serves as a cheery wave to the visitor, says Caron Smith. To James Watt, the vase seems an appropriate "way of putting a full stop" to the experience of having visited a gallery of colorful modern paintings. (Fong, 1992: 94 - 98). The exhibition was organized by the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Its curators are Mr. Fong, James C.

Y. Watt and Mr. Hearn of the Asian-art department at the Metropolitan Museum. Mr. Hearn wrote the excellent catalog. Mr.

Fong and Mr. Watt wrote and organized the lavishly illustrated, 648 -page "Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, " which promises to become a standard reference for Chinese art studies. (4). Even people who know little about Chinese art will see that the new Met galleries speak of what is eternal. As James Watt puts it, "Whatever happens to China or Hong Kong or the explosion of the Chinese population has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of Chinese art, which we are committed to explain by displaying it. " (3). Thanks to the Met's efforts, many thousands of visitors each year will enjoy this new taste of eternity, a sign of the ever-increasing role that China plays in our consciousness. Words: 2, 633.

Bibliography: Sickman and A. Soper, The Art and Architecture of China (1956); O. Siren, Chinese Painting (7 vol). J. Cahill, The Art of Southern Sung China (1979), The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty, p. 35 - 38. M.

Sullivan, The Arts of China (rev. ed. 1984), p. 25 - 27. W. Fong, Beyond Representation (1992), p. 94 - 98. 90 per cent of the paper was based on the materials from the following web sites: web web web web web web web


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Research essay sample on Ming Dynasty Metropolitan Museum

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