Research Assignment Proposal

4. What is Chinese landscape painting? Compare Guo Xi’s Early Spring to a bird and flower painting by Emperor Hui-tsung.

 

Introduction:

• Define Chinese landscape painting
• Characteristics of Chinese painting
• Briefly introduce the two artworks: Guo Xi’s Early Spring and Emperor Hui-tsung’s Five-coloured parakeet
• Essay aims to compare the two artworks in terms of subject matter, technique, composition and purpose (differences and similarities)

Body:

Subject matter

• Early spring: nature and landscapes, mountains, trees, rocks, waterfall. A temple near the start of the waterfall and people such as travelers and fishermen.
• In China, mountains are often seen as points which connect to heaven
• Five-coloured parakeet: a parakeet perched on a single flowering branch
• The parakeet symbolizes dignity and nobility. Flowers often symbolizes beautiful women, scholarly purity and reclusion in Chinese poetry.
• Subject matter carries heavy symbolism, though both are related to nature

Technique

• Early spring: overlaying washes of ink and light colours. More details in the foreground as compared to the background to create a sense of depth. Strokes are rather gestural to suggest forms.
• Five-coloured parakeet: painting is detailed (eg. The feathers of the bird), naturalistic, uses bright colours to put emphasis on the bird.
• Both are brush on silk

Composition

• Early spring: composition is building upwards, strong foreground, asymmetrical, vertical emphasis
• Five-coloured parakeet: painting occupies the left side of the composition while the poem occupies the right.
• Both puts focus on the subject matter with a muted and plain background

Purpose/Context

• Early spring is a reminiscent of Yuan imagery of the Li Guo school ascribed to Yao Yanqing and Yang Weizhen
• Human and nature co-existing (eg. Temple in the midst of the mountains)
• Five-coloured parakeet: merging of two art forms – art and poetry

 

Temporary Bibliography:

Harrist, Robert E. “Ch’ien Hsüan’s” Pear Blossoms”: The Tradition of Flower Painting and Poetry from Sung to Yüan.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 22 (1987): 53-70.

 

Foong, Ping. 2000. “Guo Xi’s Intimate Landscapes and the Case of “old Trees, Level Distance””. Metropolitan Museum Journal 35. [University of Chicago Press, Metropolitan Museum of Art]: 87–115. doi:10.2307/1513027.

 

Stanley-Baker, Joan. 1991. “The Problem of Retouching in Ancient Chinese Paintings or Trying to See Through Centuries”. Artibus Asiae 51 (3/4). Artibus Asiae Publishers: 257–74. doi:10.2307/3249670.