Art

Having one of the oldest histories of art, culture and civilization, China has come through a long journey to discover the true essence of nature and how to preserve it in their famous Landscape paintings. The art of landscape painting evolved in the late Tang dynasty. I will hereby discuss what made the artists twist their paint brushes in such a way that that their paintings became a dialogue with nature. What thought and intention lay behind these famous Chinese Landscape paintings.

A Brief history of China
Chinese art has a history of 7000 years. The vast land of China has developed a wide range of colors of various cultures and civilizations over these years. The art and culture of China changed with the different ruling dynasties over the time. The Chinese art took different forms by the influence of new religions, great philosophers and men, even political figures. As early as the Neolithic Period 6000 BC, the Chinese art forms were made from pottery, whereas the last Neolithic age brought the Jade culture along the Yangtze River which flourished for 1300 years, before the Bronze Age. Various forms of Chinese art are silk, calligraphy, paintings, folk art, paper cuts, sculpture and metal art.

From early times China was controlled by a strong centralized government with an emperor at the head, supported by a highly educated civil service. Although ancestor worship was important and the Chinese ruling class commissioned craftsmen to make superb bronze vessels and glazed terracotta figures for the graves of their dead, they did not consider that these were the highest art forms. What they really valued, and practiced themselves, was calligraphy (hand writing) and the associated art of painting scenes on silk or paper scrolls, which were unrolled and contemplated at leisure. Later on, Buddhist monks were to make their contribution to this tradition which involved a sensitive response to nature as well as skill with pen and brush.

Buddhism was to gain enthusiastic support from all over the east. Chinese architectural form, the rectangular hall with heavy tiled roof was formed one on top of another to create a pagoda. Statues of the Buddha, his attendants and disciples were made from gilded and painted wood, terracotta, lacquer or bronze. By the 14th century, however, this sort of public display had given way to simplicity in the exquisite art of flower arrangement, and the dry rock and gravel gardens, or the streams flowing peacefully, which were all viewed like a picture.

In 100 AD, Buddhism came to China, but it did not start flourishing until the 4th century. Indian artistic ideas were carried by traders into the South  East Asia where they inspired temples and sculptures based on Indian models, notably the Angkor Vat in Cambodia. (The Hamlyn Encyclopedia, 452).

The Tang Dynasty (618-906 AD) openly took influences of Buddhist style of art and architecture. By now the art of painting figures had also reached the height of excellence. Until the late Tang dynasty, Taoism arose directing many towards the message of harmony with nature. Until now Chinese were more portraying people in their art works. They had been painting their life styles, illustrating the bravery of their kings and great people, and notifying them as the absolute power, as made in the Buddhist paintings. But now, they had started observing nature, the same mountains and rivers were observed with a very different eye, even the animals were painted with such vigor and energy that could make one feel them alive. This was advent of the art of landscape painting.

Taoism
While the Confucius concentrated on conduct and behavior within Chinese religion, the Taoist schools of teachers were more concerned with the philosophical thought. Taoist belief has been explained in a book called The Classic of the Way Tao and its Power Tao Te Ching written by Lao Tzu. Little is known about him, but that he resigned from an official post to live a simple life. Dao is untranslatable but it best described as the Way or way of the method of living, philosophically meaning the changeless reality of Nature. The ideal man learns to live in harmony with this reality. He becomes passive and receptive, so that Tao is able to influence all his thoughts and actions. The supreme virtue is wu-wei (do nothing) which means no action, not interfering, not apposing things, but living in harmony with nature, and all men.(the Encyclopedia of living faiths, 376) There is no supreme God in Taoism, but in fact it is itself denoted as the Great Void, meaning complete nothingness. Tao or Dao has been described as the basic way or method, being the source of everything. According to the Zhuangzi and the Daode jing, that Tao cannot be named or described as it is beyond anything that can be captured or encircled, but it keeps the space of personal experience. It is the absolute source of energy that has no form. Having no form, because it exists before anything has taken form, the Dao can take all forms it is both formless and multiform, and transforms according to circumstances. No one can claim or know it. As the source of everything, it is infinite and endless (de) its Virtue or Efficacy is power and light, and encompasses all life. The concept of Daode jing and the Zhuangzi is about the necessity of following the natural order of the Dao and of Nourishing Life (yangsheng), sustaining that this is adequate for ones own well-being.
Tao is the fundamental basis of everything. Its emptiness and oneness is all universal, all pervading, all embracing all indestructible, this is the power of Tao, and Te is the virtue.

According to Little, the Tao symbolizes the fundamental Taoist view of the structure of reality, namely that beyond the duality of phenomenal existence, created through the interaction of yin and yang, is the unity of the Tao, which exists beyond time and space.

The symbol of Yin Yang can be clearly seen in this diagram of the Supreme Ultimate, called Zhang Huang, from the Ming dynasty, 17th century.

Everything HYPERLINK httpwww.artnet.commagazinefeaturescassidycassidy1-10-4.asp  in Nature is linked to each other. The Taoists submits to the power Tao and so grows in simplicity of generosity and contentment to acquire balance in life. Taoist art is based on the basic principle of Qi, the famous herbal medicine of China. It has been described as life force, vital force, matter energy, breaths and many other expressions. Qi is simply that which makes us alive. At our death it will return to the Great Void. Yin and Yang are not substances but expression of two poles of fundamental duality that exists in nature.

Wang Chong (AD 27-97) describes that Qi produces the human body just as water becomes ice. He further elaborates that as water freezes into ice, Qi coagulates to form the human body. When ice melts, it becomes water. When a person dies, he or she becomes spirit again. It is called spirit, just as melted ice changes its name to water.

The oneness and the wholeness of nature that cannot be described in words, was later more expressed in their paintings. Eventually, it encouraged the artists to paint the essence of nature in the landscape paintings. They also painted Zodiac animals, figures, opera faces, mountains and cranes, which were a symbol for long life. These were the popular subjects for their paintings. The great Emperors and their courts was another important subject for painting.

Chinese Landscape paintings
Night-Shining White (1977), this horse has been painted by Han Gan, a leading horse painter from the Tang dynasty (618906), he was known for portraying not only the physical likeness of a horse but also its spirit.

By the 8th century the artists had also started painting animals, as Han Kan famous for painting horses. Taoism eventually gave way to the rise of the most beautiful form of Chinese art the landscape painting. Landscape literally means mountains and rivers.

Chinese art has been influenced by many religions Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, but most of all it has been influenced by Nature. They painted birds, animals, flowers, ladies, emperors and mainly landscapes and other forms of nature, because they believed that nature gave us energy, and so they had to capture the energy and feelings of nature into their painting. By the later years of tang dynasty the artists of China got a chance to escape from their worldly spaces and be able to communicate directly with nature. As the tang dynasty came towards a downfall the poets and painters found themselves more attracted towards natural world to attain peace and tranquility. The learned men found more stability and reality in the mountains and rivers as compared to the political chaos.

These men in response to political disappointments, claimed their identity as literati through calligraphy and poetry, and developed a new trend of painting that engaged calligraphic brushwork of self-expression. The monochrome imagery of old trees, rocks, and bamboo created by these artists became symbol of their spirit and character. Towering and craggy peaks were illustrated with rivers, waterfalls, streams, rocks, and trees carefully painted in radiant mineral pigments of green and blue. These paintings were usually carried out as brush drawings amid colour washes. Famous masters are Yen Li-pen, Wu Tao-tzu, Wang Wei, and Tung Yuan of the Five Dynasties. The landscape painting was further as the mind landscape which depicted both learned references to the techniques of earlier masters and, through calligraphic brushwork, the artist painted the inner spirit. More than representation, now these scholar-artists permeated their paintings with personal feelings. By inducing antique styles, they could also relate themselves to the values of the old masters. Painting was now no longer about the description of the physical world it became a means of illustrating the landscape in the artists heart and mind.

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Summer Mountains, Northern Song dynasty (9601127), 11th century, Attributed to Qu Ding (Chinese, active ca. 1023ca. 1056) Hand scroll ink and pale colour on silk.
Images of nature have stayed a powerful source of inspiration for artists up to this day. While the Chinese landscapes have deep expressions of the natural world. Upon viewing Chinese landscape paintings, it is obvious that Chinese portrayal of nature is seldom mere representations of the visible world. Rather, they are beautiful expressions of the heart and mind of the artists, keeping the essence of their masters style.

Twin Pines, Level Distance, Yuan dynasty (12791368), ca. 1300, Zhao Mengfu (Chinese, 12541322, Hand scroll ink on paper.

Chinese landscape paintings have ever since been depicted as an intimate expression of nature and as a way of expressing insightful emotions. Landscape paintings of China have always been very poetic in nature. The artist tries to depict the nature of nature in the landscape painting. So, it is not just a picture of a mountain but a combination of various spirits of nature that makes your imagination wander through the landscape. In Chinese landscape literally mean mountain and water. Almost all Chinese landscape paintings portray mountains and water, generally a river or a waterfall.
 
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The Simple Retreat, Yuan dynasty (12791368), ca. 1370, Wang Meng (Chinese, ca. 13081385) Hanging scroll ink and colour on paper.

The artist has efficiently captured the energy of the tremendous mountains and swaying trees to the humble hut. The painting has been done on a scroll taken height wise, giving the viewer an uprising feeling, a sense of involvement which takes the viewer into a journey of eternal beauty and captivating power of the Nature. Whereas the Chinese elaborate on the characteristics of Nature and its elements depicted in a painting carry some strong characters of their own.

The mountains symbolize a long life, and water is like a sea of happiness. The mountains and water in harmony together symbolize a long happy life. Mostly the Chinese landscape paintings show mist or clouds which are a sign of good fortune and happiness and are identified with the two main principles of yin and yang. Clouds and rain can also refer to sexual union, the sky and the earth, and the rain, the climax of the union.

Chinese landscape paintings for the Taoists, signify the eternal Tao, the ultimate source of energy, the reality that pervades all life. Its in these Chinese landscape paintings where the overpowering experience of the wholeness, absoluteness and one-ness of nature and soul can be felt. In prehistoric times mountains were special objects of worship that were thought to ensure cosmic order and stability, and nearly every mountain was believed to have its own mountain god.

Conclusion
The evolution of landscape painting in China helped explain and understand their religions and cultures more clearly. It was the ultimate and absolute direction for the mind and soul, because I believe that we creatures have evolved from Nature, we are part of it and it is within us. Hence, it becomes a necessity to seek guidance from nature, which can only be done if you completely surrender yourself to it, let yourself indulge and involve in it, so that it can consciously respond to your inner self. It is the food for our soul. We may only acquire it by feeding ourselves with it through our all senses. The landscape artists and poets painted the energies flowing through nature, for example the water depicts will, our drive, the activeness and in the positive direction the happiness. The earth shows stability and one which gives nourishment to mind, body and spirit. The wood or a tree denotes spring, dynamic growth and activity. Amazing poets came into the scene, the vision changed from the physical world to a spiritual, emotional, and more sensitive in thought. These Chinese landscape paintings became the favorite around the world.