For many millennia, Chinese painting has continued to develop and flourish. Eminent Chinese artists who create paintings in the traditional Guohua style sell their creations at auctions for huge amounts of more than one million dollars.
Landscape is one of the most demanded and favorite genres by artists. It is he who occupies a special place in all Chinese painting, the spirit of which lives on the slopes of silent mountains and in the valleys of fast rivers.
The traditional Chinese landscape is the basis for learning all the painting techniques of oriental culture. Due to the relatively small set visual means, an unimaginable fullness, relief and expressiveness of the picture is achieved. Such works of art are not only external beauty but also with inner fullness, including poetry, philosophy, calligraphy, and even music.
Landscape painting is the basic style of Chinese aesthetics
The main provisions of Chinese painting have been developed over many centuries, which determined the exceptional, original and unique style of development. visual arts China. It would be appropriate to recall the famous analytical treatise "A word about painting from a garden with a mustard seed", the first volume of which was published in 1679 and was devoted to landscape painting.
Each work of a Chinese artist contains and displays the foundations of the philosophy of ancient China.
The very name of the Chinese landscape - "shan shui" - contains a description of the natural landscape characteristic of this territory, where the character "shan" 山 means mountain, and "shui" 水 means water.
Chinese landscape painting depicts the surrounding reality in the form of a boundless, animated and multifaceted world, in which the single, great and powerful Deity is invisible, but tangible.
It is the element of spirituality that allows the viewer to fully experience the inner and outer harmony, which has a positive effect on psychological condition the person as a whole.
Subtly feeling all the features of the nature of China, over the years the artists have been able to develop special techniques in painting that can fully convey them in the process of creating a picture.
Most often, the landscape was made on silk with the help of ink. To create the impression of twilight, the artist used muted shades, halftones and paints. A peculiar asymmetry of the composition, gently curved lines river beds, waterfall streams, tree branches gave the landscape a special refinement. An incredible combination of different natural energies - trees, rocks, water, fog and clouds - conveyed to the viewer a comprehensive and harmonious picture of the world.
An important detail is that the Chinese landscape itself is not a real reflection of any part of the terrain, but the author’s own creation, the fruit of his perception surrounding reality, fantasy. Creating a picture, the artist seems to go on a journey to his inner world, through the prism of which he reflects reflections, memories and perception of reality. Thanks to this technique, the viewer studying the landscape is also to some extent its creator, as he tries to unravel the "secret" of the artist through his own emotions and attitude.
The spiritual meaning of the landscape is often complemented philosophical statements or poetic lines filled with perfect calligraphy. Even the print fits the plot perfectly, internal state the artist or the area in which the picture was created.
A feature of the Chinese landscape is a clear drawing of details at the bottom of the foreground of the picture (figures of people, stones, trees, shrubs), separated from images in the background by air clouds, a veil of fog or water. This technique allows you to create a feeling of completeness and spaciousness. Tiny silhouettes of people harmoniously fit into the picture: tired travelers with luggage, vegetative fishermen in small boats, peaceful hermits on a winding path.
Artistic techniques inherent in the Chinese landscape allow miraculously to silently convey the distant cries of distant birds, silence and tranquility. autumn nature or its awakening and revival in the spring.
Interestingly, while working on the landscape, Chinese artists do not leave delineated boundaries, which allows us to guess about the master's ideas.
In ancient times, paintings were silk or paper canvases, sometimes reaching several meters. They were stored by gluing them on thick paper, which was folded around a wooden roller and placed in a special case. They were taken out exclusively for viewing, and unfolded gradually, allowing the audience to fully experience every detail of the landscape.
By the way, this is one of the main differences between Chinese painting and European painting. Chinese painting is symbolic and the viewer is encouraged to read the painting and understand.
Scroll with a landscape - an icon for the Chinese
How to find common features at the landscape and icons, how to see philosophical meaning and how is it appropriate to “get around” the rules that have existed from time immemorial?
To understand all these nuances is possible only with the help of a full and in-depth study of the techniques and methods of traditional reproduction of the landscape, reading ancient philosophical texts and classical canons of painting. Eminent guohua masters believed that only by mastering the unshakable foundations and following the skill of the ancient virtuosos, one can improve their own skills and even develop a unique author's style.
You can also acquire such skills by taking a Chinese painting course in our club Two Empires, after which everyone will be able to independently create a landscape in the technique and size that they like. And in the future - to master new and more complex techniques and methods of modern Chinese painting.
Famous artists of the past
One of the most famous Chinese artists of the XX century 齐百石 (January 1, 1864 - September 16, 1957) - real name Chun Zhi, was born in poor family. For a long time He helped his family with housework. But thanks to his talent and perseverance, thanks to his extraordinary approach to Chinese painting, he became a famous and popular artist with a worldwide reputation. Qi Baishi is often referred to as the Picasso of China.
Qi Baishi was a versatile artist, he worked in different genres of traditional Chinese painting. He owns many landscapes.
(张大千 Zhang Dagians, 1899 -1983) another greatest master traditional Chinese painting. “The genius of five centuries” is how Xu Beihong called the master in the preface to the collection of works by Daqian.
Zhang Daqian, a wonderful artist and calligrapher, lived simple life, changed his place of residence many times, lived in various countries, at the end of his life he settled in Taiwan, where he died.
In his will, Zhang Daqian donated the house and all the items to the Taipei Gugong Museum. A memorial was created there.
This artist managed to achieve the highest peaks in art. On account of the painter over 40 thousand works! However, his work is one of the best-selling in the world.
With a new technique of intermittent ink and broad brush strokes, Zhang Daqian pushed Chinese landscape painting to a new stage in its development.
Xu Beihong 徐悲鸿 Xú Bēihóng (1895-1953), Chinese painter and graphic artist, representative of the Shanghai school. Born in the family of an artist and poet. For a long time he lived in France and studied European art. It was there in France that the realistic style of painting was laid. Traveled extensively in Europe. He can be safely called a reformer in Chinese painting, as he was one of the first to combine the traditions of Chinese and European painting.
In China, there is a museum dedicated to the life and work of the great master, the father of modern Chinese painting.
The artist is primarily known for his paintings of beautifully painted horses, most of which were created in the traditional Chinese style, i.e. ink or watercolor on silk or paper.
But Xu Beihong also painted many paintings in the Chinese landscape genre. Most of the works were created in the technique of monochrome landscapes, but in his work there are also several colored landscapes.
In Chinese, landscape is denoted by the word 山水 ( shan shui), which translates into Russian as " mountain and water" or " mountains and water". On the one hand, this combination itself eloquently indicates what kind of landscapes the Chinese masters painted - these are pictures of the world of mountains and rivers. But "mountain" and "water" are not just the names of the favorite pictorial motifs of Chinese painters. First of all, these are designations for rows of objects belonging to one of two classes. The binomial 山水 is similar to the well-known binomial 阴阳 ( Yin Yang).
Chinese traditional landscape not written from nature. On the one hand, landscapes in technology gongbi(careful brush) - and especially if it is a monumental vertical or multi-meter horizontal canvas - they were written for a long time, sometimes for several months. On the other hand, in the tradition there was no intention to convey a real resemblance to a particular place. The real experience of experiencing certain natural beauties, as well as all the pictorial material accumulated by the previous tradition, was comprehended by the artist - and the result of this accumulation and comprehension was new picture. And each landscape was not a portrait of a particular place, but a kind of generalized model of the world, its image, formed and captured by the artist.
The intended spectators and connoisseurs of the landscape scrolls were people who were not inferior to the painters either in education or in savvy in matters of tradition and culture. Therefore, the process of creating and subsequent perception of a pictorial scroll has always implied a kind of dialogue between artist and viewer. The dialogue went on at least two levels: the viewer read HOW it was written and WHAT it was written. The disclosure of HOW a scroll can be schematically presented in three stages: first - this can be designated as a macro level - the landscape was considered in general, the compositional scheme chosen and developed by the artist was evaluated, its features were highlighted, a conclusion was made about typicality or, on the contrary, any innovations introduced by the author etc. Then the viewer moved to the middle level - the level of individual objects depicted on the scroll, and their relationships: trees, stones, rocks, waterfalls, figures of people and buildings - HOW the artist built them relative to each other. Then it was possible to immerse yourself in HOW the artist's brush works: to appreciate the virtuosity and mastery of the brush, its strength and the techniques used. At certain stages in the development of the Chinese traditional landscape, there were impressive manuals on painting, which described and outlined in detail HOW (with what strokes, spots, dots) certain natural objects should be painted. This corresponds to one of the six pictorial laws formulated as early as the 5th century AD. artist and theorist named Xie He - law on the conformity of the image to the kind of things. Having enjoyed the intricacies of creating an image at the micro level, the viewer again returned to the landscape as a whole, but now a glance at the picture already implied all the information that was received on different levels"inclusion" in the image.
WHAT a landscape scroll is always the message of the artist to the viewer, the theme of which is essentially the same. "Mountains and waters" is always a picture, world model, reflecting modern ideas about the features of its structure and functioning. The world - and Man in it. The model underwent changes over time, certain aspects of its structure and principles of work were accentuated or, on the contrary, “went into the fog”, but the attitude to the landscape as an image of the world, enshrined in theoretical treatises, was preserved. And in this regard, the landscape genre was valued more than others.
Pictures of nature were also valued for high application function that they had in the life of an educated person. The contemplation of the landscape was one of the favorite leisure forms of officials and intellectual scientists. As you know, the traditional Chinese lived in a cultural synthesis of the three main teachings: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Confucianism determined the nature of the everyday life of an official: the peculiarities of his behavior in society, his official and family duties, the norms that allowed him to create and maintain his "face". As for Taoism and Buddhism, thanks to them, a certain inner space arose, free from routine and formalities, into which a person could retire, remaining alone or in a circle of people close to him in spirit. The enjoyment of the pictures of "mountains and waters" corresponded to what in Taoism was designated as "free wandering of the spirit", "mental journey". At the dawn of the formation of Taoism, one of the origins of which was the shamanic rituals of southern China, the “mental journey” was probably made by adepts in a state of trance, drug intoxication - and shamans traveled through the inner landscapes of some mystical spaces. Conditions of this kind were later very much appreciated in the environment. creative elite, however, not only intoxication could become an impetus for the "flight of the spirit." The picture of mountains and waters provided the basis for a kind of meditative process, during which the viewer's consciousness could, having enjoyed the image, push off from it and go on their own journey. This could be a recollection and experience of the past experience of real walks in the mountains or a wandering through fictional places into which the fundamentally open space of the scroll unfolded, continued by the viewer’s imagination, or reflection on the message formulated by the artist and read by the viewer, who has a baggage of cultural memory similar to him, or reflection on philosophical themes...
You can quote excerpts from the treatise "On the Sublime Essence of Forests and Streams" artist and painting theorist Guo Xi(lived during the Northern Song Dynasty, in the 11th century):
"... Views of forests and streams, pictures of misty distances often open up to us as if in a dream; our eyes and ears do not perceive them. But under the hand of a skilled craftsman, they reappear before us. And then, without leaving home, we can be transported to deep gorges, to hear the cries of monkeys and the chirping of birds, to see mountains bathed in light and streams sparkling with glare. Doesn't this spectacle give us joy? Doesn't it touch our hearts? That is why the art of painting is so valued in the world. To take it lightly means cloud your spiritual vision and pollute the pure impulses of the soul..."
"...Those who talk seriously about painting say this: there are mountains and waters through which you can go; there are those that you can look at; there are those where you can walk, and there are those where you can settle. Such a picture can be called truly wonderful ... "
"... Here is one mountain, but is it possible not to study the view of many other mountains with it! In the spring, haze and clouds in the mountains spread in a continuous series, and people are joyful. In summer, the mountains are beautiful, they have a thick shadow from the trees - people are serenely calm. In autumn, the mountains are transparent-light, as if swaying and falling - people are strict. In winter, the mountains are hidden by dark haze - people are hidden. When looking at such paintings, people get the feeling that they are actually in the mountains. This is the meaning of such paintings. .."
"... When you see white roads in a gray haze, you mentally walk along them. When you see the light of the evening dawn in the rivers, on the plains, you mentally observe the sunset. When you see hermits and mountain dwellers in the mountains, you mentally live with them. When you see rocks with springs in impregnable places you mentally wander among them. People who look at these pictures have such a mood, as if they really are in these places. This is the outward charm of such pictures ... "
"... People in the world think that pictures are created by a simple movement of the brush. They do not understand how difficult it is to paint. Chuang Tzu says: "The artist takes off his clothes and sits cross-legged." Here is a fair judgment about the work of the painter The master must nurture serenity and joy in his heart.His thoughts must be calm and harmonious, for it is said: "Let the heart be calm." human feelings and all the properties of things will manifest themselves in the heart and just as involuntarily descend from the tip of the brush onto silk ... "
In China, it was not customary to keep the scrolls hanging up. On the one hand, this is explained by concern for the durability of the works: from a long stay in a stretched state, the base of the scroll gradually stretched, deformed, cracks and tears could appear at the work. Therefore, valuable scrolls were kept in special rooms in special cases. And now in museums and art galleries in China, the exposition changes quite often - the works, as they say, are allowed to rest. On the other hand, as already mentioned, the enjoyment of the picture was one of the favorite forms of leisure of educated Chinese. This could be, for example, a good occasion for the owner of the painting and his friends to meet and spend time together. A vertical scroll was hung on a special frame, and the audience indulged in contemplation, sitting around it. A horizontal scroll - and they could be very long, many meters in length - was unrolled on a special table: from right to left, opening its fragment by fragment, stopping, examining and moving on - to its left end. And then in reverse side- from left to right. This process of unfolding and folding the scroll could take several hours.
In China before meeting European painting there was no concept of linear perspective. On the other hand, a very peculiar concept of arranging space in a landscape scroll has developed. This is about "three distances" (三元) paintings of "mountains and waters". This concept was formulated and developed by the already mentioned painter and theorist of the 11th century Guo Xi. There is his work devoted to a detailed explanation of the features and properties of each of the three distances and the meaning of the whole concept as a whole. This is very interesting topic, but complex - we will not touch it here. I will just try to visually show what is meant by each of the three distances at the compositional level and I will note the features of the space of the scroll built on the basis of these distances.
Three distances - high, deep and even.
high distance means looking from the foot of a mountain to its summit. Volumes are predominantly developed, fashioned vertically. The focus of the viewer is one mountain, one mountain range (Kuan Tong "Delay at the crossing of a mountain stream").
deep distance- this is a set of layers of mountain ranges overlapping each other with breakthroughs of gorges between them. Fog often swirls in these gorges. The gaze, moving from near volumes to more distant ones, as if deepens into the space of the picture (Guo Xi "Monastery in the snow-capped mountains" and Fan Kuan "Looking at the stream, I sit alone")
« Mountain" is an alternative designation for active force " yang”: the mountain is directed upwards, this is a symbol of the ascending yang movement. At the same time, the “mountain” is everything that is located on the mountain and obeys its dynamics: these are stones, individual rocks, trees, grasses, shrubs, that is, mountain vegetation, flat areas adjacent to the mountain, etc. " Water” in turn is a reflection of the passive beginning “ yin”: “water” always moves down, its dynamics is always subject to the peculiarities of the current situation. The class "water" includes all objects representing water in its various physical states: rivers and mountain streams, streams and waterfalls, snow and ice-covered river surfaces, clouds and fogs - an indispensable for landscape painting and a very significant picturesque motif. Thus, if in line with one of the traditional Chinese ideas about the Universe, the world is understood as the result of countless diverse interactions between forces " yang"and" yin ", then the landscape - painting "mountains and waters"- is a good example of this.
Concept " Yin Yang”, which became the basis for the entire Chinese culture, was originally formulated within the framework of the school of the same name “ yin-yang-chia"(VI - IV centuries BC). For Confucianism, with its pedagogical orientation, the fundamental idea was the representation of the Universe as a place interactions of three forces-beginnings-entities: Heaven, Earth and Man. Therefore, in Chinese paintings representing “mountains and waters”, the theme of Man, Man with a capital letter, who occupies his due place between Heaven and Earth - between waters and mountains, always and certainly sounds. The theme of man is presented in landscape painting in a very diverse way: these are individual figures of people engaged in various activities (farmers, merchants, travelers, fishermen, hermits), and diverse architectural buildings (individual huts, villages, boat piers, monastic buildings), and traces of human activity (roads, bridges), etc.
Landscape painting in China appeared much earlier than in other countries and carried its traditions through many centuries. Even in ancient times, in the country of full-flowing rivers and high mountains, a special relationship of man to nature developed, which could not but manifest itself in art. At the dawn of the Middle Ages in the Middle Kingdom, the connection of painting with the world and deep spiritual ideals was discovered. Nature provided the inhabitants of China with food, shelter and warmth. At the same time, she could be a formidable ruler of their lives. The very name of the Chinese landscape, "shan shui", embodies the landscapes of this country and comes from the hieroglyphs: "shan", meaning mountain, and "shui", meaning water.
The earliest surviving scrolls, created before the dawn of Chinese landscape painting, contain lyrical motifs and images of nature. As a background of paintings, landscape motifs were found in the works of the 4th-5th centuries, although both independent genre chinese landscape formed only by the 7th century, and became widespread only by the 8th-10th centuries.
Initially, the images of nature in Chinese landscapes were abstract and symbolic, however, gradually they became more complex and developed, becoming more spiritual. Chinese artists, sensitive to the peculiarities of national nature, have developed their own unique painting techniques.
Chinese landscapes were painted on ribbon-like scroll paintings oriented vertically or horizontally. Landscapes were painted with a brush, mineral water-soluble paints and ink. The artists worked quickly, usually without any edits. Each master had his own characteristics of the calligraphic line. In Chinese painting, calligraphy is widely used, various symbols and text inserts filled with deep philosophical meaning, and the writing of landscape paintings was equated with sacred rites.
Chinese "shan shui" landscapes have never been drawn from nature and are not depictions of any particular locality. The Chinese landscape is closer to a poetic image, showing the perception of nature through the eyes of an artist. Usually, at the bottom of the foreground of paintings of Chinese landscapes, details were clearly drawn: stones, trees and shrubs, which are separated from the background by a veil of fog, clouds or water, creating a feeling of spaciousness. The composition includes tiny figures of travelers carrying their luggage, fishermen vegetating in boats or hermits wandering along a winding mountain path. Picturesque techniques in the Chinese landscape convey the cries of flying birds, autumn silence and spring revival of nature. The composition of the scrolls of the Chinese landscape has no clear boundaries, and the viewer is invited to conjecture the artist's clues.
These paper or silk, sometimes multi-meter strips, after work were glued onto thick paper and rolled up around a wooden roller. Scrolls of landscapes were kept in special cases, and were taken out of them only for viewing. The pictures gradually unfolded in the hands and, like stories, were read, getting used to the plot.
Chinese landscape painting
The landscape most clearly defined the face of medieval Chinese culture. In China, much earlier than in other countries, a kind of aesthetic discovery of nature was made and landscape painting appeared. Formed at the dawn of the Middle Ages, it not only became an expression of the spiritual ideal of the time, but also carried its stable traditions through the ages, preserving them to our time, without losing either poetry or a living connection with the world. Despite the unusual artistic language, she still excites us with a deep poetic penetration into the world of nature, the subtlety of his understanding, sincerity of feeling. Vigilance, unmistakable accuracy of the drawing, the desire of artists to comprehend the world in its diversity are the strength and charm of Chinese traditional landscape painting, which makes us experience emotional excitement when we get acquainted with it. The early appearance of landscape in Chinese art is associated with special treatment man to nature, established in antiquity. In China - a country of high mountains and large rivers, where the life of the farmer depended entirely on the will of the elements, and man himself was considered as part of nature - the natural world very early became the subject of philosophical reflection. The inevitable repetition of natural cycles, the change of seasons and the moods of nature associated with human life, already in ancient times, were explained by the interaction of the two most important polar principles: passive dark and active light, feminine and masculine - yin and yang. The harmony of the Universe was determined by the creative union of these two great forces of the universe, and the cycle of nature seemed to be the result of the alternation of five elements (water, wood, fire, metal and earth), each of which corresponded to the side of the world, the season. Mountains and water in the minds of the Chinese embodied the most important forces of the universe - energy and peace, activity and passivity. The Chinese worshiped them as shrines. The very concept of the landscape "shan shui" came from a combination of two hieroglyphs: "shan" - mountain, and "shui" - water. Thus, the main motifs of the Chinese landscape were fixed in the very term "shan shui" and the basic concepts of ancient natural philosophy were embodied. The originally established system of symbols and forms gradually developed and became more complex. Images of nature, at first abstractly symbolic, and then more and more alive and spiritual, took the main place in art. At a very early stage in China, all human life began to be commensurate with nature, through which people tried to comprehend the laws of being. Of course, the landscape did not exhaust the whole variety of genres of Chinese medieval painting. A significant place also belonged to everyday painting, focused on showing the life and various activities of the court nobility. Between different genres there was a certain separation of emotional spheres. Full of interest in the daily life of a person, moralizing themes, conversations and walks of courtiers, genre painting drew plots from stories, novels, didactic prose, while landscape painting, affecting the spheres of philosophy and high feelings, to which nothing petty and accidental was mixed, sought consonance in poetry.
A huge influence on the formation of the spiritual life of medieval China had three formed in the middle of the first millennium BC. philosophical teachings - Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, which played essential role in the development of all Chinese medieval art and especially landscape painting. Each of them covered its own area of problems. Confucianism, which arose in the VI-V centuries. BC. as an ethical and moral doctrine, sought to substantiate and strengthen the established order in the state. Based on the laws of patriarchal antiquity, it established a whole system of rules for different types art and developed stable traditions in the field of history, music, poetry and painting. Unlike Confucianism, Taoism, which also arose in the VI-V centuries. BC, focused on the laws that prevail in nature. The main place in this doctrine was occupied by the theory of the universal law of nature - "tao". Understood as the path of the Universe, the eternal circulation of processes taking place on earth and in the sky, the category of "tao" has taken one of the main places in the philosophy and art of China. The founder of the Lao Tzu doctrine believed that the main goal of a person is to comprehend his unity and harmony with the world, that is, to follow the path of "tao". The calls of the Taoists to escape from the hustle and bustle, to the unpretentious life of a hermit in a thicket of forests among the mountains contributed to the awakening of contemplation in a person, a poetic view of the world. Buddhism, which became widespread in China in the 4th-5th centuries, adopted many of the provisions of Taoism. Both Buddhism and Taoism preached detachment from worldly fuss, a contemplative way of life, complemented each other and, together with Confucianism, acted for centuries as inseparable sides of a single Chinese culture. The constant appeal to nature as a source of gaining wisdom formed a special pantheistic spatial thinking of the Chinese people. It manifested itself both in architecture and in painting. The architecture and landscape painting of medieval China were deeply related. Both architecture, based on the solution of broad spatial problems, and painting were, as it were, different forms of expression of common ideas about the world, subject to general laws. Like a Chinese landscape painter, Chinese architects perceived their palaces and temples as an integral part of the boundless natural ensemble. A subtle understanding of the peculiarities of national nature helped the painters develop their own unique techniques that generalize the laws of painting. In the course of a long search, they found a peculiar form of long, ribbon-like, horizontally and vertically oriented scroll paintings that help them show the world in its universal immensity. Such silk or paper, sometimes multi-meter strips, pasted on a thick paper base after work and rolled around a wooden roller, were stored in special elegant cases and taken out only for viewing. Scripture landscape painting considered sacred.
The artist, using a brush, ink and water-based mineral paints that easily penetrate paper and silk, worked quickly, without making adjustments, using time-tested methods - each position of the hand and hand of the master corresponded to the features of the calligraphic line, sometimes sharp and brittle, sometimes flexible and fluid. . There was a close relationship between painting and calligraphy. The combination of line and spot with the surface of silk or paper was one of the secrets of the expressiveness and associative richness of Chinese landscape scroll paintings. Mastery of nuances, combined with the sharpness and power of the stroke, helped to convey a sense of the quivering of plants, the airiness of distances, the state of movement and peace in nature. Horizontal scrolls-tales and scrolls-journeys were likened to a story, they were gradually read, unfolding in hands, and required a long time to get used to the plot. Vertical scrolls were hung for viewing on the wall and helped the eye to cover at once the expanses depicted on them. Both included calligraphic text inserts that complemented and deepened the idea expressed by the artist, introducing new decorative accents into the picture. Filled with deep symbolic meaning, the Chinese shan shui landscape was never painted directly from life and was not an accurate depiction of any locality. It was rather a poetic image, generalizing the artist's idea of nature in its various states, the characteristic features of the Chinese landscape. The language of painting and the language of poetry in China were unusually closely interconnected. The world, seen through the eyes of a Chinese artist in its immensity and harmonious unity, was built according to special laws developed over the centuries. The landscape, placed on a long horizontal or vertical scroll, was comprehended by the master as if from a bird's eye view and was visually distant from a person. It was divided according to the echelon principle into several plans raised above each other, which is why distant objects turned out to be the highest, and the horizon rose to an unusual height. The closest shot with clearly drawn details - trees, stones and shrubs - occupied the lower part of the picture and was separated from the far shots by an expanse of water, clouds or a veil of fog, creating a feeling of air, space, a huge distance between them. The composition of the scroll was, as it were, open-ended, had no clearly defined boundaries, and the viewer conjectured what he saw with his imagination, completing what the artist suggested to him with a hint. The linear perspective characteristic of European landscapes was replaced here by a diffuse one. The artist introduced the fourth dimension into painting - the temporal beginning, forcing the viewer to wander along with him through the picture and join in all the changes that take place in nature. The feeling of the immensity of the world was enhanced by the inclusion in the composition of tiny figures of travelers with luggage or hermits wandering along a winding mountain path, fishermen frozen in their fragile boats. In the majestic picture of the world constructed by a medieval Chinese painter, each object was elevated to the degree of a symbol, evoking many associations. Few pictorial techniques in the picture could convey the autumn silence, the cries of flying birds, the spring revival of nature.
As early as the 8th century, Chinese painters, along with transparent mineral paints, began to use one black ink, the silvery-gray nuances of which helped them to convey with special completeness the feeling of unity and wholeness of the world. The pressure of the brush, the clarity of the lines and the softness of the washes allowed them to achieve in such monochrome paintings the impression of colorful diversity, color harmony, airiness and depth. The white matte surface of the scroll could be perceived by the eye as a watery surface, and as a heavenly expanse, and as a foggy haze enveloping the mountains. Not all Chinese paintings depicting nature can be called landscapes. Next to the classical monumental form of images of mountains and waters, other, more chamber forms were formed - small and full of colorful details, fragments of nature or private manifestations of its life. These include a very popular genre of painting today - “flowers-birds”, which includes a huge and diverse world of plants, animals, birds and insects. In the works of this genre, the philosophical idea “great in the small” was vividly reflected, revealing the Buddhist-Taoist idea that the soul of the Universe is contained in every even insignificant and inconspicuous part of nature. Huge world of symbols and folk beliefs, wishes of happiness, goodness and wealth was associated in ancient China with images of plants, birds and trees. Thus, the peony was considered a sign of wealth, the meihua plum blossoming at the very beginning of spring was a sign of vitality, bamboo symbolized the wisdom of a scientist, pine with its evergreen needles was associated with longevity. But every small manifestation of nature, whether it be a blade of grass on which a bug crawls, or a withered lotus stem, was perceived by artists not as something isolated, but as part of a great single world. On the basis of this, an understanding of technical means, common with the landscape, and the perception of the neutral background of the picture as a spatial environment in which the depicted object lives were formed. Transparent water colors or black ink with its subtle gradation of shades corresponded to the lightness and freedom of the image. The mastery of the linear stroke, combined with ink spots, replaced chiaroscuro, creating the illusion of volume. The expressiveness of the line itself was the main criterion for the artistic value of the work. This feature of traditional Chinese painting, which developed over a long period of the Middle Ages, has not lost its vitality up to the present. In the many-sided, contradictory and impetuous flow of modern life, these traditions, which have settled down for centuries and become classics, have largely retained their viability. The secret of their strength lies in the flexibility and diversity of the artistic language, understandable and close to the people, capable of constantly being filled with new content. about the world.
In ancient times, nature was for the inhabitants of China something formidable, dominating their lives. At the same time, she was also a generous giver of life's blessings, giving people warmth, shelter and food. In ritual utensils and on the walls of the tombs, the forces of nature were imprinted in conventional signs-symbols. They were: a bird, a dragon, a cicada, patterns of thunder, lightning and clouds. In the period of the early Middle Ages (4th–5th centuries), under the influence of Taoist and Buddhist ideas, poets and artists of China began to perceive nature not only from the utilitarian side, but also in its aesthetic significance, the ability to excite, to be in tune with the spiritual states of man. Already the earliest scrolls that have come down to us, written by the artist Gu Kaizhi (344–406), show that lyrical motifs associated with nature, unknown in the past, penetrated into Chinese narrative painting, which originated before landscape painting. This is evidenced by the master’s painting “The Fairy of the Luo River”, created as an illustration for the poem by Cao Zhi (192–232) and tells about the spirit of a young girl who lives in the Luo River and fell in love with an earthly person. In a long horizontal scroll, which includes a number of separate scenes, the conditional landscape, which unites the composition and is introduced as a background, creates a general atmosphere, helps to reveal the mood of the poem. The elusive beauty of human feelings was first revealed by the painter through the display of nature. The development of aesthetic thought was also new for Chinese art of this time. With the participation of Gu Kaizhi, the first theoretical rules for painting paintings began to be developed, which from the 5th century. were summarized and formulated by the artist and art theorist Xie He in the Six Laws of Painting, where the main requirements were to convey not so much external resemblance as internal awe, the breath of life. Expressed in brief formulas, these rules were commented on and used by Chinese painters throughout the Middle Ages. Although landscape motifs as a background were found in the works of artists of the 4th-5th centuries, the landscape as an independent genre took shape only by the 7th century. and was widely developed only in the VIII-X centuries.
The features of Chinese landscape painting were able to manifest themselves most fully and most vividly during the period of the unification of the country and the creation of two large empires - Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279), whose cultural achievements, with many features of difference, left a brilliant mark in history. The rise experienced a variety of areas of creativity - architecture and painting, sculpture and applied arts, poetry and prose. Active in its policy of conquest, the Tang state maintained ties with many countries, absorbed many phenomena from the outside into its culture. The art of the Tang period was also imbued with a look in breadth, with a powerful creative pathos. Huge, populous, festive and flourishing world appears in the wall paintings of Buddhist temples, in painting on scrolls. Sung culture has developed in a completely different historical setting. The conquests of the nomads first cut off the northern regions of the country, and in the XIII century. Mongols subjugated the rest of the state. In 1127, due to the relocation of the capital to the south, to Hangzhou, the Sung period split into two different stages- Severosunsky (960–1127) and Yuzhnosunsky (1127–1279). The people of the Sung time are characterized by a dramatic worldview different from the previous one. Internal problems took first place in their lives, interest in everything local, their nature, their legends increased. feeling, imagination, philosophical view the world is distinguished by artists and poets of the Sung period. They rethink the ancient philosophy and create a new teaching - neo-Confucianism, which is based on the idea that the world is one, man and nature are one. During the Tang and Song periods, the form of vertical and horizontal scrolls was established and canonized in accordance with various artistic tasks. In the Tang period, with its interest in everyday writing, preference was given to horizontal scrolls, in the Song period, with its craving for philosophical generalizations, vertical ones,
Tang landscapes are full of life-affirming pathos and enthusiastic admiration for the beauty and grandeur of the world. They are narrative, wordy, and full of architectural details. Chronicles have preserved for us the names of famous Tang landscape painters. The most prominent among them were Li Sixun (651–716), his son Li Zhaodao (670–730) and Wang Wei (699–775), both a poet and an artist. Their work shows how diverse the tasks of landscape painting were already at that time. The landscapes of Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao are bright and saturated in color, reminiscent of oriental miniatures with their precious radiance of colors and clear contours. Blue and malachite-green mountains are surrounded by a golden border, many details are included in the composition. Reality serves the painter as material for those hyperbolic forms into which his inspiration flows. Huge mountains are contrasted with the scale of people interspersed with bright small spots at their foot. to comprehend the truth, soft and airy. In them, everything is much more subordinated to the lyrical mood. Wang Wei looks at the world through the eyes of a contemplator and a poet, and this explains his new painting style. He refuses a multi-color palette, writes only in black ink with blurs, achieving through tonal unity the impression of the integrity of the world. As a painter, he was the first to find a visible form for those emotions that were embodied in his poems. Wang Wei brings together the images of painting and poetry so much that contemporaries said: "His poems are like pictures, and his paintings are like poems." The importance attached by Wang Wei to landscape painting in the spiritual life of a person is evidenced by the inspired lines of the treatise “Secrets of Painting” written by him: “Distant figures are all without mouths, distant trees are without branches. Distant peaks - without stones. They are like eyebrows, thin, cramped. Distant currents - without a wave; they are equal in height with the clouds. Such is the revelation!” Wang Wei, as it were, predetermined the path of a new era in painting, when the first stage of the joyful knowledge of nature was replaced by the search for deep philosophical generalizations about the meaning of being.
The multi-coloured clear style of Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao laid the foundation for a direction called "gongbi" (careful brushwork). The monochrome style of Wang Wei, with its understatement, emphasized airiness of space, was called “sei” (literally, writing an idea). their searches. It was in the post-Tang period in China that the main discoveries were made in the field of the spatial construction of paintings, their constructional rhythm, tonality, and depth of feelings. The image of nature is separated from everything private. Space is understood by artists as a symbol of the infinity of the world. The crowdedness characteristic of the Tang landscapes has disappeared. The human figures of travelers, fishermen or hermits are so small that they only emphasize the natural power. The world depicted in the paintings of Fang Kuan (X - early XI century), Guo Xi (XI century) and Xu Daoning is harsh and powerful. It appears boundless and huge, full of majestic peace. Through the beauty of nature, artists tell about the harmony of the Universe. The paintings of the Sung painters are monochrome, that is, they are written in one black ink with blurs. Mountains and rivers, waterfalls and quiet lakes, lost among the mountain peaks - everything is captured in the paintings of the Sung painters with great expressive power. So, as if recreating in memory his long journey along the Yellow River, Guo Xi captures throughout his horizontal scroll, called “Autumn in the Yellow River Valley”, everything that passed before his eyes - mountains, autumn trees, huts drowned in waves autumn fog. Infinitely distant and diverse is this grandiose landscape, as if seen by the artist from above. The whole landscape is built on the nuances of ink - sometimes light and airy, sometimes lying on silk with heavy, strong strokes. They are so thoughtful in their rhythmic variety, so rich in their tonality that the viewer perceives the black color of the carcass as a colorful range of the real world, subject to a single mood. The unfilled space of the scroll creates a feeling of vast air space.
Chinese artists of the 10th-11th centuries were looking for different ways to convey the life of nature. In addition to large landscape scrolls, small landscape compositions arose at this time, which served as decoration for fans and screens. The idea of the unity of the world was expressed both through the majestic landscape and through its small fragments. Such miniatures were especially loved at the court in the capital's Academy of Painting, where the emperor himself acted as an artist and collector. Albums were created from small paintings painted on silk and paper, where the life of flowers or animals, plants and insects was captured. For each small scene, poetic names were invented, often it was supplemented by poems by famous poets. At the end of XI - early XII century in Chinese landscape painting, several areas of painting have already developed, differently understanding the tasks of depicting the life of nature, but on the whole forming a single style of the era. These areas included artists-scientists of the Wenzhenhua group of dilettantes, poets and painters who were not part of the Imperial Academy, artists-monks of the Chan (contemplation) sect, secluded from worldly fuss, as well as members of the Imperial Academy who carried out orders from the court. Artists-scientists Su Shi and Mi Fei, who preached free creativity, and painters of the Chan sect, with their desire for intuitive comprehension of the secret meaning of things, largely determined the tastes of the second half of the 11th century.
The spirit of landscape painting underwent an even more significant change during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279), when, after the Jurchens captured the north of the country, the imperial court and the Academy of Painting moved south to Hangzhou. The epic landscapes at that time were replaced by a landscape much more intimate and close to people. Pain and suffering, bitter memories of lands dear to the heart intensified the loving attention of artists to their nature. The moods conveyed through the landscape by the painters of the Hangzhou Academy of Painting Li Di (12th century), Li Tan (11th–12th centuries), Ma Yuan (12th–13th centuries) and Xia Gui (12th–13th centuries) are fanned with great lyricism , sad and anxious. Artists paint small pictures, devoid of their former solemnity. The structure of the composition is changing, more and more gravitating towards asymmetry and airiness. "Shepherd with Buffaloes" - Li Di's painting depicting the snow-covered plains of the north, no longer includes either huge rocks or water streams. The eye easily covers all its small space. Sharp scale ratios disappear, and a greater place in nature is given to a person - a contemplator and a poet. This new inclusion of man in nature is especially noticeable in the paintings of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui. Often in their laconic, asymmetrical lyrical landscapes full of air, the gesture, posture or upturned head of the poet-contemplator further enhances the emotionality of the visual image.
The idea of the fusion of man and nature is especially acute in the work of the painters of the Buddhist sect Chan-mu qi, whose paintings, full of hints, dramatic tension, moved even further away from the decorative sonority of the Tang landscapes and the epic pathos of the Northern Sun landscapes. In painting, the Chan painters tried to catch what was suddenly and uniquely revealed in their natural freedom. Numerous genres of painting continued to develop in the art of China throughout the Sung period. But landscape has always dominated among them. The thinking of the painters of this time can be called landscape, since it was through the landscape that the most important thoughts and feelings of the era were transmitted. new direction. Moods of despondency, nostalgia prevailed in it, notes of protest sounded. Having found refuge in distant provinces, the painters sought through the images of nature in an allegorical form to convey to the viewer their concerns. Monochrome painting of the XIV century. achieved extraordinary sophistication and subtlety in conveying shades of mood. Of particular importance are the calligraphic inscriptions included in the composition, fraught with a hint, hidden subtext, understandable to the initiates. The images themselves were also symbolic. Most often, bamboo was depicted, bending under a heavy wind, but not breaking and straightening up again. He personified a steadfast spirit, a noble person, able to withstand the cruel blows of fate.
The most lyrical and subtle painter of the Yuan period was Ni Zan (1301–1374), a calligrapher and poet who spent his life away from court in the provinces. His landscapes, painted on soft white paper with black ink, are simple and laconic. They usually depict groups of autumn trees and small islands lost in the expanses of water. With a thin, graceful line, the master recreates the fragile and transparent purity of autumn distances, always fanned by the mood of loneliness and sadness. The largest among the court painters of the XIV century. were Zhao Mengfu and Wang Zhenpeng. The style of their work determined the tastes of the Mongol nobility with its gravitation towards bright colors, life writing. Zhao Mengfu became famous for his landscape scrolls, made in the style of Tang decorative landscapes, including images of Mongol horsemen hunting. The Ming period (1368–1644), which began after the liberation of the country from Mongol rule, entered the artistic life of China as a difficult and controversial time. In the XV-XVI centuries. China is experiencing a period of economic and spiritual upsurge. Cities are growing and reviving, new architectural ensembles are being built, artistic crafts are distinguished by a huge variety. But by the 17th century the empire is in decline. In 1644, the country was in the hands of the Manchus, who ruled until 1911. With the accession of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, a new and far from unambiguous stage in the development of Chinese culture began. Although the Manchus sought to increase the splendor and splendor of Chinese cities, they primarily relied on the foundations of conservative feudal traditions and sought to regulate human life. The painting of China during the late Middle Ages reflected all the contradictory ways of developing the culture of the Ming and Qing periods. These contradictions were especially acute in landscape painting, which responded to the events of the time. The revival of Chinese statehood after the age-old domination of the Mongols largely determined its direction. The desire to revive the artistry and spiritual conquests of the past, to preserve the original traditions led the official circles to orient artists to imitate the past. The newly opened Academy of Painting tried to forcibly revive the former splendor of Tang and Sung painting. Artists were constrained by prescriptions for topics, plots and methods of work. The disobedient were severely punished. However, the sprouts of the new still made their way.
Gansu Province in northwest China is about the size of California. The diverse local landscapes and dramatic landscapes of Gansu Province include parts of the Gobi Desert, colorful mountains, remnants of the Silk Road, and parts of .
Why sand dunes “sing” is a mystery that has frightened and attracted people for many centuries. Amazing dune songs can be heard only in some regions of the globe. Mysterious and frightening sounds were described by many famous travelers - Charles Darwin, Marco Paul and others. Experimentally, scientists have confirmed that sound appears when sand crumbles down from the crest of a dune.
When sand of different diameters rolls off the surface, a vibration of the sand is created, which "pushes" the sound, like a speaker membrane pushes air. Thousands of vibrations of grains of sand of different diameters create sounds of different heights, which add up to a monotonous rumble. (Photo by Feng Li):
Scientists Simon Degoe-Buy and his colleagues took up this issue. He recorded the sounds of several dunes and determined that they all sounded at the same frequency - 105 Hz, sometimes dropping to 90 Hz, or rising to 150 Hz.
How the dunes sing can be seen in this short video.
2. Rape fields in Gansu province, China, July 14, 2015. (Photo by SIPA Asia via ZUMA Wire | Wangjiang | Corbis):
4. Maijishan or "Wheat Mountain" - one of the largest Buddhist cave monasteries in China in the form of an anthill 142 meters high. The beginning of monastic life and the construction of the first caves date back to the period of the Late Qin dynasty (384-417). (Photo by Imaginechina | Corbis):
5. In total, there are 194 grottoes in the mountain: 54 - in the east, 140 - in the west. They are carved on the southern slope of the mountain, at a height of 80 m from the foot. Inside there are more than 7,200 clay and stone sculptures, over 1300 sq.m. frescoes that were created from the 4th to the 19th century. Here you can trace the stages of development of sculptural art in China. The tallest sculpture reaches a height of 16 m. (Photo by Imaginechina / Corbis):
6. Here goes the part. (Photo by Jason Lee | Reuters):
7. autumn scenery on Mount Dongshan in Gansu province on October 7, 2015. (Photo by Chen Yonggang | Xinhua | Corbis):
8. Labrang - a monastery in the village of Labrang. Among other things, the monastery is a major educational center for Buddhism - a university with six faculties. (Photo by Carlos Barria | Reuters):
9. And here are the dramatic landscapes of China. The Yadan National Geological Park is located on the site of a former riverbed, 185 km away from Dunhuang City. With a length of 25 km, the park consists of many bizarrely shaped barren hillocks destroyed by the wind.
This is one of the rarest parks, you will hardly see such panoramas anywhere else. With the onset of dusk, when only rare howls of the wind are heard in complete silence, the sand figures seem to come to life. (Photo by Wang Song | Xinhua Press | Corbis):
10. Danxia landscape in China is called unique type the earth's surface, which is characterized by red sandstones and steep rocks created by nature. Under the starry sky, shot at a slow shutter speed, the landscape becomes especially mysterious. (Photo by Zhang Zirong | Imaginechina | Corbis):
11. Collection of salt. (Photo by Wang Jiang | Imaginechina | Corbis):
12. Solar eclipse over the Great Wall of China, August 1, 2008. (Photo by David Gray | Reuters):
13. Agricultural terraces. Plastic shields - protection of crops to retain heat and moisture. (Photo by Sheng Li | Reuters):
14. Motor boats on the Yellow River. (Photo by Jose Fuste Raga | Corbis):
15. The endless Gobi desert - one million three hundred thousand square kilometers covered with sand. Not far from Dunhuang is one of the shrines of Buddhism - Crescent Lake. It is surprisingly located in the very center of the singing sands in a lowland, which for many centuries, by some miracle, has been protected from huge dunes advancing from all sides.
The lake is shaped like a crescent. It is small in size, about 150 meters long, no more than 5 meters deep, but the water in it is so transparent that it looks like a gem.
Dunhuang used to be the center of the Silk Road and the center of trade between China and the West, but now Dunhuang is dependent on tourism. (Photo by Ed Jones):
17. Landscapes of Danxia - red sandstones and steep rocks created by nature. (Photo by Fan Peishen | Xinhua Press | Corbis):
18. Zhangye Danxia National Geopark. Known for its colorful cliffs, the park has been recognized by the Chinese media as one of the most beautiful landscape formations in China. (Photo by Imaginechina | Corbis):
20. Shepherd and ancient city Yongtai. (Photo by China Daily | Reuters):
21. Agricultural terraces in Gansu province, July 4, 2014. (Photo by Wang Song | Xinhua Press | Corbis):
22. Tibetan monks at the Labrang Monastery we mentioned above. (Photo by Andy Wong):
23. Zhangye Danxia National Geopark. He is known for his unusual colors rocks that are smooth, sharp and reach a height of several hundred meters. They are formed by deposits of sandstone and other minerals that have been formed here for 24 million years. (Photo by Sheng Li | Reuters):
24. colorful mountains in China, they are found in several provinces in the southeastern and southwestern parts of the country. The world famous Danxia Landscape is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Photo by Wang Song | Xinhua Press | Corbis):
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