History: Song and Ming Dynasties

History: Song and Ming Dynasties

Question One

During the Song dynasty, philosophers such as Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi reinvented Confucianism with recent commentary embedded with Buddhism ideas to emphasize on a new formulation of classical text and which brought about New-Confucianism (Weiming, 2017). The visual art was enhanced by new developments, including portrait printing and elite involvement in arts of pastime cultured scholar-officials such as composing poetry, printing, and calligraphy writing. Imperial courts were filled with the emperor entourage of court calligraphers, storytellers, painters, and poets (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017).

While Chinese Buddhism had waned on the influence, in philosophy, it reserved its engagement on the charities of monasteries and the arts. According to Halperin (2020), Buddhism had a tangible influence on the building organization of Neo-Confucianism under the leadership of Zhu Xi and Cheng Yi. Although the Neo-Confucianists were crucial to Buddhism and Taoism, the later did not have philosophical influence, and the New-Confucianists did not borrow terms and concepts from both. Besides, unlike Taoists and Buddhists, who used metaphysics as a catalyst for spiritual nourishment, immorality, and spiritual enlightenment, New-Confucianists saw Metaphysics as a developer of rationalist ethical philosophy.

Clothing was made of either cotton or hemp in white or black with trousers accepted for peasants, artisans, soldiers, and merchants even though some of the wealthy merchants were allowed to wear male blouses and ornate clothing that come below their waist (Weiming, 2017. As for the scholar-officials, their apparels were rigidly defined by their system of ranking. However, over time, the rule of rank-grading apparels was not strictly enforced on the officials.

Question Two

Qiu Ying

Qiu Ying, with pseudonym Shizhou and courtesy name Shifu, originally came from Taicang in Jiangsu and later migrated to Suzhou was a painter by profession. Although his family has a humble beginning, Qiu had a natural skill and talent in painting and larned the art of painting from the famous Suzhou artist Zhou and very tender age. Consequently, his achievement in painting received the accolades from the Suzhou literati.

Qiu practiced painting, and he associated with crucial art collectors during his time, including Zhou Fenglai, Xiang Yuanbian, and Chen Guan (Halperin, 2020). With his Special painting gift, Qiu Ying received favor from the art collectors proving him with the opportunity to learn and copy from Yuan and Song dynasty paintings in collection Jiangnan and extensively widening his artistic scope. As his skills in painting matured, he gradually developed his style, and his painting on landscape, figures, and flower subjects gained its originality form. Moreover, his painting style was no only consummate and refined, but also delicately graceful air of literati.

Qiu Ying family members such as his son-in-law You Qiu and daughter Qui Zhu also followed in in the painting profession (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017). His daughter’s painting style was delicate and beautifully refined while that of his son-in-law excellent, especially at Baimiao, a beautiful line figure painting in ink. Additionally, with the tremendous economic expansion which was experienced during the Ming dynasty, his paintings were imitated in large numbers to meet the high demand for his art and thus adding an untold number of painting works done by professional artists.

Question Three

Xue Susu

Runniang or styled Susu was well known the Ming dynasty (1573-1620) for her artistic work in calligraphy, poetry, vertical bamboo flute, weiqi, horsemanship, embroidery, and painting. She gave herself the heroine moniker as show shoot using a bow while riding on horseback With Snow White as her literary name; she was a pretty and versatile courtesan in southern China. However, Xue had a problematic marriage life as she was married several times, with the first two marriages as a concubine, which were not satisfactory (Berger, Yang & Ye, 2019). Eventually, she becomes a concubine to Yuan Weizhi; a wealthy merchant ranked low in a society dominated by Confucianism.

Owing to her artistic attainment, Xue Susu could freely respond to literati painting and poems as she was highly skilled in painting bamboo and orchid; her brush would rapidly move, and in a short time, all her paintings spring up full of spirit. The proclaimed songstress was widely admired due to her artistic accomplishments and elegant demeanor. However, Si (2018) claims that when her identity shifted from songstress to a married woman, the subject matter she explored changed. She became less enthusiastic about bamboo and orchid and more enthusiastic about landscape and portraits, thereby expanding her repertoire.

Whilst Susu excelled in painting, embroidery, and poetry, her talent for an archery set her apart from other courtesans and created a cult of celebrity around her (Berger, Yang & Ye, 2019). Her skills in traditionally masculine art were exceptional and gave her androgyny, which was regarded as highly impressive among the literate of the time.

Question four

One of the things learned through the course is that the character of Chinese painting, such as calligraphy, is highly associated with the nature of the medium. For example, painters in northern china were highly occupied with painting with freshly plastered wall-a Buddhist fresco painting. Whilst the temples during that period were destroyed, wall painting survived in northwestern Dunhuang. Besides, I learned that painters used different techniques at the northern courts during the sixth century (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017).

Besides, painting the artists mastered a formula of realistic, intricate scenes in vast open of background and foreground. In the paintings, distant mountain peaks rose out of high clouds, and steaming rivers and valleys run from afar into foregrounds. Furthermore, immeasurable distances were presented through blurred outlines as well as impressionistic treatment of physical phenomenon(Song, 2018).

There are also tremendous differences in painting trends between the southern Song period and the Northern Song period. For example, Northern Song’s official painting was mostly influenced by their political leaders’ ideologies on bringing order to the world by tackling the issues affecting the larger society such as sweeping landscapes (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017). Contrary, the officials of southern Song were only interested in the bottom-up reformation of their society, particularly on a method small scale, as they believed it had a better chance of success. Most of their paintings focused on smaller but more inmate scenes while their background detailing as a realm without the substance of concern on the artist or viewer

Question Five

Whilst covering both Song and Ming dynasties were overly enchanting, advances in portrait and landscape heightening the visual arts during that period were jovial. The elites engaged in the painting arts extensively accepted pastimes of the cultured scholar-official, including writing calligraphy, poetry composition, and painting (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017). Additionally, the philosophy of Chinese Buddhism waning influence to retain its hold on arts and charities of monasteries is monumental. Divergent clothing styles also distinguished scholar-officials, artisans, peasants, and merchants.

The proliferation of art was as exciting as social life during that period was vibrant. People gathered to trade and view precious artworks; they intermingled at private clubs, public festivals, thus giving cities lively entertainment quarters (Song, 2018). Besides, the spread of knowledge and literature was enhanced by the rapid expansion of printings on woodblocks, thereby inventing movable type printing. Further, the advancement in visual hearts heightened new developments, including the advancement in portrait and landscape painting.

Lastly, the painting techniques during both the Song and Ming dynasties were phenomenal. The artists mastered a realistic and intricate formula in the foreground and vast open space of the background (“BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age”, 2017). For example, distant mountain peaks rose out of high clouds and mist as steaming of valleys and rivers were presented in blurred outlines and impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena.

References

BBC 2 China History 6 3 The Golden Age. (2017). Retrieved 27 April 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6TwsMtTRY

Berger, E., Yang, L., & Ye, W. (2019). Footbinding in a Ming dynasty cemetery near Xi’an, China. International journal of paleopathology, 24, 79-88.

Halperin, M. (2020). The problem of beauty: Aesthetic thoughts and pursuits in Northern Song dynasty China. Brill.

Si, Z. H. A. N. G. (2018). Remarried Women and Their Social Status in the Song Dynasty. Journal of Huaihua University, (3), 15.

Song, D. (2018, November). Research on Ideological Concepts of People in the Song Dynasty from the Perspective of Folk Songs and Proverbs. In 2018 5th International Conference on Education, Management, Arts, Economics, and Social Science (ICEMAESS 2018). Atlantis Press.

Weiming, T. (2017). Implications of the rise of “Confucian” East Asia. Multiple Modernities (pp. 195-218). Routledge.