Art paper

Art paper

Introduction

The blue and white Jar depicting the Yuchi Gong Jiu Zichu drama is n artwork from the Yuan Dynasty. The artwork is believed to have been made in the 14th century and was excavated from the Guanxi Zuang region, particularly in Hengxian County. The artwork is now placed at the Boston Museum of fine art. This painting on the Jar depicts the battle scene narrating the tale of a daring rescue by Yuchi Gong of Lord Li Shimin, who was the Tang Dynasty’s second emperor. An exciting aspect of the artwork is its ability to show a historical scene that is popular in contemporary Chinese literature.

Description

In the Jar’s painting, there is a man in a helmet and three-pronged fork in his hand, who is often described as Duan Zhixuan, the general of the Tang. He appears to be in a dangerous position since he is highly elevated and exposed to the battlefield. There is an armed rider who seems to be chasing after the general who is often described as Shan Xiongxin. Separated by hills, is another man riding on his horseback with a scourge in his right hand. He is believed to be Li Shimin and appears to have twisted his body to the left and looking back. Behind him is Yuchi Gong, who is riding a horse with reins in his left hand as well as a metallic chain on the right side. There are three soldiers carrying spears who are hidden among the rocks. The painting is decorated using willows, clouds glossy and phoenix patterns in blue.

Historical facts

The Yuan Jar with decorations from the Yuchi Gong Jin Zhu play depicts a significant play in Chinese literature. Shang Zhongxian wrote the play towards the end of the 13th century. It was based on a historical event that took place in 620 recounting the brave act of Yuchi JHJingde, who was a general, of saving the Li Shimin from an assassination. Based on historical records, Li Shimi was inspecting the battleground when Zeng forces attacked him, but Yuichi came to his rescue, killing the commander of Zeng forces.

Analysis

Style

The blue and white Jar is an example of the blue and white wave. This was a technique that was popular in China since the 14th century. The method entails the utilization of white pottery as well as porcelain, which is decorated with blue pigments, normally cobalt oxide. Decorations were often done through brush painting or applied through hands. In the blue and white Jar being analyzed, the artists used porcelain for the jar and cobalt oxide to make the paintings. The blue and white technique is said to have been originally from Iraq and was used mainly or households.

Visual and Formal properties

Color

The primary colors used in the artwork are two: blue and white. Color blue is used to depict figures like people, horses, stones, leaves and weapons. The intensity of the blue color tends to be more intense on objects, people’s clothes and other objects. This makes pointing out these figures and objects quickly. The artist of the artwork does not paint people’s faces in blue, but in white, though their attire and helmets have been painted in blue. The intensity of the blue color is quite uniform across the painting, offering a balance in the artwork.

Line

The artist of this blue and white Jar makes significant use of line. To start with, he uses thick and wavy lines while drawing the stones. Notably, these lines aid in offering the direction of the image. It enables the viewers to understand that the characters are moving from a particular path to the other at ease. The use of thick and thin lines allows the audiences to differentiate between the size of specific objects and figures in the artwork. Illustratively, the use of thick lines enables the viewer’s differentiate stones or rocks from leaves, which are presented in a thin line. Apart from that, the difference in line thickness used also aids the audiences to differentiate between large plants to the small plants. Large plants have a thick line which makes them appear larger compared to thin lines used to draw the small plants or leaves.

Shape

Organic shapes characterize the painting in the Jar. This is based on the factor that it fails to geometric shapes and uses shapes that are common to the lives of the audience. Through the use of organic shapes, it is more comfortable for the audience to differentiate between stones, leaves, people, weapons and animals in the artwork. Additionally, the factor that the shapes in the artwork only have height and width; it is evident that the painting is two dimensional rather than three dimensional since it lacks volume and mass. It should be noted that there is a significant relationship between the art work’s negative shape and positive shape. Irrespective of the factor that the positive shapes aid in distinguishing or understanding what is happening. The negative shape also offers additional information on the motion of the characters. Based on the negative shape, it is evident that the people in the artwork are riding horses since they are more elevated and highly cut through the negative space.

Texture

The artist of this blue and white Jar uses various techniques to depict texture. Illustratively, it is evident that the artist uses light intensity to show the difference in texture between the rocks, leaves and garments worn by the warriors. Illustratively, the garments worn by the warriors appear to be faded or having more light compared to the stones. This implies that the garments are more smooth compared to the rough rocks. Additionally, the light intense brush lines depicting the horses’ hair also represent that they are smooth compared to the intense brush lines on plants and leaves, which depict roughness.

Rhythm

The artwork creates a rhythm that guides the audience on how to use the article. The position of the warriors in the painting enables one to understand where they are coming from to where they are headed. Apart from that, the placement of the rocks in a particular pattern makes it easy for the viewers to fathom that there is a path and the direction to which the path takes or is from. Additionally, how the shapes are placed enables the audiences to understand the action in the painting. From the shapes, it is easy to fathom that the people in the play are on the battlefield and are in a kind of confrontation. Therefore, rhythm does not only aid in offering movement for the viewer’s eyes but also tell the actions taking place in a painting.

Balance

This painting has asymmetrical balance. That is, the two sides of the painting are different but seem to have equal or similar visual weight. It should be noted that there is a significant difference between the negative and positive shapes in the painting. However, the use of thick and thin lines aids in achieving asymmetrical balance. Illustratively, the thick lines representing the stones are balanced by the thin lines place at a distance representing the weapons and people. The use of color to aids in balancing the painting. ‘Notably, the color is darker in shapes that are clos3 but quite fainted in objects that are far like the warrior’s garments, the horses’ hair and weapons. Therefore, through the aid of lines and color, the artist of this pottery painting manages to attain asymmetric balance, which is often hard to achieve.

Conclusion

It is vivid that Blue and White Jar depicting the story of Yuchi Gong Jiu Zhu is a well created and designed artwork. Irrespective of the time it was established, the pottery painting depicts a significant history colourfully and uniquely. The pottery artist who made this artwork manages to use shape, lines and color adequately to depict images that can be understood and analyzed effectively by viewers enabling making a relation to existing literature on the theme. Irrespective of using organic shapes, the artists also managed to achieve asymmetrical balance making his artwork outstanding and significant in the history of the Yuan Dynasty.