Chinesische Landschaften

Article number 10125197

INTRODUCTION The Chinese calls landscape "Shan-Shui", that means "Mountains and water". For him these are the two most primitive forms of earth and they are the subjects he prefers. He does not merely copy reality, he only draws in just what is necessary to make his idea or atmosphere understood; these are the real subjects of his pictures. The figures in them—be it an old man, a fisherman or a farmer—never stand out but are only there to make us realise by their small size the immensity of nature. The golden age of Chinese painting — in ink and rarely using colours—dates from the beginning of the VIIIth to the beginning of the Xth century. It is at the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, center of great learning, among courtisans and princes, that we find the greatest landscape painters. Later on well-known artists do follow the same tradition, it is true, but the shape fades. Under the Mings there is a revival of Chinese painting, but it is tainted this time by arts and crafts. At a yet more recent date we still find landscape painting in China but the pictures that came to light after the Mings are nothing but the merest shadow cast by centuries of wondrous evolution that saw its close in the XVIth century. PAINTINGS I By an unknown artist: Mountains under snow (8th—9th cent.) Later copy II Li-szu-shun: Landscape with palaces (beginning of 8th century) III Hui Tsung: Summer (end of 11th—beginning of 12th century) IV Hsia Kuei: Landscape, on silk (about 1200) V Hsia Kuei: Autumnal storm (about 1200) VI Hsia Kuei: Summer landscape (beginning of 13th century) VII Kao Jan-hui: Mountains in summer (end of 13th century) VIII Kao Jan-hui: Mountains in winter (end of 13th century) IX Liang K'ai: Winter landscape, on silk (13th century) X Huang Kung-wang: Mountain village in evening fog (beginning of 14th century) XI Wu Chen: On the water (beginning of 14th century) XII Li Yuan-Tao: Bamboo, on silk (14th century) XIII Tai Wen-chin: Landscape under snow (15th century) XIV Hsu Lin: On the shore (16th century) XV Hsieh Chin: Moonlight (16th century)