cvdaa.blogg.se

Dong did not elaborate, but it is likely that he meant that Zhao had followed more than the elegance and understatement for which Wang Wei was known. When the cultural arbiter Dong Qichang 董其昌 (1555–1636) acquired the painting, he studied it for some days and declared that Zhao Lingrang had thoroughly followed Wang Wei’s brush ideas. Zhao Lingrang’s small handscroll Summer Mist along the Lakeshore ( Huzhuang qingxia tu 湖莊清夏圖) is widely regarded as his finest surviving work (figs.

In this process, the imperial clansman Zhao Lingrang 趙令讓 (active 1070–after 1100) played a significant role. Eleventh-century experiments in adapting literary imagery and forms for painting were influential in the development of Chinese elite culture. Su Shi’s elevation of painting to an elite art encouraged educated men to adopt the authorial voice of writers as they sketched pictures with their calligraphy brushes. The Tang-dynasty (618–907) literatus Wang Wei 王維 (699–759) “had poetry in his painting and painting in his poetry.” With that observation, Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101), the prominent writer, artist, and statesman, linked painting to a revered literary genre while asserting the permeability of the two arts: artists could paint poetic tropes just as poets could use words to conjure visual scenes. Poetic structure will be analyzed as well as three literary tropes: trees, gurgling stream, and the configuration of eight rocks. Zhao’s connection to Wang Wei was not stylistic, but rather was a matter of approach: Zhao was working like a literatus, thinking in poetic structures, and expressing his thoughts by painting literary metaphors.

This essay argues that what Su Shi encouraged, what Zhao Lingrang created in Summer Mist, and what Dong Qichang observed was a relationship that transcended mere imitation of brushwork. The connoisseur Dong Qichang (1555–1636) of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), after carefully studying Summer Mist along the Lakeshore ( Huzhuang qingxia tu 湖莊清夏圖), wrote in a colophon on the handscroll (now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) that Zhao’s composition thoroughly followed the brush ideas ( bi yi 筆意) of Wang Wei. Su Shi and Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) encouraged Zhao’s efforts. The literary turn elevated painting to an elite art.Ĭonnoisseurs of the eleventh and later centuries saw connections to Wang Wei in the paintings of Zhao Lingrang (active 1070–after 1100). Although no one believed that painting held a status equal to poetry, eleventh-century appropriations of literary forms and allusions into painting were an important development in the history of Chinese culture. The poet and painter Wang Wei (699–759) of the Tang dynasty (618–907) “had poetry in his painting and painting in his poetry.” With that claim, Su Shi (1037–1101) linked painting with a prestigious literary genre.