A Study Of Wang Lv’s "Mountain Atlas" Thought

Wang Lv lived in the period of social transformations from the late Yuan Dynasty to the early of Ming Dynasty, and also in the time of painting style mutations. Alhough Wang was not a so-called good painter in his time, he was an excellent painting theoretician, poet and herbal medicine scientist with the solid foundation of traditional Chinese culture, so he, based on his rich painting and medical practice, learned the creative ways of Nature and developed a rich knowledge of Nature and a sensitive eye observing the Nature. During his journey to Mountain Hua, he put his drawings of this mountain into a collection titled Mountain Atlas with his painting theories. This dissertation starts with his painting thoughts of learning from Nature as a focus, and examines the significance of Learning from the Law of Nature in traditional Chinese landscape painting. Through the analysis of his paintings and painting theories, the dissertation recovers the source of learning from Nature and explores the problems that Chinese landscape painters put into uses this concept in face of Nature. Historically, Wang is an important figure in calling for the concept, whose Mountain Atlas was made from his observation and drawing of natural sights by practicing traditional painting conventions, combined reading vivid travelling notes and painting the scenes into a whole, and constructed a correspondence between his painting and real scenes. Wang Zvexperienced the three changes from real painting, brush and ink pattern, learning from the previous painters to learn from the natural law of Mountain Hua, so his insights and theoretical remarks were concluded from his painting practice. Wang’s painting theories are dialectical in revealing the leitmotiv of learning from Mountain Hua and I following my mind, my mind going after my sight, my sight focusing on the Mountain. Therefore, his theory of learning from Nature reveals its significance in sketching from Nature, continues the painting ways of previous painters, offering instructive views for the followers, and corrects the drawbacks of painting practice in his day. The dissertation with Wang Zv’s painting theory and practice as a case, defines the concept of painting from Nature among the painters in the early of Ming Dynasty, takes contrast and comparison methods to conduct synchronic and diachronic contrastive research of the background of the concept, and tells the features of his painting and paintings, the impacts of his teachers upon him, his painting learning experience, painting theories, etc. emphasizing the reasons of reflecting and learning from the nature, and finally identifies his position in the history of Chinese landscape painting.In view of content, the paper consists of six parts with Part I reviewing the literature at home and abroad and the general development related to the researches over Wang Lv, and narrates in brief the concept of learning from Nature and the painting pattern from mindset and Nature regarding to traditional Chinese landscape painting, followed by Wang’s short life story and painting learning experience, and the analysis of the views of learning from Nature manifesting in his paintings, poems and the relevant writings. Part III examines contextually his Confucian, Daoist and medical ideas in terms of social atmosphere around the later Yuan Dynasty and the early of Mind Dynasty as the external causes of his painting theory, in order to construct a whole dimension of observing his landscape painting thoughts and a deep structured conceptual links by resorting to the specific painting conceptions. And Part IV analyses his concept of learning from Nature, coming to the analysis of painting concepts and generalization of the artistic features of landscape painting in the Mind Dynasty, and conducts a contrastive analysis between Wang’s painting ideas and those of Zhejiang and Wu painting schools.Part V generalizes the revelations of the painting concept of learning from Nature, with the background of this concept, its general development, its relations to sketch painting, and its spirit of the age. Last but not least, Part VI points out that Wang continued previous painters’practice of noting down what he has seen, and proposed an important and integrated painting approach of reading vivid travelling notes, noting down travelling experience and real control sketching. The paper shows that the painting theory of learning from Nature and its significance Wang emphasizes and sums up has been proved to be a significant discovery, which assures its validity of walking in the mountains and observing the scenes coming into his eyes. The valuable painting theory offers a good instructions and examples for the following painters with everlasting impacts.