Study On The Chronicle Of Famous Paintings In The Past Dynasties

The Chronicle of Famous Paintings in the Past Dynasties,which is honored as“origin of Chinese painting history”, is one of the most important books on the theory of painting in Chinese painting history. It was finished in Tang Dynasty, and its author Zhang Yanyuan and his family were very influential and privileged at that time.Tang Dynasty is one of the most prosperous dynasty with Buddhism reaching an unprecedented attainment and exaltation.The fresco in the Buddhist temples and the belief system described in the Chronicle of Famous Paintings in the Past Dynasties are completely in agreement with the translations of Buddhist scripture, the formation of Buddhist sects,the books and bibliography of Buddhism and the propagation of Buddhist belief system, the trace of which can be clearly detected through sorting with big data and comparing these Buddhist documents and works.Buddhology in Tang Dynasty culminated to a so high degree as to whenever we mention Tang Dynasty we can not help referring to Buddhology.The literati and officialdom of Tang Dynasty adopted Buddhist way to implement their self-cultivation while took Confucian way to pursue their careers, it is a severe dualistic divisive,behind which is the shock imposed by Buddhism to the moral and world views of the literati and officialdom after it was introduced into China.During this period,Confucian scholars,represented by Han Yu and his disciple Li Ao,traced back the origin of“Confucian Orthodoxy” and put forward “theory of Confucian Orthodoxy” based on“mind-nature theory”. In the book the Chronicle of Famous Paintings in the Past Dynasties, “theory of Confucian Orthodoxy” is manifested in the history of thoughts while expounding the origin and development of painting, the thriving and decay of painting,the education of painting,the comments and appraisal of painting. Tang Dynasty witnessed a big transformation of Chinese culture,the core of which in history of thoughts is tracing back the origin of “Confucian Orthodoxy” and remodeling Confucian philosophy and then furthering building an orthodox culturestandardized by Chinese moral which was represented by Neo-Confucianism.In Neo-Confucianism,the way of self-cultivation and the moral and world views of traditional Chinese literati and officialdom were completely united through moral agent,thus by which overcame the dualistic divisive on the parts of self-cultivation and career-pursuing for the literati and officialdom of Tang Dynasty,which was demonstrated in arts was the rise of landscape painting in late Tang Dynasty. The complete unity of landscape,nature,cosmic order and moral justice world of the traditional Confucian scholars culminated in landscape paintings was attributed to the full presentation in the landscape paintings of the heavenly principle order of those traditional literati and officialdom in their implementing self-cultivation and pursuing careers, thereby landscape painting enjoyed a sudden big boom in late Tang Dynasty and extended until Song and Yuan Dynasty and became the mainstream of Chinese traditional painting after its rise in Wei,Jin,the Northern and Southern Dynasties and submergence in Sui and early Tang Dynasty.It was expression to this “Confucian orthodoxy” in painting given by the Chronicle of Famous Paintings in the Past Dynasties--------a full presentation in form of painting of justice and moral world of Chinese literati and officialdom in their implementing self-cultivation and pursuing careers that-------that contributed to landscape painting’s being elevated as the foremost ancestor of paintings by literati of past dynasties,and because of which the Chronicle of Famous Paintings in the Past Dynasties was known as the “origin of Chinese painting history”.