The Political Function Of Figure Painting In Southern Song Painting Academy

The dissertation focuses on the political functions of figure painting in southern songpainting academy. In order to make it more clearly, we take Boyi and Shuqi as anexample. The four crucial points formed as follows:1. In successive dynasties, the Southern Song painting Academy is characterized aslarge quantity, clear political intent and complicated realism. What makes it special isthe two trends of political propaganda paintings appeared. These two trends startedwith Boyi and Shuqi, this is also the reason why we select it as our example. On thebasis of first three chapters, we propose a new interpretation of the politicalimplications from Boyi and Shuqi: Several branches and and multiple qualities formedfrom the figure of Boyi and Shuqi in long history. In the addition of admiration in lateNorthern Song Dynasty and multiple interpretation on the figure and culture of Boyiand Shuqi, which made Boyi and Shuqi became the model of idealized courtiers inSongGaoZong era. Boyi and Shuqi was nether for expressing the painter himself, normerely an allegory, remonstrance or to please the emperor, but to use Boyi an Shuqi’sambiguous ideal image to find the balance of the multi-party interest groups in courtat emperor’s behest.2. Figure paintings in Southern Song Painting Academy can be divided into threecategories according to the content and object: portrait, narrative painting and imagesof life. Portrait based documentary painting often related to national worship, ritualsand ceremonies. Narrative figure painting was the most prominent category, whichplayed a role at guiding public opinion and reflecting present situation in SouthernSong political scene. The images of life, from the level of style and culture, wasentirely new. It was not only coincident with the intent of the ruling class to a certainextent, and in turn, delivered the aesthetic taste of literati to the upper class whichaffected the artistic expression and political discourse of them finally.Therefore, portrait inherited the traditional functions of figure painting, narrativepainting strengthen the ability of figure painting to participate in political events, theimages of life painting optimized the cultural influence of figure painting. From theaspect of motif, this understanderstanding can be strengthened, because new motifs ofthis time were basically generated from narrative painting category, especially inhistorical story painting.3. In many situations, the usage of figure painting in Southern Song Painting Academywas associated with etiquette, festival, celebration of the country as a whole. Theusing context mainly included shaping systems, appreciation organization, appraisergroup, designated area, manufacturing flow and using location, etc. The political function mainly included five types: auspicious，praise and confucianism, regulationremonstrance, noting history and reward. In the early Southern Song Dynasty, due tothe ill-fated country and the publicity strategy of emperor, the themes of the figurepainting were wars, recording glorious life of kings and mainly embodied as thefunctions of auspicious, praise and expostulation. Later, the situation was stabilized, amore moderate and invisible political propaganda was performed in the way ofadopting literati’s taste and confucianism from the point of artistic representation.Therefore, the most works demonstrated the functions of moral codes, expostulate,exegesis.4. Based on the analysis of patron groups and the two trends after Boyi and Shuqi, wecan ultimately deduced two types of political propaganda painting which was mostrepresentative: historical story painting and exegesis painting. The former interestedin the political propaganda, which was related to political legitimacy and revival ofcountry. The latter was a serials of image annotation, which divided into "FiveClassics "image exegesis and "Four Books" image exegesis. Although these two typesof painting both served for politics, their target groups, ways of expression had hugedifferences. Historical story painting focused on contemporary event, emphasized onloyalty to the emperor and the whole nation. On the other hand, exegesis paintingfocused on history, tradition and culture context, emphasized on a spiritual constraints,norms, moral dimension, behavior and tastes of the public. To sum up, they bothregarded art as a medium to control social and political discourse, for the purposes ofserving politics.