A Study Of Remonstrative And Warning Paintings In Song

This study examines remonstrative and warning paintings,which,generally speaking,aim at specifying,remonstrating and moralizing certain groups of people.Since ancient times,there has been a pictorial history of moral motif in China.These works are not mainly produced for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation,or sheer expression of personal emotions,but painted more for the utilitarian ends like “facilitating moralization,” “reinforcing ethics”,“reflecting and differentiating wisdom from ignorance”,and “praising sequence and preventing chaos”.Their content mainly involves “figures of virtuous masters”(figures)and“facts in former times”(narratives).Their style tends to be realistic representation.They have been mainly employed to publicize and safeguard the mainstream values of the society,particularly centering on Confucian moral principles.In most cases,their image involves politically royal legitimacy,social cohesion,ethical order of patriarchal clans,and personal moral standards,etc.Compared with later works recorded in painting history,mostly with an emphasis laid on their artistic value,remonstrative and warning paintings are more universal and utilitarian in terms of social and political significance.Most often they are ignored by art history resulting from their presumable lack of artistic value.Up to now,the value of these images is still underestimated by many Chinese and Western scholars.They are often regarded as craft work of lowbrow art craftsmen catered to earthly needs and thus ignored by books on painting history.Hence,based on the investigation into the function of ancient paintings,a review and restoration of the remonstrative and warning paintings,a category that can date well back in history yet has never been clearly defined,would contribute positively to expanding and enriching the researching vision of Chinese ancient art history at present.An overall survey of the Chinese traditions of remonstrative and warning paintings revealed that Song Dynasties might well be the key time frame regarding the developmental history from prosperity to decline.In terms of the diversity of painting motifs and complexity of presentation,the remonstrative and warning paintings of Song reached the peak of development in painting history;meanwhile they also foreshadowed their developmental plights later.Additionally,regarding external environment,on one hand,the political culture in Song Dynasties expedited series of policies and systems in favour of the development of remonstrative and warning paintings,eg.the royal art academy,and the painting school,allowing the production and use of such paintings to keep at unprecedented prosperity;however,on the other hand,at broader social cultural level,aesthetic taste and value of paintings changed significantly in Song,which directly concerned the developmental wane of them in Song.What accompanied the gradual decline and developmental predicament of remonstrative and warning paintings was the exuberant thriving of landscapes under the influential literati discourse,giving rise to the discourse monotony of its critic system in Chinese traditional art history.Thus remonstrative and warning paintings,originally endowed with strong traditions,faded out of the researching vision of art history regardless of their existence all the same.Therefore,the study of remonstrative and warning paintings in Song may not only help throw light on the link of an overall cognition of such paintings of past dynasties,but also zoom in the study to the textural level of the art history of ancient China and examine some core issues via adjusted perspectives.That is the very aim of the thesis.The first part “paintings are for conveying truth” includes from Chapter One to Seven,covering specific remonstrative paintings.This thesis did not aim at enlisting all the paintings of Song with remonstrative and warning implication.Instead,it was established in several particular paintings best-known in art history,such as The Album of Three Sets of Etiquette,The Album of the Collection of Ancient Bronze Wares of Xuanhe Palace,The Print Album of Remonstrations from Three Emperors,Listening to Chinese Zither,Riverside Scene on Pure Brightness Festival,The Scroll of Auspicious Signs for Revival,The Serial Paintings of Jinwengong’s Restoration of State,The Paintings for the Book of Songs,The Classic of Filial Piety,converging and unifying the diverging and discrete images of the classification in the past art history.Based on the varied signification of their remonstrative content,they were then divided into 7 types,such as “Institutional Reverence of Law and Discipline Rites”、“Measurements to Realize Governance”,“Warning Lessons from the Past”,and “Moralization of Human Relationships”,etc.Further from there,combining iconological and philological approach,it discussed the specific and complicated context of remonstrative and warning paintings in each category,and then moved on to annotate its political and cultural implication.Upon analyzing particular works,though it unavoidably involved painting skills and styles,the study focused more on the extroversion-oriented political and cultural history with an intention to reflect the social factors behind the paintings so to represent the interaction between the political powers and artistic expressions in Song.Through the analysis of this part,it revealed that the denotation and connotation of remonstrative and warning paintings in Song had been greatly extended.When presenting various remonstrative and warning themes,based on the varied intention and targeted audience of the remonstration,or directed by particular political variables,different types of works had employed extremely intricate and advanced imagery rhetorical strategies under the influence of comprehensive and complex factors with light on certain profound meanings.It was because of this,the remonstrative and warning paintings in Song could hardly be taken as sheer “imagery literature” for inspecting political history.Instead,one should incorporate their meaning network,and complex and diverse political implication from the perspective of political powers of such type of image.Besides,their unique artistic value should not be underestimated and ignored as a result of their practical function.The middle part of the thesis included the chapters from the eighth to the eleventh.Based on their moralizing intention upon creation,the existence and continuity of remonstrative and warning paintings had to rely on the upper political circles hinging on the royal power.Hence,the middle part of the thesis focused on the skeletons of image preservation,production,and application of Song Court to unfold its research.Although the policies and systems concerning paintings and calligraphy of Song Court could hardly be reflected respectively in the remonstrative and warning paintings,it could be viewed as a distant survey of the existence and continuity of such paintings from the political and institutional level all the same.Royal court,as the major institution of artistic sponsor and collection,was a link in Chinese art history that could not be ignored.The royal art academy and workshop institution,court style and the imperial storehouse collection are the key scope of art history.The emperor’s taste and political power were also issues concerning art historians.Inter-preting court paintings mainly from the sponsors’ perspective which had prioritized the emperors’ will would be inferior to taking the level of the particular space and political atmosphere of the court as principal,which would allow relevant study from institutional aspect along the skeletons of appreciation and collection,display and exhibit,production,and award of paintings and calligraphy.Thus,what this part tried to solve was how art works like remonstrative and warning paintings had operated within a political and cultural dynamic system with a certain societal target,rather than how they had reflected the spirit of the time.This part began with discussion on the significance of art collection and appreciation,production,and showcasing to royal politics,and then analyzed one by one the art preservative system of Song court hinged on its domestic cabinet,the image productive system centered on the Imperial Painting Academy,the painting guideline of the royal court oriented by painting school,the art creation and evaluation standard modeled on Xuanhe Painting Picture Copybook,and series of graphic presentation and exhibit led by emperors,etc.Through the analysis of the above-mentioned art policies and systems,it revealed easily that the series of art preservation,appreciation,and production in Song Court were not merely aesthetic experience or artistic act for decoration or entertainment,which thus could hardly be reduced to and examined as conventional court cultural art.Instead,they should be scrutinized against the background of court politics and culture,and be taken into the scope of “national” art,as a concrete and important link of Song’s “literary governance”.The emperors encoded remonstrative and warning moralization via painting and calligraphy,though the message might not always be completely decoded by their men.The remonstrative effect of image needed being separated from one-way subjective and remonstrative attempt,and being reviewed and assessed from presupposed audience’s perspective.The traditional research of Chinese painting history had always laid emphasis on the production of paintings instead of their reception,let alone discussing the actual power effectiveness exerted by paintings from the perspective of political power.The research of power effectiveness of paintings perhaps involved relevant issues like painting users’ class or main users,the social or specific space of painting circulation,spreading approaches of paintings,and the application purpose and expected efficiency of paintings.The last part of the thesis includes chapters from the twelfth to the fourteenth,which aimed at further unfolding the study on the concrete service condition of Song remonstrative and warning paintings,centering on the above-mentioned issues.Based on the second part about the existence and continuity of remonstrative and warning paintings,and circumventing discussion on the institutional levels of the extensive art collection and appreciation,and production in Song court,this part aimed at zooming in on the original context of certain particular piece of works.By focusing on three types of space scenarios of different using circles,that is the royal palace and cabinet,the National Academy and official workplaces,and temples and monasteries,it analyzed the employing and presenting skeletons of specific image in the space one by one so as to assess the employment of remonstrative and warning paintings in varied contexts,the reflection of the audience,and the efficiency of remonstration.In a word,surrounding the emperor,the royal screens usually prefered remonstrative implication,adopting a conservative attitude towards image of females and landscapes.The book screens,official screens,and pictorial screens,etc.had all evolved from the royal screens of Song Emperors.Though their intention essentially lied in remonstration and warning,they had been granted by the emperor more meaning in admiration and appreciation.In various governmental and official workplaces led by the National Academy,the content of their murals and screens changed under the influence of the aesthetic taste of officials along with that of the political factors,with a faded traditional remonstrative intention.Additionally,the wider visual moralizing space covering more audience,represented by the murals of Xiangguo Temple,had been put under the influence of mundane interest apart from the religious doctrine;while in workshops or shops of broader citizens’ life,appreciation of paintings were more often based on their practical and entertaining ends,adding to them the values of cherishing ancient or masters’ pieces.The newly emerging citizen stratum had filtered out the remonstrative function of paintings.The thesis concludes with Chapter Fifteen.A question was presented: “Replacing Wuyi(without ease)Painting with a landscape”? It tried to discuss the development and stillness of remonstrative and warning paintings from the time clue of art history.The first part of the thesis involved issues like the carrying capacity of remonstrative and warning painting images triggered by image rhetoric strategies.The last part,besides probing into the visual space of the above-mentioned three different types of contexts,elicited,under a latent time clue,relevant issues like differences in inside vs.outside,and private vs.public space,and division of visual taste among different circles of people developed from image presentation.Through summing up the above issues,the emerging developmental predicament of remonstrative and warning paintings in Song was thus unveiled.Based on the so-called change between Song and Yuan in art history,it further sketched a contouring clue of replacing remonstrative and warning paintings with landscapes.It is worth noting that remonstrative and warning paintings did not disappear henceforth.They still existed in large quantities of court paintings thereafter.Only they were no longer the leading role in art history,while landscapes remained in a long time the mainstream of Chinese painting.