| This thesis researches on the development process of the view of colours in Chinese paintings and the two important transitions in the view of colours during the period from Jin Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, and expounds on the significance of such transitions in history and reality.There are two stages in respect of the view of colours before Jin Dynasty: The first is the embryonic stage, dating from the New Stone Age to the Bronze-Stone Age, when painters represented the shape of objects, using few colours.The second is the period from Shang and Zhou till Han Dynasties, which can be divided into the former and the latter stage. The former stage dates from Shang to the Spring and Autumn Period, when colours were used in rituals and religions; the latter stage dates from the Warring Period and onwards, when the doctrine of the Five Elements emerged and colours were divided into five, making the colour a distinctive feature of the time.This thesis makes a explicit explanations on the various development stages of the view of colours in China during Jin and Tang Dynasties, when two important transitions occurred, both with an interim period.The first interim period dates from the Kingdom of Wei, Jin, and the Southern Dynasties and Northern Dynasties till Sui Dynasty when the society was in the process of consolidation, taking the integrity of nations for the premise of the transition in use of colours, where foreign colours were well blended with local colours.Great development took place in the use of colours and brush pen in Jin Dynasty, but the first to have such development varied in their regions and cultural backgrounds. In the North, the period of the Sixteen Nations was dominated by the minority nationalities, where people first accepted the colour-dominated paintings from Buddhism and Persian culture. They were introduced into the mainland by the route from the Western Regions and Gansu Corridor, and the painters were mainly monks, craftsmen, some of them from the then western countries. Cao Zhongda was the representative of the Western Region style of paintings which take colours as its dominant feature.Whereas in the South, the technique of brush pen developed fast along with the technique of paintings, and the paintings by the scholar group appeared with Gu Kaizhi being their master.With paper taking the place of bamboo as the writing medium, the extent and speed of using the brush pen were largely improved, making it possible that great painters of the scholar group were prevailing at that time, who, like the great calligrapher Wang Xizhi, had received higher education and were free to exercise their pens and express their mentalities.Though the South and the North were in political and economic conflict during that period, religious communications were nevertheless blockaded. In the South, Buddhist paintings replied heavily on colours as their means of expression. Great painters like Gu Kaizhi, Dai Kui, et al were also engaged in Buddhist painting, who were well educated and never used colours without any amendments. With their profound understanding in the traditional paintings, these painters introduced the foreign views of colours by combining the foreign colours and the local lines in one, which managed to develop a realistic view of form and colour known as "lines for one's shape and colours for one's countenance".The second interim period dates from the time when the paintings of Chinese ink and wash emerged in the booming period of Tang Dynasty. The author mentions the famous "Wu Daozi's clothes", which is not only one of the greatest achievements in the styles of painting, but represents the transition from coloured painting to ink and wash. This may be the first trial of the author in dissertation to divide stages of aesthetic history by aesthetic modes instead of historical regimes.The booming period of Tang Dynasty paved the way for founding a particular system of colour representation as the characteristic features of Chinese paintings, where lines and colours are...
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