To Catch The Spirit With The Shape

This thesis explores the realism of the royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty through the artistic work Lin Quan Gao Zhi in order to analyze its realistic essence objectively. The so-called realism of painting does not mean the true-to-life imitating of the natural objects but expressing the artistic vividness to get the artistic effects of both form and spirit. Besides, a profound research on the realistic essence of the royal landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty and its inspiration to the contemporary landscape painting will be found. In addition, the research is of great importance to the overall understanding of the stylistic history of the Chinese traditional landscape painting.The thesis consists of five parts.In the first part the history of the form-and-spirit theory before Song Dynasty is overviewed briefly to look into the internal relationship of the theories between Song Dynasty and Pre-Song Dynasty. Generally, three periods are concluded. Zong Bing's aesthetic theory In Nan Dynasty that people can enjoy the beauty of nature through viewing the landscape painting instead of experiencing the nature and his manner of observing landscape from farness were absorbed and developed by artists of Song Dynasty. In Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yanyuan put forward his view that is the similarities between the drawing techniques of calligraphy and that of painting, which had a leading effect on them. They also inherited and perfected Jing Hao's ideas directly. Jing Hao believed that the painter should catch the internal essence through external characteristics of objects, and observe landscape from different points of view.The second part introduces detailedly the realistic theory in Lin Quan Gao Zhi written by Guo Xi, which involves three aspects, namely, painters' aesthetic techniques, artistic creativeness and its expressive skills. To be specific, the aesthetic techniques include the style of observing landscape from different points of view and the aesthetic attitude of combining feeling and landscape. The artistic creativeness requires ideation emphasizing the vividness, and four qualities: to be efficient, to be comprehensive, to be diversiform and to be quintessential. Thus the theoretical foundation of the realisticquality of royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty can be found.The third part sets forth the specific embodiments of the realistic perspective of Lin Quan Gao Zhi on the royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty. All of the delicate atmosphere, the vacant beauty and the polished style presented in the painting at that time. Besides, painters strived to enlarge artistic themes, invent new paints and paid much attention to the combination of color and drawing.The fourth part points out the inevitability of the realistic traits in the royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty which results from three sides. Above all, painters were persistently in pursuit of reason in art, then the development of landscape painting perfected, and the emperor's favor also influenced the painting.The fifth part summarizes the far-reaching influence and important historical status of the realistic traits in the royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty. Since Song Dynasty, numerous landscape painters to some degree have absorbed Guo Xi's drawing techniques even in the period when the scholar's painting was prevailing.From the analysis above, my conclusion can be reached as follows. Firstly, the realistic traits in the royal landscape painting in Northern Song Dynasty manifest the vividness of picture. Although the overall structure of picture was precise, simplicity presented. The painting techniques tended to be simplified, which means the aesthetic independence rather than the adherence to the nature and indicates the tendency changed from the descriptive skill of creation to the expressive. By analyzing some works, we can conclude that the vividness of works lies mainly in the internal spirit expressed instead of the form which is but a means. Therefore, various kinds of painting styles necessarily exist in Chinese painting history.Secondly, the royal painting and the scholar's painting were not conflicting at all in Northern Song Dynasty. The royal painting was shaped by absorbing and renovating traits of other paintings, and actually benefited a lot from the artistic communication. The development of the scholar's painting after Song Dynasty owes to the realistic traits of the royal painting. Thus landscape painting of different kinds influences one another. In a word, the traditional painting should be treated objectively. Both the royal painting and the scholar's painting play very important roles in the history. The right attitudes towards them should be developed to find the true meaning of traditional painting.