Work Painting Landscapes, Bodies Involved In Past And Present "to" Literati Painting, Youcheng The Beginning "

From Tang to Ming Dynasty, the positive evaluation of Wang Wei's paintings increased, meanwhile there exists some negative voices, including misunderstandings and assumptions to Wang Wei'painting. This finally became an important phenomenon in the history of Chinese ancient art criticism. In this phenomenon, there are a lot of researches, but the systematic studies with historical clues are very few. This dissertation is an attempt at the research on the evaluation development of Wang Wei's paintings from the angle of general history, which is built on the base of art historical records, and reveals the evolvement of the aesthetic standards from Tang to Ming Dynasty. At the same time, this dissertation selects an issues in the history of ancient Chinese art criticism, which is closely related to the evaluation of Wang Wei's paintings: the basic spirit of Dong Qichang's theories of"literati painting"and"Southern and Northern Schools of landscape painting". It is studied with the evaluation of Wang Wei's paintings in the form of special topic, trying to draw a convicing conclusion.The Records of Paintings in Tang Dynasty written by Zhu Jingxuan and the Li-tai ming-hua chi written by Zhang Yanyuan are the main objects of study in the Chapter One. This chapter tries to restore the true visage of Wang Wei's painting-style and aesthetic ideas, find out his exact location in the development of landscape paintings in Tang Dynasty. And then it reveals the fact that the"unity of form and spirit"is the mainstream of paintings'concept, meanwhile, the idea of valuing the spirit highly was growing.Chapter Two analyzes the scene of landscape paintings creation in Five Dynasty ,Song and Yuan Dynasty, also Wang Wei's influence on them. It compares the evaluation of Wang Wei'paintings over this period to explain that the whole evaluation of Wang Wei's paintings in Five Dynasty ,Song and Yuan Dynasty is higher than it is in Tang Dynasty. It is related to the fact that the main subject of traditional Chinese painting changed from figure drawing to landscape painting and the main-style of landscape painting turned from colored painting to ink painting and the literati painting had matured over this period. It also reveals that the painting idea of valuing spirit was strengthened further since then . The painting idea of valuing free sketch and despising molding began to be established.The last chapter takes Dong Qichang's theories of"literati painting"and"Southern and Northern Schools of landscape painting"as an example to show that even if Dong Qichang accepted the literati painting theory of"valuing free sketch and despising molding"in Yuan Dynasty, he did not deny or depreciate the significance of molding in creation. As the conflict between the Wu School painting and the Cho School painting became increasingly intense, the aspect of verve in painting theory had been emphasized constantly, and even grossly exaggerated, until the phemomenon of"honor Wang Wei and drive off Li Sixun"appeared.In short, from Tang to Ming Dynasty, the evaluation of Wang Wei's paintings became higher and higher. The development shows the change of Chinese painting-style even more important, and it reflects the painting view changed from laying stress on form and spirit to in favor of spirit and finally formed an aesthetic situation of valuing spirit and despising form.