Song Dynasty Cat Painting Studies

Since Song Dynasty, some excellent painting works which toke the cat as one object had been appeared. They were presented by the different appearance above the different carrier. In order to have a limited view to the social life of Song Dynasty, this article mainly discusses about the questions of artistic and art history which connect with cat pictures. The article also gives the explanation about the reason why the theme was so popular in Song Dynasty and what was the sensible social meaning and cultural symbol contains. Each specific element enabled the cat painting to have the unique style: for showing the superiority feeling of upper family.The changes of people's manner to the cat made it has the totally different social meaning in the different social classes. To solve these questions, the author tries to analyze the special content of the cat pictures of Song Dynasty, based on the classification to the related images and the union of history,literature and ethnology.All this considered,the poems and the cat paintings not only elicit deeper visions of the relationship of the material world to consciousness,but boil down to acclaim the type of being afraid of death or just greedy for enjoying via various contents,admittedly,they have painted a detailed portrait of widespread discontent.