Five Dynasties And Song Landscape Painting Of The Northern School And Four Landscape Paintings Comparative Study

Landscape paintings of Song and Yuan dynasties have long been considered to be the peaks in the development of Chinese landscape painting. The artistic styles of landscape paintings in Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty laid the key tone for the development of Chinese landscape painting in which the naturalistic ideas have influenced the later development of Chinese landscape painting. Its patterns and styles became a model for future generation, showing the brilliant light of the rational development of the whole history of landscape painting with an embodiment of the ideal realm of the literati. Landscape paintings in the late Yuan Dynasty partially inherited the styles and ideas of the previous dynasties and created a unique style of impressionistic patterns with boundless freedom in its expression. Its free, elegant and ethereal painting styles are the representation of the mind of many artists in the new cultural survival. They carried on the styles of Dong-Ju School, partially adopted those of Li-Guo School and abandoned those of Southern Song Dynasty, thus achieving impressionistic styles of Yuan Dynasty. Painters of Yuan Dynasty stressed charm and advocated the formation of mood. Their achievements in the creation of landscape paintings broadened the vision of landscape painting, enriched its artistic language, forming another landmark parallel to that of Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty in the history of landscape painting while presenting examples and problems for the Ming and Qing dynasties.The landscape painting patterns of Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty together with those of middle and late Yuan Dynasty represented two different styles of Chinese landscape painting, each characterized by very prominent features. One is focused on realistic style, the other on impressionistic style. The formation of these two styles had gone through a process of accumulation and precipitation with many factors involved, which eventually led to the peaks in landscape painting. There were large differences in the social situation, humanistic environment, ideology, aesthetic sentiment, and aesthetic ideas between Five Dynasties, early Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, which resulted in different artistic expressions. In terms of aesthetic origin, the landscape paintings of Song Dynasty basically inherited aesthetic ideas of the pre-Qin Dynasty, Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties. The orthodox Confucian cultures as well as Neo-Confucianism ideas were integrated into the landscape creation. By comparison, the ideas of landscape paintings of Wei-Jin period and Yuan dynasty displayed a kind of consistency. The situation, outlook on life, aesthetic sentiment and aesthetic ideas of the literati were influenced by Lao-Zhuang philosophy and metaphysics with emphasis on individual's subjective feelings and individuality. They broke off the shackles of worldly propriety and achieved the ideal of liberty, which was completely opposite to the ideology of reason and restraint in Song Dynasty. This Song wisdom, restraint and the idea is completely the opposite. In fact, two kinds of aesthetic thoughts existed side by side in Chinese history, contradicting and compromising with each other throughout the entire history of Chinese painting. As two kinds of landscape paintings under the different guiding ideology both reached the peak, there must be some common principles between them, which made them bear independent quality and share common features as well. The great contrast of landscape paintings in Five Dynasties, early Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty resulted in the development of the two schools of landscape painting in later period, with one focusing on realistic styles and the other on impressionistic styles. It is worthwhile to make a comparison between the formations, development, effects of these two schools so as to identify the laws of development in landscape painting, thus specifying a direction for the development of landscape painting in the new era.During the research, the writer pointed out that the development of landscape painting in late Yuan Dynasty, Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty shared at least two common features: First, both had the poetic qualities with poetic beauty; second, both were governed by the traditional culture of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Landscape painters in Five Dynasties, late Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty were all men of letters and were influenced by the traditional Confucian culture and education. They were also influenced by the culture of Taoism and Buddhism to certain extent. Painters in Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty were more influenced by the impact of Confucianism while those in Yuan Dynasty were more adaptable to Taoism philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi.From the aspects of pattern, technique of painting, mood, form and painting styles, combined with the prevailing social and cultural background, the paper elaborated on the differences and changes in the landscape paintings between middle and late Yuan Dynasty and Five Dynasties and early Song Dynast. The paper consists of five parts:Chapter one is the Introduction, presenting the research question, the current research situation and existing problems, purpose of research and research methods.Chapter two illustrated the social background with an overview of the landscape paintings in Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty. It falls into two parts: part one is a discussion of the social background in Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty so as to identify the social impact on the development of landscape paintings; part two presented the main features of four painters'styles and summed up the common features in the development of landscape paintings during this period.Chapter three introduces the social background of Yuan Dynasty with an overview of the landscape paintings in middle and later Yuan Dynasty. Part one of this chapter is the social background of the Yuan Dynasty, and part two is the overview of the landscape paintings in middle and later Yuan Dynasty, mainly introducing the main features of four painters'styles and summarizing the common features of this period.Chapter four is a comparison of landscape paintings in Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty and middle and late Yuan Dynasty, which is the main body of this paper. Part one of this chapter discusses the common feathers of these periods. On the one hand, paintings in these two periods both had the poetic qualities with poetic beauty; on the other hand, both were influenced by Confucian, Taoism and Buddhism cultures, which showed that the formation and development of landscape paintings in these two periods are carried out under the same cultural context.Part two discusses the differences and changes in the landscape paintings of these two periods. By making comparison of pattern, technique of painting, mood, form and painting styles, this part tries to find out the differences between the two and the reasons for those differences.Chapter five is the conclusion part, presenting the enlightenments the different styles of landscape painting have brought to us during the different stages of history.The value of this paper lies in the comparative study of the two kinds of landscape paintings under two different social forms, the identification of their commonalities and differences, the summarization of reasons for their similarities and differences and the exploration of the culture behind the phenomenon.