The Exploration Of Song Dynasty Children Play Painting

"Children play painting", a relatively small branch of ancient Chinese traditional painting subjects, which concentrates on the description of children playing and life scenes, demonstrating the social customs outlook and children's living condition. This painting subject matter contains lots of social, cultural and historical information. A variety of arts and culture were vigorously developed in Song Dynasty owing to the political stability and booming economy, "children play painting" stereotyped in the Sui and Tang Dynasties gradually went into maturity and prosperity. Many representative painters and works appeared in this period. The popularity of Song Dynasty "children play painting" reflects people's concern and attention for children and also reflects the unique characteristics of the times and cultural connotation. This paper will discuss the cultural and artistic value of "children play painting" through the materials selections, features and cultural connotations.First of all, the subject of Song Dynasty "children play painting" is drew from a relatively large scale of materials, which can be divided into two categories:one represents children's living condition based on the scenes of children playing in real life; the other expresses the wishes of more offspring and more happiness or the psychological desire of warding off disasters by describing the certain customs activities.Secondly, Song Dynasty "children play painting" focuses on the style of precision and realism due to the influence of traditional lady painting and Confucianism; influenced by folk painting, the picture tends to simplicity and elegance at the same time. The integration of folk symbols and folk psychology in "children play painting" caters to both the palace aristocrat and civilian population's aesthetic taste and requirement.Culture connotation contained in Song Dynasty "children play painting" firstly shows the custom of praying for getting a son and the traditional customs related with children during the Song Dynasty; secondly it reflects the thoughts of reproduction and officialdom is the natural outlet for good scholars influenced by the Confucian filial culture, thirdly it reflects in the life lasting thoughts of "lian sheng tong zi" and "hua sheng tong zi" and legal principle of "ru mu ru yu xu kong" in Buddhism. This cultural connotation is the essence of traditional culture in China for thousands of years, the widespread of "children play painting" is the embodiment, propagation and promotion of the Chinese traditional culture.We can discover that Song Dynasty "children play painting" is not the subject which simply describing children playing through the carding and the integration of the categories, artistic characteristics and the cultural connotations. It not only shows the painting skills of the Song Dynasty, but also contains rich content of traditional culture. Consequently, the Song Dynasty "children play painting" worths us to dig and research for its high cultural and artistic value.