A Study On Court Painters And Their Painting Activities In 1368-1522

In 1368-1522,court paintings were flourishing.At that time,court painters played an important role in the art history.The civilian artisan painters' learning experience of art was similar to the scholar-amateur artists'.They usually learnt empirical Chinese painting skills and tried to be familiar with 'motif','painting handbooks' and drafts',which were based on imitating and sketching.Since the most significant skill was imitating the ancient paintings,the groups of Chinese painters had become more and more ordinary.In terms of aproaches of learning,they received good family education and sometimes they learnt from painters who had good reputation in their local areas.With regards to the painting styles,they were seperated into two stages,one was the style of Yuan Dynasty and the other was the style of Northern Song and Southern Song.These painters who had a good grasp of Chinese painting were summoned to court,which elevated them on the social ladder.Accoding to their different hereditary classes(civilian artisans and military artisans),the ways of recuitments including visiting painters and recommanded by high officers,art lovers or other court painters were also different.Some military artisans became court painters because they had art talents.The reasons why court painters were granted for Imperical Bodyguard were not that they were appointed by 'Jilu'(??)and 'Chuanfeng'(??),but their grandfathers or fatheres were soldiers and they could inherit their family's privileges.Court painters' works consisted of court paintings and amateur paintings.The typical kinds of court paintings were The portraiture of emperors in the Ming Dynasty,Sui Chao Tu and Zou Yu Tu,which were on emperor's demandwon emperor's favor,represented the image of the emperor or the court and reflected the esthetic sentiment of the emperor.During their work time,court painters often tried to interact with literati,officers and eunuchs in order to receive more material rewards and higher status.During their pastime,court painters participated in gathering and drew pictures about gathering like amateur painters.No matter what kind of gathering they joined in,such as officer gathering,literati gathering or Fugu group's gathering,there were no differences between court painters and amateur painters,so the iditification of the painters could not judged by their styles of paintings.However,court painters did become an opposite group for amateur painters when amateur painters rethought their own iditification.At the same time,officers were not satisfied with the progress of the elevations of court painters.In mid Ming Dynasty,comments made by amateur painters and officers on court painters and their works were sharply downward.