Six
Dynasties (221 - 589)
Style:
The materials and technique are the usual ones for the early period: fine color washes are flat and ungraduated; color is almost never used as it is in the West, to model form or to describe the fall of light on a surface.
The technique of illusionistic shading, to give plasticity to the forms of the painting, was introduced to China from India, along with the doctrine and iconography of Buddhism.
The rise of landscape painting seems to have been stimulated by Taoist attitudes and ideas. The practice of seeking out places of scenic beauty, of ¡§communing with nature,¡¨ first became popular in a school of Taoist poets and painters of the Six Dynasties period. They dwelt upon their emotion responses to the sights and sounds of nature and were inspired by them to the creation of works of art.
Tsung Ping (AD 375-433), believed that the forms of nature possess not only physical substance but also immaterial qualities of ¡§attractiveness¡¨ or ¡§flavor¡¨; and it is by the qualities, rather than by outward appearance, that the spirit of the sensitive man is affected.
Artists:
Ku Kai-chih
Chang Seng-yu
Tsung Ping
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