Philosophical Landscaping during the Song Dynasty, AP Art History, Lakeview Fort-Oglethorpe HS, GA
Wendy Morgan, BS Art Ed: K-12, MA & Ed.S Instructional Leadership
Standards
VAHSVACU.1 Articulates ideas and universal themes from diverse cultures of the past and present.
a. Identifies how the issues of time, place, and culture are reflected in selected art works.
b. Discusses how understanding the original context of an artwork affects a viewer’s connection with and interpretation of the artwork.
g. Discusses the role of art in at least two cultures; compares and contrasts to art today
VAHSPAPR.3 Engages in an array of painting processes and techniques.
b. Investigates brushwork: calligraphic line, gestural brush work, emotive qualities of brush strokes, brush mark direction to build form and movement, and scumbling.
Timeframe
Two, 90-minute class periods
45 min of history instruction and 30 min of formal direction for production on sequential days with the remaining time for ink painting completion
Objectives
The students will create a landscape-based ink wash using the wet-into-wet technique on watercolor paper with fine-point permanent markers to simulate the contrast between intricate details and those of chance. Comparing Fan Kuan with Ma Yuan both Song painters they will determine stylistic differences and notice characteristics of 10th C Chinese landscape paintings. They will come away with a knowledge of Fan Kuan’s characteristics as a landscape painter as a representation of Song educational ideals with neo-Confucianism and Daoist philosophy while constructing a landscape painting with contrasting areas using ink to its limits in control and freedom.
Procedures Narrative
As a hook, I will lay out magnifying lenses on each table with a permanent fine point marker, leaves, flowers and rocks with a 3”x3” square piece of heavy weight or watercolor paper. Upon entering the room, the students will only be instructed to “look closely.” After five minutes of allowing them to go their own direction with the supplies presented, I’ll ask them, “what role does nature play in Art?”, “are you microscopic or cosmic?”and “can you show the internal and external in a drawing?” I’ll invite them to share what they chose to do with the materials and why. Once the conversations seem to be played out, I’ll turn the focus to the Song dynasty with a synthesis on Daoist and Neo-confucianism with exemplar artists: Fan Kuan and Ma Yuan. They should already be familiar with textural techniques of value from Art I and be able to use stippling, hatching, crosshatching and a wash as blending in their work, so that this vocabulary and technique knowledge is secondary to the historical details of philosophical representation of imagery and compositional uses in Chinese landscape examples. Once the history notes have been presented and discussed as a group, the following day’s work will be focused on a brief quiz and completion of the ink wash landscape painting in a neo-Song style.
Lecture Notes:
Whether it was the heavy militaristic presence in Chinese government or the rise and fall of 5 dynasties at the end of the Tang dynasty, the Song dynasty (960-1279) was known for its scholarship and refined aesthetics. Educated men studied for the civil service exam in order to attain a governmental position of service which allowed them a “humble prestige”. The exam was rooted in the Confucian texts. Many studied for years only passing it near the age of 30. Seeing that Confucius was born in 500 BCE this is why during the Song it was a revival of his theories. Most of the Chinese were illiterate, so these men hoping to form a “virtuous and harmonious society” honored their families and helped to create one of the most brilliant examples of Chinese culture. It wasn’t only Confucius that they studied. Attending to “the three perfections:”poetry writing, calligraphy and painting were considered trademarks of a refined and educated man. It created a less militaristic ruling class who were connoisseurs, critics and patrons of the arts by being artists themselves. It promoted a self-cultivation that recycled the concept of self-fulfillment. (Ebrey and Schirokauer, 2017)
Fan Kuan of the Northern Song and Ma Yuan of the Southern Song both represent the fascination and adoration of nature in Chinese culture. Blooming out of mystical and supernatural subject matter, the Song Daoist belief system was woven into the composition to invoke a peace and order that man alone was not able to achieve during the 5 dynasty period between the Tang and Song. A component of their goal was to achieve an image that could “measure the silent and profound” with “a code that governs chaos” in the words of Zhang Yanyuan (847-874) in volume one of his “Record of Famous Paintings of Successive Dynasties.” The idea that a supernatural being could be an “unhindered and unsheltered saint” from the Daoist temple is curiously contemplative. (Yi’e, 2000)
The Chinese literati used landscape painting to focus the philosophical conversation, albeit many times internal. Nature as the teacher became a theme during the Song dynasty to do so much upheaval following the unraveling of the Tang. The modern world views nature as our backdrop, but the Song revered it as their guide to ordering inter and intra personal chaos by “operating within natures parameters” or to “find ethical instruction.” Water symbolizes the life force which being passive and active comes close to the way in “benefiting without contending.” The mountain or shan linked to water or shui also exhibits a complimentary duality akin to yin and yang. “Chinese landscape painting unites Confucian philosophical concepts with Daoist and Buddhist thinking about nature.” Creating openness within a tight space where possibility and opportunity can be found anywhere can be linked to the mist in the mountains where wisdom is seen to cling. (Hawks, 2013) The rhythmic contrast between yin and yang can be defined within the spaces between objects or regions of the work and the dense detail within those areas or dark and light uses of ink. Guo Xi a famous Song painter is quoted as having said, “the mountains form changes with every step” and movement allows for “viewing from each of its faces.” Compare Cezanne’s Mt. Sainte Victoire to this concept with his flat planes of color and broken surface treatment.
Fan Kuan: Daoist mountain man, recluse, poet, painter, wine-drinker, and rustic hermit avoided the cultural decay in the city by communing and rendering majesty of the mountains and water found in the North of China. “Travelers by Streams and Mountains” is his greatest masterpiece hanging 7 feet long as a silk scroll. The ink showcases the NeoConfucian and Daoist blending of absolute truth and self-cultivation. His tall pine trees were symbolic of the virtuous man. Where are the men? As a statement of humility and perhaps a puzzling search for the less philosophic, the two men and donkey are on the path or the way towards enlightenment and are not the focal point. Kuan himself left for this retreat out of disenchantment with his fellow civil servants and the governmental corruption possibly to symbolically find his way back to the truth. His gaps between the levels of space act as changes of view. Scale creates rhythm by transitioning between detail and the monumental using light and dark and blankness to move the viewer. The “interacting polarities” help to balance and motivate highlighting the yin and yang theme. (McIntire)
Using Ma Yuan’s Walking on a Mountain Path in Spring helps showcase the differences between Northern and Southern Song landscape paintings, the Yuan piece obviously doesn’t maintain the monumental effect of the natural elements. The human representation in the foreground utilizes a much more Western alignment in use of space. The composition is partitioned in three distinct spatial locations (foreground, mid-ground and background), but the density of each is absent. It’s as if Yuan wants the viewer to complete the fading scenes with their own narrative. Instead of man being dwarfed and humbled by nature, Yuan exhibits a partnership experience with nature. We owe our landscape genre to the Chinese for being the first to exclude the need to represent man’s activities in front of scenery. They sought to honor the land and majesty of a set of systems they didn’t fully understand. (Moffat, 2008)
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nsong/hd_nsong.htm
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/ (utilize the map)
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/south-east-se-asia/china-art/a/neo-confucianism-fan-kuan-travelers-by-streams-and-mountains
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/asian/Chinese-Landscape-Painting.html
http://www.chinese-art.com/Traditional/v2i3/wangyie_textonly.htm
Evaluation
Historical:
Song Dynasty Quiz to be given at the beginning of class on Day 2. (attached)
Artistic:
Philosophical Painting Rubric:
30pts - 3 layers of space (background, mid-ground, & foreground)
15pts – exaggeratedly small human contrasted to large natural object
30pts – winding path, building, water, tree, human, and animal
15pts – texture: hatching, stippling and blended contrasts
10pts – filling and leaving in the 6” x 18” space
Item lists:
Day 1
1) A magnifying lens, #2 and a 3” x 3” piece of watercolor paper
Day 2
2) Brushes and toothbrushes
3) permanent ink pen and India ink
4) 6”x18” watercolor paper
5) Mixing trays and water
Student Handouts
Song Dynasty Landscape painting quiz
Resources List
Department of Asian Art. “Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nsong/hd_nsong.htm
Ebrey, Patricia & Conrad Schirokauer. “Neo-Confucianism.” Asia for Educators at Columbia, no date. Accessed April 2, 2017. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/
Hawks, Shelley Drake. “An Environmental Ethic in Chinese Landscape Painting.” Education about Asia 18, no.1 (2013): 13-18.
McIntire, Jennifer Noeiring. “Neo-Confucianism & Fan Kuan, Travelers by Streams and Mountains.”Khan Academy, no date. Accessed March 27, 2017. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/south-east-se-asia/china-art/a/neo-confucianism-fan-kuan-travelers-by-streams-and-mountains
Moffat, Charles. “Mountain Water.” The Art History Archive, July 2008. Accessed March 27, 2017. http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/asian/Chinese-Landscape-Painting.html
Yi’e, Wang. “The Origins of Daoist Art.” Daoist Art 2, no. 3 (Oct. 2000) http://www.chinese-art.com/Traditional/v2i3/wangyie_textonly.htm