04/12/23 1

Chapter 27: China and The Romantic View of

Nature

Humanities 103Beth CampSpring 2005

04/12/23 2

Getting Started

How would you describe Chinese landscape painting?

What are the differences between European and Chinese “nature” painting?

04/12/23 3

A Word about TaoismPhilosophy and religion

of China since c. 3 Century BCE --essentially to follow the way to achieve freedom from desire and life of simplicity

Later search for immortality, study of alchemy

By 5th Century integrated many aspects of Buddhism

Talking about Taoism is not talking about Taoism

04/12/23 4

Chinese Landscape painters

Ni Tsan 1301-1374 Tai Chin 1388-1462 Chen Rong (active ca. 1235-1262)Shen Zhou 1427-1509

04/12/23 5

Chen Rong (active ca. 1235-1262)

Nine Dragons, 1244

04/12/23 6

Chen Rong, Detail of Nine Dragons, 1244

04/12/23 7

Excerpt from “Nine Dragons”“. . . The greatness that emerged

from the tip of my brush cannot be found elsewhere in the world. At a distance, one feels as if the clouds and the waves were flying and moving. Viewed closely, one suspects that only a god could have painted these dragons.”

Source: Tales from the Land of Dragons

04/12/23 8

Ni Tsan 1301-1374Peaceful Forest after RainThe Fishing Village after Autumn Rain

04/12/23 9

04/12/23 10

Tai Chin 1388-1462

Returning Home Late from a Spring Outing

Online exhibit National Palace Museum, Taiwan

04/12/23 11

Shen Zhou 1427-1509

Poet on a Mountain Top, c. 1500

Online lecture on Chinese Painting

White clouds like a belt encircle the mountain’s waistA stone ledge flying in space and the far thin roadI lean on my bramble staff and gazing into spaceMake the note of my flute an answer to the sounding torrent

Trans. Michael Sullivan, The Three Perfections: Chinese Painting, Poetry, and Calligraphy

04/12/23 12

04/12/23 13

Constable

Constable: Wivenhoe Park (1816)

04/12/23 14

Corot

Corot: Morning, Dance of Nymphs

04/12/23 15

Bierstadt

American Romanticism: Bierstadt, “Looking Up the Yosemite Valley”

04/12/23 16

Key elements of Romanticism?

Religious attachment to natureEmphasize individual experienceSubjective rather than objectiveHuman moods = Nature’s moodsPower of nature = inspiration + moral truth + redemption

04/12/23 17

What’s Next?How would you describe Chinese landscape painting?

Read more about DaoismCheckout: 3,000 Years of Chinese Painting in the LBCC Library

What are the differences between European and Chinese “nature” painting?

04/12/23 18

Do Chinese landscape paintings show Romanticism (1800-1850)?

Not a single style, technique or attitudeSubjective and imaginativeEmotionally intense, mystical Rebels against “classic”and “neoclassic”Emphasizes nature’s wild, mysterious, exotic, melancholic, melodramatic aspects