An Introduction to the Appreciation of Chinese Paintings

1. An Introduction to Chinese Painting Appreciation: Hi everyone, I'm Amy. Nice meeting you all. I'm a Chinese are professionals who have been working for Chinese for over ten years. And I'm always intrigued though by the Chinese paintings in Chinese calligraphy. So have you ever thought of like knowing how to learn to look at a Chinese painting? Actually, there are actually simple as six ways to look at Chinese paintings. If you're interested, feel free to enroll in my course. And you will learn how to look at them. See you. 2. Differences between Chinese and Western Paintings: Hi everyone, I'm Amy. Welcome to my channel. Today like to talk about Chinese paintings to a lot of people. You may find it hard to understand how to look at a Chinese painting. I understand because it's very different from Western paintings. So let's have a look at the slides, and I will show you six ways of how to appreciate Chinese paintings. Let's go. So first of all, I'd like to talk about the differences between Chinese and Western paintings. Let's have a look at these two paintings. You see these are two landscape paintings. One on the left is a Chinese landscape. And on the right, that's the Western landscape painting. So as you see on the rights to Western landscape painting is a typical landscape painting that you can find, e.g. the single one vanishing point here. And then you see the two figures on the front is bigger than do those landscapes in far back. These two figures, like walking on the way to the destination. And then at the back, that's the mountains which are much smaller. And it meant like, you know, they are like further away from us. But then if we look at the painting on the left, that's a Chinese painting that you can see. It's, it's difficult to find a single point of view. Because like for most Chinese paintings, they are played P to be quite flat. And as you see, you know, like, like at the front, you can also see some figures which are quite small relatively. And the like. You know, some mountains in the, in the center of the paintings that I assume, you know, they are, they should be further back from the figures. But surprisingly or strangely, the sizes are actually quite dominant and it doesn't appear to be quite further away. So this ambiguous space is actually quite typical in Chinese paintings. And let's have a look at the other pair of paintings. So I want to show you this pair of paintings. Again, you can see on the right, that's Western painting, which is actually a quite well-known painting School of Athens by Raphael. And on the left, That's the Chinese painting depicted in the Tang Dynasty. So let's talk about this painting by Raphael. School of Athens. You can see, as I mentioned before, the single vanishing point which is at the center of the painting. And you can tell that it's really in proportion. Because like, because of the accurate measurements of the architecture, floor tiles and also the proportion of the figures. And at the center of the painting you see these two figures, who are Aristotle and Plato. So these are of course, a very important figures in the School of Philosophy doing during that time. But they are of the same size as compared to other fellows. Then let's take a look at the painting on the left, which is a Chinese painting. It's actually about the emperor in the Tang Dynasty. Like he's receiving ambassadors from the Tibetan region. So the Emperor who is like the highest figure in the whole kingdom is actually the biggest in this painting. And he's surrounded by a bunch of servants who are relatively in inferior. So they're like looking much, much smaller. And you see on the left there like 23 figures from Tibet. And they're like, you know, still smaller than the emperor but slightly bigger than the servants. You see like this hierarchy of different figures actually depicted according to their size. And again, there's no single point of view and we don't know where they are setting in. And inferior is kind of like interiors, kinda like ambiguous. So this is actually a very typically in Chinese paintings. So I will tell you more about the six ways of how to appreciate Chinese paintings. So keep in touch and I will see you next time. 3. I. Opening, Continuation, Turning and Conclusion: Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. Today I'd like to show you how to see Chinese paintings. And the first way is opening, continuation, turning, and conclusion. It sounds pretty complicated. But if I show you some of the examples, you will know how to understand these forwards. So e.g. here, you see a painting by Cauchy. So it's a very well-known Chinese painting in Song Dynasty. And this painting is about the early spring. And as I mentioned about like opening, continuation. In conclusion, let me show you how to see these four steps here. So here come the more closer to you, this plane is like the beginning, the opening. And then as if you're hiking up to the mountain. So that's continuation here with the trees here. And then there's a turning point here. Quasi actually depicts this turning point by like with like a group of clouds, this kind of ambiguous space here. It's like a turning point here. And then it keeps going. And at the end, you went, you go up to the top of the mountain. That's the conclusion. So this is a very well-known painting because of his articulate handling of ink. And you see this empty space here. You can tell without understanding or without really knowing how he does it, you know, But like, you know, you know, this is like a, it means clouds here. This is a very typical way of handling space. To depict clouds or something ambiguous. Let's have a look at another example. So the previous one was from the Song dynasty. And here this is a rather modern 11 being home. He was a modern painter living till the middle of 20th century. So this artist is actually a well-known for his use of ink that he likes to keep accumulating, link ink into multiple layers. And then it becomes a very rich in terms of layers and textures. Painting, again, we can apply this rule of four steps. Opening, continuation, turning, and conclusion. E.g. here from this dot, we are like walking here like again, like as if you're walking up to the mountain. So here the front ground, frontal ground is the opening. And then these trees up here is a continuation. And then a turning point again is some empty space, which means like some clouds are some four. And then like here, with this turning point, you go up to the top of the mountain. So this is how we see a Chinese painting using these four steps. And then another example by potential. It's also he was awesome modern painter living until the 20th century. So similarly, even though in terms of color, in terms of subject matter, it kind of changes over time. But we can still apply these four steps to appreciate this kind of paintings, e.g. this one, like in the front, you see like some water, a pond or lake. This is the opening. And then we'll see a buffalo that actually acts as like a continuation that leads to the back of the painting, which is like a very dominant mountain. And then you see the turning point with some plans, some trees up on the mountain. And you follow, follow the line. And then finally you go up to the top of the mountain. So again, this is like similar to quasi similar to the previous examples that you can apply these four simple steps, opening, continuation, tourney, and conclusion. To understand a landscape paintings such as these kind of work. I hope you understand this way of appreciation. And I hope to see you next time. And I will show you the next five ways of appreciation of Chinese paintings. See you next time. 4. II. Encircling Composition: Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. So in the previous lesson, we talked about the first way of appreciating Chinese painting, which is opening, continuation, turning, and conclusion. And now take a look at the second way of appreciation, which is encircled in composition. What is encircling composition? Let's take a look at this painting, which is by Marianne, a very famous landscape painter in the Song Dynasty. So we see this is a very poetic landscape painting with the frontal ground. You see like some plants, some trees. And then in the middle, in the middle section you see some empty space, again, showing some foggy kind of space. And then at the back you see some like mountains for the away from you. So actually it's divided into three parts. But then you see like it's actually the plants to Mountain is actually like a surrounding the ambiguous foggy space in the middle. So this is what we call by encircling composition. Now let's take a look at the second example of this second way of appreciating Chinese painting. This painting was by Louis and Zhao and who was a modern painter compared to the previous example in from the Song dynasty. This one similarly, like you see this circled space in the middle. And it's surrounded by mountains. Some little houses, some plants and grass. And even though the subject matter or the way of painting, It's quite different compared to like Song dynasty. But they know like, uh, up until the 20th century, this way of handling Chinese painting with the space in the middle surrounded by landscapes is actually quite common to see. So I hope you understand this point and I'll hope to see you next time and we'll continue looking at the other four ways of appreciating Chinese paintings. See you next time. 5. III. Blank Space: Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. Today. Like to show you the third way of appreciating Chinese painting. Before that, we had talked about the first one which is opening, continuation, turning, and conclusion. And second way of looking at a painting is in circling composition. Now the third way is blank space. So have a look at this painting. This is by Judah. And he's a very well-known and actually pretty active a painter now in terms of the oxygens. So he is well-known in painting this kind of like emptiness. And you see like this pen is just like having one fish in the middle of the painting. And that's nothing more in terms of the setting. But then we can tell by just looking at the fish. We know that the fish must be swimming in the pond in a C. But this empty space is actually quite ambiguous. That gives you a lot of imagination. And this is actually very typical in Chinese painting. That with this emptiness actually gives you more space to imagine, to think, to ponder. Whether you, you don't know, whether, you know, the fishes actually in the sea and sky or actually floating in the air is kind of ambiguous. And this is what interesting about Chinese painting. Then here comes another example by Wu Guan Zhong, rather modern painter. And as you see it, like this is a colored painting. Even though he made use of some modern way of painting, Chinese architecture or Chinese scenarios. But we see here like this in the middle, that's like a river. That's quite anti. But then we can tell that it's a river by, by looking at the two sides, their houses. And then they're like boats in the middle. So we can tell in the middle, even though it's depicted as emptiness, empty, we can tell that this is a river. This is what is also interesting, like e.g. looking at the houses, the house itself, the walls are supposed to be concrete, but then the paint that actually depicted it as totally empty like without painting anything on it. But then on the roof, he painted like a really hot black ink that you can tell that this heaviness of the roof depicts or implies that it's a house. You can tell, even though the walls and not painted with this totally empty space, you can tell that it's kind of like using your common sense or using your imagination. That the whole picture is kind of like with a lot of breathing ways, brilliant breathing space. And it's very refreshing from my point of view. I hope you enjoyed this way of appreciating paintings. So I will see you next time and we'll continue to talk about the fourth way of how to look at Chinese paintings. See you next time. 6. IV. Two Mountains divided by Water: Hi everyone, Welcome back. Today we talk about the fourth way of how to look at Chinese painting. So let's take a look. So this is about two mountains divided by water. Let's have a look at this example. It's by shockwave. And I think previously in the second way of appreciating Chinese painting, we talk about encircling composition. And I used the example of my rent and my urine and shack where they are like forming a school, which is like a very well-known landscape painting school in Song dynasty. So let's take a look at this painting by shockwave. And you see like it's basically totally empty in terms of space that we can actually imply previously the way of appreciating Chinese painting using the blank space method. And you see like an in-between the mountains, between the front and the back does like a total emptiness here, which implies a river or sea. So the mountains are actually quite ambiguous because it only shows the top part of the mountain and underneath is totally empty. And then in-between the mountains does like an empty space, we can tell is the C because shag were actually depicted a boat in between. So just kind of like emptiness with two mountains divided. The water is actually a very typical composition in terms of Chinese landscape paintings. And let's take a look at another example. Here we see another painting by Nissan and enzymes from the Yuan dynasty. And he's actually well-known for his lens sick landscape paintings, which are like very quiet. And it's really good for audience to contemplate how to meditate this example. I use the most well-know example by this painter called the Six Gentlemen. And here you can see in the front, they are like six trees. In front of us. Then does like a socially empty space in the middle. And at the back see some mountains which are pretty far away from us. So again, here, the paint I used, the composition of two mountains, divided the water in the middle. And like to give you more information about this painting, because it's actually one of my favorites of all times that this paint appendages six trees, which actually resembles six gentlemen. And during his time, he was living in the Yuan dynasty, the dynasty and he was afraid or like the main dynasty would take over. So he actually compared to himself as one of the trees, as one of the gentlemen. Like, they're like looking to the opposite. The turbulence, the fluctuation fluctuate situation over that time. And with the water in-between as if they're trying to isolate themselves and to look at the current situation from a distance. So this is a pretty interesting painting. And as I said, this painting uses this composition which is very common during that time. And with this painting by Nissan is one of the very good example of showing this method. I hope we understand this way of interpreting Chinese painting. And I will see you next time. And now we'll talk about the fifth way of looking at Chinese paintings. See you next time. 7. V. Composing with Patches: Hi everyone, Welcome back. Today we talk about the fifth way of how to look at Chinese paintings. And this is about composing with patches. Let's take a look. I use the example of fun Quine, who is actually a very, one of the most important Chinese painters over the history of Chinese art. And this is a painting about travelers walking through the mountains and the streams. And you see this is like a pretty dark painting, you know, like with the mountains, very dominant mountains or the back. And the little figures actually walking in front of us. So we can actually use the previous ways of appreciating the painting. But here I like to talk about composing with patches, which is more dominant here for it somewhere. And the font, actually like with the figures and the trees, actually like forming the frontal part of the painting. And then in the middle there's like a kind of, again like an ambiguous space in the middle, which implies some flock that actually separated the frontal plane from the background. And at the back you see the very dominant Mountain, which is so high that relatively we can see the figures are just so tiny that this also actually implies the Chinese philosophy about the nature. It's just so huge. And we as human beings are just so tiny. And like in terms of instead of taking over nature, we should be part of nature and we should be united with nature. So this is a pretty good example of showing this way of thinking. And let me have, let me show you some close-up here. And as I said, in the front, you can see some tiny little animals walking slowly with the farmers. And then like here at the, also in the front, but like in the middle of the painting, you see some houses, some trees. And this is like very beautifully done. And it's a pretty good example to show how to compose a landscape painting in terms of patches. I hope you understand this way of looking at Chinese paintings. And I'll see you next time and to show you the last way of appreciating a Chinese painting. See you next time. 8. VI. The Hash-sign Composition: Hi, welcome back. Today we'll talk about the last way of how to look at Chinese painting. But before that, let's review what we have learned in the past few lessons. E.g. the first way is opening, continuation, turning, and conclusion. The second is encircling composition. The third is blank space. The fourth is to mountains divided by water. And last time we talked about composing with patches. This time, the sixth way, which is the last one here, is about the hash sign composition. So what is the hash sign compensation? Let's take a look. So when we talk about the hash sign is like we divide it into, we divided the painting into grids, into grid squares. So this painting, I used the example by Shen Joe, who is a painter from the Ming dynasty. And you see it, this painting is actually very, very good example of showing this hash sign. As just see like you can easily draw lines to divide the whole painting into grids. As you see from my cursor, is like, I can divide the painting to three horizontal sections. And then in the middle I can divide it into two halves. So like with the trees, with the inner landscape, with a figure and even the Colophon, the inscription also play a part in the painting, which is actually quite common in terms of Chinese painting because as I mentioned before, like Chinese paintings actually use empty space very often. And then in terms of how to fill the space to balance the whole visuals is actually sometimes we also use the colophons, the inscriptions, to also play a part in the composition. Here. We can take a look at the painting which was by her tangent. He was a rather modern painter and he died in 1977. But again, you can see with the hash sign technique, you see that in the painting can be divided into sections, into grids. And it's actually typical like e.g. here on the bottom left corner. This is the most frontal part with the little hut and above the mountain. And then on the right top corner you see the mountains, which is like really dominant here with a waterfall. And then opposite to wait, it's like really distant landscape, which is painted by rather diluted ink. And then on the top left corner, again we can see the inscription. Actually also feel the space. And it's actually, everything is so, even so balanced out with the use of hashtags. Hash design has signed technique that we can see the grids are actually quite even now. And I hope we understand this technique. And yes, so actually finished sharing with you the six ways of how to look at Chinese paintings. I hope you enjoy my course and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me. You can see from my slides, like you can WhatsApp e-mail and you can also find me on YouTube, the Chinese bond. And I hope you enjoy the whole course. And let me know if you have any questions. Please feel free to leave me a comment and I hope to see you soon.