| The Northern and
Southern Song Dynasties was a proud era of Zhejiang because of its great
social and cultural developments. |
| In the
Northern Song Dynasty period, Zhejiang became the textile and dyeing
center where there were state-run Huzhou Damask Silk Workshop and Hangzhou
Textile Workshop, both of which were quite large. There were such famous,
beautiful and high-quality silk products like the White-sided Damask Silk
of Hangzhou, The Tribute Red-sided Silk of Wuzhou, the colorful silk of
Dongyan, the Temple Silk made by the nuns in Yuezhou and the joint-edged
thin silk of Muzhou. In the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the
Longquan kiln began to produce porcelains and formed its unique flavor of
the celadon. The Longquan porcelains usually adopted white or light gray
roughcasts. The surface was painted with violet-golden coatings that
turned out red later. With no decorative pads, no violet mouths and iron
feet, the porcelains produced in this period were called the Acient
Longquan. Its representative piece was The Longquan Kiln Five-tubed
Bottle, which displayed the scenery of four lovely ducklings paddling in a
pond in the Southern China region. |
| Hangzhou had become the national center
of the engraving printing. The woodcarving print developed fast and
illustrations of Buddhist scriptures were very popular which mainly
evolved from the single spell pictures to the preface pictures and in the
end to the vivid form of explanation about the religious figures, events
and tenets. The representative pieces were the Laughing Buddha (painted by
Gao Wenjin and engraved by the famous monk Zhi Li), Weishu Buddha and
Puxian Buddha. In the first picture, the Buddha hunkered straight on his
lotus flower seat and looked rather imposing and solemn. There were
attendants around him and flying apsarases above, all of whom were
delicately engraved. The latter two were a set, now in Japan's collection.
The single paged illustration, Sui In Pursuit of the Dharani Scripture,
was engraved in the year of 1001 by a Hangzhou native, Zhao Zongba. |
| The
rock cave josses of the Song dynasties adopted a true to life artistic
style that made the joss human-like. Among the rock cave josses of the
Flying Hill, the eighteen arhat figures (built in 1026) found in the Yuru
Cave were simple and humorous, chiseled according to the human's
expressions and with little temperament of immortals. The small josses
were popular then that were suitable for the worship in the adherents�
own houses, for example, the Gold-plating Bronze Joss and the Painted Joss
were delicate in the details of the figure and of typical flavor of the
Northern Song Dynasty. The Exquisite Silver Pagoda Model was one of the
well-reserved silver wares of the period that was made of thin silver pads
and plated with gold. It was made in 7 floors and inside it, there were
delicate sitting-josses. |
| The
zhejiang Qiantang native, Lin Bu (or Junfu, 967-1028) was a great
calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty. He was not interested in
politics and built his house on the Solitary Hill by the West Lake. He
planted plums and raised cranes, and regarded them as wife and son. The
emperor Song Renzong conferred him as Mr.Hejing after his death. He was
not only good at paintings but also the calligraphy, especially running
style. Huang Tingjian, the famous scholar gave him quite high praises. His
masterpiece was the Hand Written Poems, which, like all his other works,
was as upright as himself. Another calligrapher, Lu Jing (or Zilv, Yueren,
Shanzhen and Xingshu) was famous for his calligraphic pieces (especially
the regular style). His works could be found on the steles all over the
nation, as most scholars of the time, particularly Ou Yangxiu, would like
him to write their proud works down and had them inscribed for
preservation. The Hangzhou native Qian Xie (or Mufu, 1034-1097) imitated
the calligraphic skills of Ouyang Xun, Wang Xianzhi and was good at the
regular and running styles. The Quzhou native Liu Zhenfu(or Dechu,
1060-1116) was good at the running style that were fluent and
powerful.' |
| The two most famous painters of the
Northern Song Dynasty were Yan Wengui and Zhong Reng. The Wuxing native
Yan Wengui had been a veteran before known as a painter. After his
retirement from the army, he learned the painting skills from Hao Hui and
sold the painting on the street for a living. One day an official named
Gao Yi discovered his outstanding skills and recommended him to the court.
Soon he became one of the royal painters. His style was called 'Yan's
Scenery' which was represented by the works like Scenery from the
Jiangshang Building and Hazed Mountains and Water Palace Volume. Zhong
Reng (or the Huaguang Presbyter) was a famous monk then who was known for
his unique skills for painting the plums with inks. But the now-existing
Huaguang's Collection of Plums was probably a counterfeit finished by the
other people. |
| The
southward movement of the regime brought new opportunities for development
of Zhejiang handicraft industries such as pottery. The pottery production
of Southern Song Dynasty was conducted both in the official kiln and the
private kiln. One of the two official kilns, Xiu Nei Si, was located at
the foot of Mt. Phoenix in lin'an (the present Hangzhou) and was
customarily called the Nei (Internal) Kiln. It used orange colored mud for
material of the base, and featured crystal-clear ceramic glaze and fine
veins. 'They were typical violet-mouthed and iron-footed porcelains with
more or less pink in the cyan color and the veins were usually in the
shape of crab claws. ' (Cao Zhao, The Key To Ancient Style). The other
one, Jiao Tan Xia, was located at Mt. Turtle in the south suburb of
Hangzhou. The base mud was black or brownish black. The product was of
thin roughcast and thick glaze which was pinkish cyan or light greyish
tan. It copied the shape of bronze or jade wares. The product of official
kilns of Southern Song Dynasty had always been rare treasure. The most
distinctive characteristics of it were that it was of thin roughcast and
thick glaze; it had a violet opening and iron feet; and there were
ice-cracking veins all over its body. It did not fashion adornments except
the splitting veins, so it looked extremely pure and noble. Longquan
(dragon spring) kiln was the most famous of all private kilns. As it was
built by two brothers, it was divided into 'Ge (elder brother) kiln' an'Di
(younger brother) kiln' The former was decorated by various veins but the
latter was pure colored. In the last years of Southern Song Dynasty,
Longquan Kiln succeeded in producing pinkish cyan and plum cyan ones, thus
making Zhejiang celadon stay in the highest flight of the industry. The
masterpieces of Southern Song Dynasty works were the Three-Foot Incense
Burner, the Celadon Boat Shaped Water Receptacle For Inkstone and the
Phoenix Eared Vase. |
| Lin'an,
the capital of Southern Song Dynasty, was the center of the wood block
printing in the country. There were many workshops whose products were of
excellent qualities. Shuang Gua Tang workshop in Wuzhou (the present
Jinhua) was most famous for its wood block printing. The existing The Plum
And God produced here and compiled and drawn by Song Boren was the first
painting chart in the country. |
| The
royal and the noble of Southern Song Dynasty abandoned themselves in the
beautiful sceneries of Hangzhou and West Lake was known as a place to
squander money. They went in for large-scale construction and built many
pavilions and gardens around the lake. As it goes in a poem, the new
buildings stretched along and the solitary mountain was nowhere to be
found. Landscape gardening and architecture was greatly advanced, as there
were hundreds of them. It was in Southern Song Dynasty that the West Lake
Ten Scenic Spots were formed and continued to be famous until now. This
was the greatest achievement of West Lake landscape gardening. |
| People's
favorite among the rock cave statues on the Flying Mountain of Hangzhou
was always the Laughing Buddha. It was the masterpiece of Southern Song
statues with the Buddha leaving his chest and stomach uncovered and
lighting up merrily. |
| The
famous calligraphers of Southern Song Dynasty were Wu Shuo, Lu You and
Jiang Kui. Wu shuo was a versatile calligrapher. His regular script in
small characters was elegant indeed and was considered the best in Song
Dynasty. He also invented a new script called 'You Si (twining thread)'
with every stoke joining together in their tendency. According to Dong
Qichang, a talented calligrapher as he was, the emperor sighed in
appreciation when he saw Wu Shuo's works. His existing work was the
running hand cursive script Going To The Feast which was used as model for
training. Lu You (1125-1210) excelled at running hand cursive script and
regular script. He claimed to learn the cursive script from the Crazy
Zhang (Zhang Xu) and the running hand from Yang Ningshi. His works were
natural and imposing, especially the ones of his later years. He left
behind works like The Hardship and To Chengdu. Jiang Kui was also good at
running hand cursive script. His book Sequel to Calligraphy Collections
was a valuable theoretic monograph on the art as Jiang discussed such
subjects as the style, the movement of brush, the application of ink
separately in each chapter. |
| The
Southern Song Dynasty re-established the painting institute of the court
in Lin'an. The representative painters of the time were Li Tang, Liu
Songnian, Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, collectively called the 'four masters of
Southern Song Dynasty' |
| Li Tang
(about 1065-1146) arrived at Lin'an in about 1126. He used to conceal his
identity and sell his works on the street. But few people were able to
recognize his works. He expressed his depression in his poem, saying that
his painstaking efforts were in vain and he should have painted more
popular peony flowers had he known this. He was a versatile painter,
especially good at landscape. Emperor Gaozhong of Song Dynasty admired Li
Tang very much and said his works could be comparable to those of Li
Sixun's. His existing works were the landscape paintings Pines In The
Vally, Mini Scenery Of Jiangshan, Fisher Hermit In Clear Brook and figure
paintings King Wengong Restore Jin Regime and Picking Wild Peas. The
latter two professed his devotion to his country. The other three painters
of the 'four masters of Southern Song Dynasty' were heavily influenced by
him. |
|
Pines In The Vally, by Li
Tang -> |
 |
| Liu
Songnian lived at the Qingbo (clear wave) Gate of Qiantang. The gate was
customarily called 'An Men (hidden gate)', so he was also known as 'An Men
Liu' He was good at both landscape and figure. In his works Four Great
Generals Of The Resurgence and Meeting At Bian Bridge To Form Alliance, he
expressed his objection to surrender to the Jin Group. He often put
landscape of the beautiful River South together with figures to show the
refined life of the nobilities, such as in his immortal work Four
Sceneries. He followed and further developed Li Tang's style to be precise
and elegant. His Arhat was remarkable in composition and the figure seemed
alive and vigorous with clothes swaying in the wind. |
| Ma Yuan
was born in Qiantang and stayed in the city all his life. He often focused
on one part of the scenery for the viewers to associate with the rest, so
his composition of the paintings was unique and simple. Li Tang was the
pioneer in developing Southern Song Dynasty's style, but he did not break
away from the influence of Northern Song Dynasty. It was Ma Yuan who
completely abandoned full landscape composition of the previous dynasty
and offered something brand new and fresh. Trip In Songs was the
representative of his landscape paintings. He was so tactful in shaping
things that he could even draw the shapeless water. His Water was lively
and flowing. His Plum, Stone, Brook and Mallard was full of poetic
conceptions with flower and bird placed in natural scenes. He also
produced works like Seeing Plum In The Snow, Feast Under Dazzling
Lanterns, Two Aigrettes On Snowy Beach and Fisher Hermit On Autumn
River. |
|
Trip In Songs, by Ma Yuan
-> |
 |
| Xia Gui
formed his distinctive style though under Li Tang influence. He always
painted rivers and lakes in cloudy, snowy, misty and rainy days. Like Ma
Yuan, he liked to compose only half of the scenery and apply swift
light-ink strokes, but Xia Gui excelled at naturalness. While painting, he
would always do water ink first followed by jet-black ink so that the
lines and ink became one integrated mass and looked boundless. He never
used the ungraduated ruler to help him so he had his shapes of the
buildings and landscapes at his fingertips and painted with facility. 'He
was of great renown and the comparable to Li Tang,' commented by Xia
Wenyan's Appreciation of Paintings. Xia Gui's Living In The Misty Valley,
Guest At Pined Cliff, and Mist In Remote Hills were all small landscape
works with poetic quality. His The Thousand-li Yangtze River was most
impressive for its magnificent vigor and inexhaustible associations. His
Enchanting Brooks And Hills was about nine meters' long, which showed the
rare beauty of Zhejiang landscape. The Twelve Scenes Of The River was one
of his master works, being free and natural in composition. It portrayed
the twelve different scenes of the river from dawn to dusk. Unfortunately,
only four scenes left till now. He used to portray the hazy and beautiful
view of West Lake in his Willow and Boat on West Lake. Xia Gui's works
were graceful and rich in the sentiment of the scholar's paintings of Song
Dynasty. |
| In
addition to these 'four masters of Southern Song Dynasty', Zhejiang
painting circle produced many other important painters, such as Xiao Zhao,
Ma Hezhi, Jiang Can, Lin Chun, Li Song, Ma Lin, Zhao Mengjian, Fa Chang
and Chenlin. All of them marked their names in the history of painting.
The Southern Song Painting Institute was in existence for more than a
hundred years, leaving behind many precious works as well as one glorious
chapter in the history of Zhejiang fine arts.
| |
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