First of all, do you know what the "Top Ten Famous Paintings in China" are?
They are "Luoshen Futu", "Qingming Upper River Map", "Fuchun Mountain Residence Map", "Han Palace Chunxiao Map", "Baijun Map", "Step Map", "Tang Palace Lady Figure", "Five Bulls Chart", "Han Xizai Night Feast Map" and "Thousand Mile River and Mountain Map".
As a Chinese, if you don't know enough about your art, let alone cultural self-confidence.
So, how wonderful is the ancient Chinese aesthetic?
Gu Kaizhi's "Luoshen Futu", fei ruo hong, wan like a dragon;
Zhang Zeduan's "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty", complex but not chaotic, fascinating;
Wang Ximeng's "Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is majestic and majestic...
Whether it is the flag-raising outfit of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, or the "Only This Green" of this year's Spring Festival Gala, they all cleverly borrow from the genius teenager Wang Ximeng's legendary masterpiece "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
Our aesthetics, stages, makeup, architecture, advertising and various national fashion designs, there are countless cultural and artistic treasures worth excavating.
The aesthetic awakening of the younger generation of Chinese people may have begun with the appreciation of traditional Chinese art.
The "Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art" recommended by Ah Xin today is a general art reading book written by Professor Yang Qi of Tsinghua University to the public. Huanghuang paintings, elegant inheritance, into the 24 dynasties and 5,000 years of beauty.
A book that establishes systematic theoretical knowledge of ancient painting.
24 dynasties, 50 masters, 300 classic masterpieces
Take a stroll through the Chinese aesthetics
Chinese art is a great monologue of the national spirit, and Chinese aesthetics that have been precipitated for thousands of years should have been carried forward long ago.
As netizens appealed: we should have been a "nation with the confidence of beauty".
Regain cultural self-confidence and start by learning about traditional Chinese art.
For many non-art professionals, this book is an excellent introductory edition that serves as a first lesson in the history of Chinese art.
Taking the dynasty as the axis, from prehistory to modern times, it involves many categories of works: rock paintings, pottery patterns, court paintings, landscape paintings, figure paintings, genre paintings, flower and bird paintings... Systematically grasp the basic concepts of fine arts and cultivate traditional aesthetics.
24 dynasties, 50 masters, 300 classic masterpieces, in the book, stroll through a 5,000-year cultural and artistic journey.
(Exclusive gift of "Chinese Art History Guide" poster original pull page, selecting the most representative works of each period, a picture to grasp the artistic characteristics of 5,000 years)
The book departs from the Xia Shang Zhou and uses bronze to ring the beginning of the liturgical music.
Passing through the Qin and Han Dynasties, and then strolling to the epoch-making Wei and Jin Dynasties in the history of Chinese art, painting began to change from slight to refined, with qualitative changes - looking at Gu Kaizhi's "Writing Gods in Shapes", looking at the beginning of landscape painting, and seeing the introduction of Buddhist art.
Coming to the peak of the Tang Dynasty, the art is also brilliant and beautiful - look at Wu Daozi's "Eighty-Seven Immortal Scrolls", sweeping the pen, like a whirlwind; see the Sinicized Dunhuang flying sky, the clothes are fluttering, elegant and beautiful; look at the court figure paintings, Tang Dynasty ladies pink makeup jade, rich and beautiful...
Then came the Song Dynasty, the golden age of art, where landscape painting, flower and bird paintings became dominant; Song Huizong, who was "the quiet of art, the crown of ancient and modern", had a high degree of achievement in calligraphy and painting.
The literati of the Ming Dynasty took the Yuan Si as the object of study, and later became the "Wu School" of the literati painting tradition.
The struggle between the four monks and the four kings of the Qing Dynasty, the collision of Chinese and Western art, and finally to modern times, ushered in the rebirth of traditional painting.
It can be said that the book "Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art" provides a panoramic bird's eye view of 24 dynasties, systematically sorting out the whole context of the development of art, not only the macro historical background, but also the life deeds of famous artists, and a three-dimensional tour of the whole picture of Chinese art history.
Five thousand years of accumulated cultural treasures are to be carefully excavated in the book.
In art
Discover the spiritual pursuit and aesthetic belonging of the Chinese people
Why should we appreciate traditional Chinese art?
Because they are not only art, but also the spiritual pursuit and philosophical precipitation Chinese for thousands of years.
Understanding Chinese art is like returning to the spiritual hometown of Chinese, which is our unique romance.
The mountain is quiet for a long time, walk to the water's poor place, sit and watch the clouds rise. Travel through the landscape paintings of thousands of gullies, admire the beautiful scenery, and find a piece of tranquility in life.
In Western aesthetics, precision, proportion and rhythm are important.
However, in the Chinese aesthetic world, mysteriousness, blankness, artistic conception, vivid charm, and the unity of heaven and man are the highest destination of beauty.
"In the splashed ink landscape painting, you are hidden from the depths of the ink color."
Chinese painting is not only an expression of art, but also reflects the spiritual cultivation and wisdom of the ancient literati. Only by appreciating painting can we further enhance our understanding of Chinese cultural heritage.
From the Paleolithic rock paintings, you can see the prayer for the harmony of heaven and man, from the Dunhuang murals, you can see the Buddhist spirit of compassion for the world, and from the landscape paintings, you can see the feelings of the literati who are high and far-reaching...
Wang Wei 《Jiang Gan Xue Ji Tu》
For example, in Wang Wei's landscape paintings, there are no mountains and ravines, rapids and shoals, but horizontal mountain shows and cross-water fishing villages. It's like a person sitting quietly on the shore, looking at the faint distant mountains, quietly near the water, no trouble, no anger, no sorrow.
The best description is probably Wang Wei's poem - "Lonely smoke under the mountain, a lonely village, a single tree plateau in the sky."
Reading his verses, it was as if I saw a fascinating painting. Admiring his paintings, it is as if you are savoring a poem with endless charm.
"Qi", "rhyme" and "vividness" are all somewhat mysterious in themselves, which cannot be measured by scale and have no precise proportions. But this is the philosophical pursuit of the ancients.
As Mr. Ye Lang said: "If you don't grasp the 'vivid rhyme', it is impossible to grasp the classical Chinese aesthetic system." ”
Ma Yuan, "Ta Ge Tu"
Only by reading the vivid rhyme, understanding the virtual reality, reading the blank space, and understanding Chinese art can we truly enter the Chinese poetic aesthetic.
Up and down five thousand years, what is beauty? What is Premium?
The ultimate romance of Chinese is hidden in the ancient masters and their works.
Gu Kaizhi, Yan Liben, Zhang Xuan, Zhou Fang, Zhan Ziqian, Li Sixun, Li Zhaodao, Gu Hongzhong, Wang Wei, Jing Hao, Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Zhao Tuo, Huang Gongwang, Zhang Zeduan, Ni Zhan, Xu Wei, Tang Bohu, Bada Shanren, Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi...
These familiar and unfamiliar names and their works are quietly there, waiting for our visit and acquaintance with us.
Thousands of years of Chinese art creation, the inheritance is orderly, dazzling, beautiful.
Colorful pottery with fish on the face, colorful bronzes, clumsy and full of portrait bricks and portrait stones, vivid character paintings of Wu Daozi, vivid paintings of flowers and birds by Zhao Yao, brilliant and splendid paintings of green landscapes by Wang Ximeng, ink landscape paintings of Ni Zhan, all the way to the modern era of Xu Beihong's Chinese and Western fusion and Qi Baishi's new creation of traditional painting. These works, broad and profound, have almost become the consensus of Chinese and foreign art theorists.
To understand the history of Chinese art is to understand the aesthetic language and aesthetic beliefs engraved in the genes of Chinese.
Boutique binding
A beautiful book worth collecting and gifting
China in fine arts is both elegant and distant, solemn and magnificent, from which you can feel the aesthetic taste of Chinese connection between ancient and modern times, and also see the creativity of Chinese endless beauty.
But many times, when we want to understand the history of Chinese art, it is always easy to be trapped in scattered concepts: landscapes, brushes, flowers and birds, literati, courts, ink paintings, green and so on, lost in the vast theory of Chinese art history.
The author Yang Qi is a professor in the Department of Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, and has long been committed to the popularization of popular art, hoping that traditional art can be valued by the Chinese people.
Through his teaching practice in recent decades, he has explored a systematic and efficient approach. In this book, Professor Yang Qi not only quotes the scriptures, hooks and sinks the xuan essentials, but also supplements it with the history of wild anecdotes, and uses vivid and dexterous language to give readers a general knowledge lesson in the history of Chinese art.
The binding of this book is also absolutely beautiful.
The cover is made of high-grade paper, transparent and thin, and the front and back patterns overlap and reflect the beauty of art.
When the cover is unfolded, it is a poster.
The inner seal is Chinese red, and the beauty of the classics can be seen. The graceful silhouette on the inner seal is like calling for a dialogue that travels through time and space.
The inner page is made of ivory white, restoring the classical Chinese rhyme.
High-definition pictures are presented in large scales, and important works have also added detail drawings, immersive appreciation of colors, lines, composition, and meaning, and added painting size comparison drawings to the book.
Who knows, in front of the "Map of the Upper River of the Qingming Dynasty", it has become "petite"?
What is the scene of Tang Dynasty masterpieces such as "Step Map", "Lady Yu Chun Tu", "Lady Of the Hairpin Flower", "Emperor Map of Past Dynasties", "Ming Emperor Xingshu Map" and so on appear on one screen at the same time?
The book also presents an exclusive limited edition folding poster, with "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" on the front and a guide to Chinese art history on the back, selecting the most representative works of each period. Observing from time to time, a picture grasps the characteristics of five thousand years of art.
Professor Yang Qi wrote in the afterword:
When you finish reading this book, are you not only proud of the yesterday of Chinese painting, but also full of confidence in the tomorrow of Chinese painting? If this is the case, it is called artistic confidence. This book also fulfills its mission.
Understand Chinese art and return to the spiritual homeland of Chinese.
Not only green, inherit traditional culture, regain cultural self-confidence, wait for us to move forward hand in hand.
Thousands of years of art creation in China
The legacy is orderly and beautiful
Read Chinese art
It is to understand the aesthetic language of Chinese
-End-
2022.3.25
Edit: Yoyo | Audit: Cellur