Asian Art Terms – China

artifacts

man-made objects

earthenware / stoneware / pottery

objects made out of clay and fired at low temperatures

slip / glaze

semiliquid clay, used to join clay elements

naturalistic / abstract

a style that accurately represents reality and nature / a style that rejects the accurate representation of reality and nature

grave goods

objects buried with a body for its sustenance in the afterlife

relief / registers

design elements that project forward from the surface / vertical level

animistic / anthropomorphic / zoomorphic

a belief that everything has a soul or spirit / human characteristics applied to objects, gods, or animals / gods representing animal forms

divination / mandate of heaven

A traditional Chinese practice used to seek guidance from the gods or ancestors, often associated with the idea that rulers derive their authority from divine approval.

lacquer

heated sap of the lacquer tree

fengshui

“wind and water”

tumulus

funerary mound

material culture

objects suggestive of the culture of a particular group

patron

someone who funds a work of art

Confucianism / Daoism / Buddhism

Confucianism: teachings of Confucius, encourage people to respect not only their own positions within social hierarchy but also those of others / Daoism: values nature and teaches that the world does not revolve around people / Buddhism: teachings of the Buddha and overcoming suffering to achieve a state of enlightenment

handscroll / hanging scroll / album leaf

a horizontal paper or silk / a vertical painting format / small painting included as a leaf

calligraphy

the art of writing

seal / colophon

artist’s mark stamped on a painting / inscription mounted after a painting (poems)

blue-green landscape

an art style

space-cell

empty space in a painting

murals / stele

a wall painting / carved stone slab for graves

burial substitute

a symbolic objet buried in a tomb

bodhisattvas / arhat / apsara

enlightened beings

sutra / mandorla

sacred scriptures / halo

hieratic scale

a practice of depicting elements as large or small depending on their relative importance

genre

a subject category in art

provenance

history of ownership

pagoda

sacred buildings/temples

post-and-beam / bracket

technique to construct buildings with vertical posts and horizontal beams / structural elements to support the roof

mineral pigments

stone or plant-based colors

landscape

elements of mountains and water

Dong-Ju tradition / Li-Guo tradition

landscape painting style featuring hemp-fiber stokes and alum lumps / landscape painting style featuring mountain rides, trees with crab-claw branches, and a level of distance

Ma-Xia school

group of painters with a landscape style of one-corner composition and axe-cut strokes

hemp-fiber strokes / ax-cut strokes

long, ropy brushstrokes layered on each other

blue-green style / ruled-line style / plain-outline style

handscroll paintings

one-corner composition

painting heavily on one of the bottom corners and leaving the other corner with negative space

mandate of heaven

heaven grants the ruler the right to rule

literati

educated scholarly officials who serve in the government

literary name / courtesy name

literary endeavors / adulthood name

earthenware / stoneware / porcelain

porous clay fired at low temperatures / harder, non-porous clay fired at high temperatures / fine white ceramic fired at very high temperatures that gives it a translucent surface

glaze / underglaze / overglaze

liquid applied after the first firing to give it a smooth and glossy finish / applied to ceramic before glazing / decoration applied after glaze

Zhe-school / Wu-school

professional painters working in Zhejiang during the Ming dynasty / a group of painters working in Suzhou during the Ming dynasty

Mi family style

landscape painting style featuring wet ink dots to give it a hazy landscape

hemp-fiber stroke

long, ropy brushstrokes for texture

boneless / splashed ink

wet ink and pigment without outline / splashing ink

orthodox / unorthodox

traditional style of painting / not traditional

appropriate

adopting images into their own works to recontextualize the image

patronage

funds a work of art

media / genre

form of art is made / subject category of art

woodblock print

carved wooden blocks

relief

design elements that project forward from the surface

stele

carved stone slab with inscriptions or images for graves

facade

the front of a building

socialist realism

propaganda to promote communism

abstraction

inaccurate representation of the world

abstract expressionism

art movement of non-traditional art methods to promote spontaneity

zen

simplicity through meditation

glazed-stoneware

fired at high temperatures to create hard stoneware