Early Pictorial Art in China

Origin of Painting

• writing and painting have a strong relationship

• early writing in bones, turtle, ox, etc.

  • pictographic characters

• painting and writing had a divine origin

Functions

• recording of events

• religious content

• familial duty and filial piety

• political and didactic usage

  • loyalty, Confucian teachings

  • instructions for women

• narrative

• romanticism

• banner paintings for funerary purposes

• images accompanied by text, dependent on texts

Looking at Chinese Paintings

1. Format and material

2. Subject matter/narrative

3. Function of the painting

4. Collecting culture/History of the object

5. Patronage

6. Style: brushwork, colouring, technique, composition

7. Attribution and dating

Collecting

• Admonitions Scroll cut up and mounted by British Museum

  • 3 separate sections now

• seals by collectors -> show history of paintings

  • empty space covered by writing and seals 

  • colophons

• many different brush stroke styles