CHINEESE ART

Han Dynasty  Era (206 BCE - 220 CE)

  •    During the era of Han Dynasty art a new, naturalistic outlook prevailed in figurative art.
  •    This is particularly evident in bronzes and in the pottery figures called ming-chi which people had buried with them in their graves.
  •  The Chinese believed in an afterlife and they liked to surround themselves with representations of familiar sights, particularly of those things which had given them pleasure on earth, such as dogs and horses, dancers and concubines.
  •  These figures enable us to know precisely how the subjects of the Han dynasty were dressed, what they ate, what tools they used, what games they played, the domestic animals they reared and the appearance of the houses in which they lived.
  •  Many of the figures were coated in a lead glaze; others were painted. All are interesting and their stylised elegance is often of arresting beauty.
  •  Bronze vases were made in quantity; so were bronze sculptures of men and horses, and these show the same stylised naturalism as the pottery figures.

Famous Contemporary Chinese Artists

Among the considerable number of talented painters and sculptors from the People's Republic of China, watch out for the following:
  •       Zhang Xiaogang (b.1958)
Currently number 5 in the 2008 list of the World's top contemporary artists, Zhang Xiaogang - one of the leaders of the Chinese Cynical Realism movement - is noted for his surrealist paintings, influenced by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali, as well as his "Bloodline" series of paintings, featuring formal monochrome portraits of Chinese subjects.



  •   Zeng Fanzhi (b.1964)

Currently number 6 in the list of the World's top contemporary artists, Zeng Fanzhi is noted for his figurative works executed in a combination of expressionism and realism, as well as his sequence of ironic Great Man paintings, which includes Mao, Karl Marx and Lenin among others.


  •     Yue Minjun (b.1962)

Currently number 7 in the list of the World's top contemporary artists, Yue Minjun is a leading member of the Chinese "Cynical Realist" school. He is noted for his bizarre and distinctive series of doppelganger painters.



  •  Wang Guangyi (b.1957)

Currently number 9 in the list of the World's top contemporary artists, the "political pop" artist Wang Guangyi mixes popular consumer logos with the style and aesthetic of communist agitprop propaganda posters. The Saatchi Gallery describes Wang Guangyi as a mixed media artist who adopts the Cold War language of the 1960s to explore the contemporary polemics of globalisation.


Metaphysical, Daoist Aspect
  •        Ever since the era of Prehistoric art, Chinese society - itself almost wholly agricultural or rural until the 20th century - has always placed great importance on understanding the pattern of nature and co-existing with it.
  •    Nature was perceived as the visible manifestation of God's creativity, using the interaction of the yin (female) and yang (male) life forces.
  •      The main aim of Chinese art - initially cantered on propitiation and sacrifice - soon turned to the expression of human understanding of these life forces, in a variety of art forms, including painting (notably that of landscapes, bamboo, birds, and flowers), pottery, relief sculpture and the like.
  •     The Chinese also believed that the energy and rhythm generated by an artist resonated closely with the ultimate source of that energy.
  •     They thought that art - especially calligraphy and painting - had the capacity to refresh the artist or to  retard him spiritually, according to the harmony of his practice and the character of the individual  himself.

Characteristics of Chinese Art  



Carved lacquer tray with two birds against a background of plum blossum and flowers, 19 cm wide, 13th century

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