Maritime scenes of JMW Turner

What is it about the open sea that fixates mariners in the face of endless emptiness? Or aviators that choose to roam the boundless skies where not mark can fetter the human spirit? The French Revolution in recent memory men's minds had become unfettered in a new age where the Romantic Hero cut a lonely but righteous path in pursuit of the ideal. With the inspirational writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who outlined the principles of political right in his famed 'Social Contract', change was necessary to help man free himself from the tyranny of oppression and live an enlightened life of reason. In England great writers saw that change was necessary albeit with a constitutional and liberal political nature rather than the current French radical extremity. In literature in this period writers like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and William Wordsworth attempted to take the positive elements of the vast social and political changes of the age of the French Revolution and take it's theme further as a cause to change the lot of the poor classes in society. In the arts painters emerged to portray the same ideals of a more subtle change to mold a new society without all the upheavals of revolution.  Painters like the English JMW Turner, French Eugene Delacroix and Spanish Francisco de Goya all explored the subject of man set within his landscape and his efforts to express his individuality.

Joseph Mallord William Turner is once such uniquely talented artist who would capture the very expression of the Infinite as he sought to identify the relationship of man with the forces of nature around him within the settings of his Romantic Era inspired landscapes.

Self Portrait - JMW Turner c. 1799. J. M. W. The great English Romanticist landscape painter, water-colourist, and print-maker. Born: April 23, 1775, Covent Garden, London, Died: December 19, 1851, Cheyne Walk, London, Buried: St Paul's Cathedral, City of London, United Kingdom. On view at the Tate Gallery, United Kingdom.

From a very young age JMW exhibited a precious talent with his first know compositions made at the age of 11, c. 1786, in the small town of Margate on the Kent Coast. In a series of sketches and watercolors with scenes of Kent and Oxford the child artist attempted his first perspectives which became the basis for the success of his more mature works near the approach of the turn of the century in the year 1800.

Calais Pier - JMW Turner c. 1803.

Calais Pier c. 1803 is an oil on canvas. JMW Turner draws his  inspiration from a real life event that occurred in 1802 when he took his first trip abroad via Calais. Absolutely petrified by the crossing experience the young artist spoke of his boat 'nearly swampt' by rough seas and high waters. Turner in a moment would have been staring right into the heart of Death as the forces of nature would unleash their violence upon him; and he would have felt utterly helpless as the waters tossed the boat leaving his at the mercy of the veyr elements. In this scene the boat is mercifully arriving at Calais but is still surrounded by over-cast and threatening skies and dominated by the dark and seething swollen seas. But above the raging storm high above there is a glimmer of hope and the piercing ray of light signals optimism. Man is helplessly flung across the infinite but through the entire experience in the artist's mind the human spirit is elevated through the ordeal as a greater Infinite reaches out from above. The National Gallery. London.

The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory c. 1806.

Here we have a Romantically inspired theme off heroism and patriotism as JMW Turner celebrates the British naval victory over the French at Trafalagar. The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory c. 1806. Oil on canvas. Heroic celebration of Admiral Lord Nelson, who commanded HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars and whose famous last words were: 'Thank God I have done my duty'. Tate Gallery

 Shoeburyness Fishermen Hailing a Whitstable Hoy C. 1809.

Shoeburyness Fishermen Hailing a Whitstable Hoy C. 1809. Oil on canvas, which forms part of a series of paintings of the Thames estuary painted between 1808 and 1810. JMW Turner fixation with the unruliness of the elements becomes the theme. The sheer size of the infinite waters may be over-whelming. Man, often powerless in the face of the gods, may struggle, but do so heroically. The boat struggles with it's balance above a foaming white crest with an approaching squall descending in dark colors and emphasizing the helplessness of man in the face of a wrathful storm. But there is hope that man can master his machinery and may yet escape a watery fate. National Gallery, Canada.

A Ship Aground c. 1828.

A Ship Aground c. 1828. Oil on canvas. Once again Turner tackles the helplessness of mankind before the wrath of stormy seas at Brighton, England. The theme of man's relationship with nature becomes a dominating theme of the period of Romanticism. Tossed in dark, turbid waters the vessel seems forlorn, yet Turner portrays a shimmering skyline offering hope to the desperate whose prayers ascend unto a parting sky. The Tate Galllery.

The Sea Rescue Scene c.1831.

The Sea Rescue Scene c. 1831. Oil on canvas; is a theme of struggle against the elements. A lifeboat is about to set off to relieve a stranded vessel that is signaling lights of distress. There is a power almost fixating as we observe nature at it's most violent force. Dark, brooding, hues of greys and blues envelop the viewer as seething foam at the feet seem ominous to despair. But the opening skies to the right suggest that after the storm comes the calm and the Romantic hero must learn to struggle against the elements with even greater hope to reaching the calm towards the end. Victoria and Albert London.

 The Fighting Temeraire - JMW Turner c. 1839.

The Fighting Temeraire c. 1839. Oil on canvas; is an English naval theme of broken nostalgia. In 1838 The vessel ' Fighting Temeraire' was being tugged to her last berth to be broken up,her service done and complete. The 98-gun ship played a heroic role in Lord Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 for which she earned her distinguished name. Turner held Napoleon in contempt and in this work bemoans the decline of British naval power already by the 1830's. Thick strokes of cloud and sea contrast fine details of the vessel. The National Gallery.

The slave ship c. 1840

 

The slave ship c. 1840. Oil on canvas; is a terrifying, swirling maelstrom of helplessness set against a shimmering backdrop of yellows and greys. Turner evoking a powerful sense of overwhelming despair as the seething waters toss and turn the hapless and solitary vessel, On view Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, USA

Burial At Sea - JMW Turner c.1842

Burial At Sea - c. 1842. Oil on canvas depiction of the burial at sea of Turner’s friend, the artist David Wilkie. Sombre, dark tones of oils mixed within the cool, shadowy waters contrasts with the lighter tints of the heavenly skies. There is a quiet, momentary dignity in the artist's death as the funerary sail heads on into the distance. A wonderful contrast of form and color through the understanding of the finality of life and the hopes that lie beyond. The Romantic hero has lived the journey and expressed his individuality with the highest expression of spirit.

In conclusion through the eyes of JMW Turner the individual rises to heroism and in that struggle defines himself through the elevation of the spirit to reach a higher state of being by accepting the forces of nature and learning to grapple with those wild elements so as to seek a balance and harmony in tempest or calm. Man is a pitiable creature; his emotions as wild as the wind, as unruly as the storm but as boundless as the open skies and vast oceans; he is himself, and his heart, in accepting his weaknesses, finds peace within itself to renew the struggle with a new spirit and yet claim for himself a final peace and higher definition of himself. The infinite oceans and boundless skies are indeed challenges, but JMW Turner know his man and has faith in the sensibility of man to rise above those difficulties and change himself and society around him. There are no serene pastoral solutions and a placid state of grace to surround the Romantic hero with vestiges of permanence. Vast open seas and immense heavenly landscapes are but images of the journey that lies ahead for man.


Themes in fine art - Pieter Bergli

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A Journey of Art from European Neo-classicism to Modern Surrealism

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, b. 535 BC. d. 475 BC, who once said "Everything changes and nothing stands still" quote from Plato, b. 427 BC d. 347 BC in the dialogues of 'Cratylus'. Men's minds shall always resemble a state of flux. One could not expect the humanity of our lives to come to complete and utter standstill. In all aspects of life experiences will change as the progress of human knowledge marches on inexorably.

Bust of Heraclitus - Victoria and Albert Museum, UK

It is hard to imagine that it was a mere three hundred years ago when Europe groped around for a new philosophical grounding to balance the old ways of culture and religious tradition with the new creed of rational inquiry and reasoning. Mankind would always portray it's contemporary ethos through the medium of the present. Thus from Medieval tapestry to Renaissance canvas the story of mankind would evolve with a philosophy to imitate life through the medium of art. Great painters of such order and symmetry of meaning graced many stately homes in the 18th century across Europe. With the likes of the great portrait painters like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and George Romney the world of art was orderly and intelligible. But how the world of art came to stand on it's own head with a revolution of subject matter in such a short space of time; for men indeed through social, philosophical and eventual political revolution began to see the chaos of the mind as the integral facet of his Romantic relationship with nature around him. So short was the period of change where art begot it's own life and rendered its imitative ability to dysfunction. Yet, sweeping changes were inevitable.  Prior to the industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, European society as a whole and it's art professed rigid rules of delineation as ancient Roman and Greek Classical traditions would inspire a Neo-Classical influence that would dominate a Europe grasping for a solid foundation to rest upon after years of European armed conflict and religious struggle. The British architect Inigo Jones b. 1573 - d. 1652 would translate the Roman edicts of Marcus Vitruvius c. b.70 BC. 15 BC, to inspire a Neo-Classical movement in architecture with Roman symmetry, elegance and poise, such as in the buildings of Banqueting House, Whitehall and Wilton House, Wiltshere, UK. In the field of science Sir Isaac Newton b. 1642 d. 1726 compiled the new order of the universe with his publication of the 'Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica' 1687. A structured order of society was the foundation for art as expressed in familiar landscape and figure themes such as the painting of 'Mr and Mrs Andrews' by Thomas Gainsborough in 1750.

Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough in 1750

In the eyes of the European Literati in the 18th Century art was the finest imitation of life in the true Aristotelian sense. Yet others decried the stifling oppression of order without the flexibility of men's minds to grow as a tree would stretch it's branches to the sky. Jean-Jacques Rousseau b. 1712 d. 1778 would cry that "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are." With the publication of the 'Du contrat social' 1762 eventually L'Ancien Régime was swept aside in a bloody French Revolution of 1789 and Europe itself was torn apart with war and changes as Napoleon Bonaparte marched all over to announce the political ending of the Divine Right's of Kings.

Freedom of spirit everywhere at the turn of the 19th Century saw the liberation of men's minds and the arrival of a new breed of artist like JMW Turner b.1775 d.1851 and Eugene Delacroix b. 1798 - 1863. The Romantic movement became art's own revolution against the stodgy Period paintings of seemly order and tidiness. The great English painter JMW Turner transformed the genre of landscape with the transplant of the human spirit to the very canvas itself as if to re-enact Mary Shelley's ghastly but inevitable pondering over the origins of life and man's own role as a pro-creator in her novel Frankenstein published in 1818. Man was no longer part of the environment but the architect of the environment and art took upon itself the breath of life on canvass as if through a divine act of creation to give the canvas it's very own soul. Mankind was no longer the hopeless, hapless and fatalistic creation. Mankind would struggle against the forces of nature; and whether he succumbs or thrives, he would do so of his own choosing in an order of universe that he himself chooses to impose at his own volition from the sentiments of his own heart.

Slaveship by JMW Turner 1840

From the turn of the 19th Century to 1870's Europe saw great economic success as the Industrial revolution harnessed the positive aspects of it's own ingenuity to build machines and implement it's own story of productivity and wealth. From the English philosopher Adam Smith and his ground-breaking book 'The Wealth of Nations', published in 1776, came the philosophical guideline of economy and the inspiration for the European nations to embark upon a process of Industrialization that would rapidly empower the middle classes with a newly found mercantile wealth. The industrial Revolution inevitably paved the way for the birth of a new school of artists, mostly French, who came to be known collectively as the Impressionists with a new emphasis upon changes in subject and technique to enforce reality on an art against the final vestiges of the idealism of the 18th century.

The Impressionist movement in the late 19th century arose in Paris with a growing rebellion of painting subject matter and style and use of color right down even to the use of brush stroke to reinvigorate spontaneity against the rigid, tedious monotony of 18th century portraits and landscapes. Brought to fame by a series of exhibitions in the 1870's a new radical group of artists with the likes of Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh signaled a break in European painting style to herald the birth of the modern era in art. According to the new group of artists, in essence art was essentially a snapshot in time of a sensation come and gone in a fleeting moment; art was no longer the laborious craft of detail taking the concept of realism beyond and into the levels of absurdity. Instead, the new artistic interpretation was vibrant, full of color and full of sensation very much like the optical distortions perceived when squinting the eyes at the mid-day sun. In this sense Impressionist paintings of landscapes, street scenes and groups of people began to portray the true humanity captured for a single second within a blur of delightful color; not the stolid unbalanced poise of 18th century dictum and decorum that rendered landscapes and figures into allegorical irrelevance to the modern era.

Springtime by Claude Monet 1872

In the painting of Monet above, Springtime 1872, notice how the  beautiful combination of brush stroke and color enforces a shimmering effect of light upon subject matter. The effect of light and shadow almost creates the concept of 3D and volume of space which became a ground breaking technique of the Impressionists that brings a refreshing life to the form of art.

The turn of the 20th century was dark and foreboding. In the 19th century the Industrial Revolution had mechanized economies and created huge amounts of wealth. Inevitably the new wealth translated into military power and as the European nations clambered to secure commodity resources across the globe,global conflict would come to bear on a scale never witnessed before. In the world of art the gaiety of Impressionism was fast receding as men's minds turned to darker thoughts that urban poverty would reveal as the Industrial Revolution began to show it's darker and uglier side with the misery of the working poor.  Spanish painter Pablo Picasso b. 1881 d. 1973. portrayed the depression of man in his 'Blue Period' through 1901 to 1904 as he studied the melancholy of those who became lost in this new world insensitive to the needs of man.

la Vie by Pablo Picasso 1903

To this new age of industrial poverty some artist's began to recoil inward and introspectively; questioning those around them but more importantly questioning their very selves and the entire reason for being with elevated spiritual searching for the meaning of human life. As the first French Impressionists and their artistic  revolution in the 1870's threw out the stolid works of former masters, the liberation of the artist's mind at the turn of the 20th century began to dwell upon more changes to reflect the growing disparity of rich and poor and new issues in society that could become reflected through the eyes of the artist. Sudden changes once again swept through Europe towards another sensational break with the emergence of Cubism as an artistic movement and once again with it's heart set in fair Paris. Led by the influential Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and other painters like the French, Georges Braque, the hold on men's minds suddenly began to unravel as artists began to assess the critique of the subconscious and it's role in the creativity of the artist.  Agasp at the unveiling of the ground breaking cubist painting 'Nude Descending a Staircase No 2.' by the French artist Marcel Duchamp in 1912 the public at large realized that there were no more bars to where the mind could explore the form of art at all it's levels of spirituality and dismantle the very core of humanity to a series of essential building blocks.

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 Marcel Duchamp 1912

The 1920's to 1930's in Europe saw the bankruptcy of Germany in the aftermath of WWI and the rise of Fascist an Communist forces at loggerheads with contrasting ideologies. Amidst the growing sense of social chaos the revolution of 'cubism' in art would now fork into 2 different directions with some artists decrying the loss of the human identity and other artists seeking to explore and lay bare the inner workings of the human persona.

Alberto Giacometti, b. 1901 d. 1966, the Swiss Italian artist began to despair of modern Europe and the destruction that war had brought upon it's lands. With increasing tension his art transformed itself from the sense to the senseless, the defined form to the formless as yet another Word at War decimated modern Europe and increased his own Existentialist perception that the journey of mankind was to result in the inevitable declassification and deconstruction of the human persona; a bewildering and dismaying thought process portrayed in the a 5ft 10 bronze cast sculpture 'Walking Man' of 1947 with the aftermath of WWII.

Walking Man by Alberto Giacometti 1947

With contemporary art after WWII expressing the eventual loss of humanity through Giacometti and the world of Existentialists, by contrast, the peculiar and flamboyant Spanish artist named Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí, b. 1904 d. 1989 sought to expand upon the panoply of human emotion rather than to diminish it's form in art. Dalí sought to dissect the human personality and spread out every working component of emotion to lay it bare for examination on canvas within an art movement that came to be known as Surrealism. Born to a middle-class family at the turn of the century Dalí became exposed to the political turmoils of European nations at an early impressionable age but did not shrink back into denial at it's revulsion; rather he sought to expose it's emotions for the viewer to decide upon the virtue or absence of humanity. With World War I, the bankruptcy of Germany and the rise of communism in Europe and Spain, Dalí began to draw upon attentive social experiences and reflect upon those experiences to start the Surrealism content of his own inner mind.

Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape by Salvador Dalí 1934

'Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape' 1934 showed the first seeds of the genius of Surrealism. This piece is rumored to have been painted in one sitting without interruption and portrays the artist's idol: the artist Jan Vermeer with a child thought to represent Dali set within Surrealistic plain of brilliant sky, blinding sands and a shady dwelling by cypress trees. 

Once again ,

Printemps Necrophilique by Salvador Dalí1936

'Printemps necrophilique' painted in 1936 portrays the mind of the painter beleaguered by a Spain that was roiling in political turmoil and civil war. Dali sought to uniquely portray the consciousness of illusion and pin his emotions  to the canvas. Here a seated man in languid poise stares into the sheer emptiness of the bare sands as a flower headed woman balances the insanity of the unbalanced mind and  offers a lifeline of hope to grasp the traditions of the agricultural lands with an olive tree distinguishing and separating reality from the mentally disturbing clouds of confusion. 

In conclusion the story of the journey of art through the last 300 years has bore testimony to the conflict that man faces within his mind with his social needs changing over time against a structural order that stubbornly refuses to modify let alone change over time. The Romanticists rebelled over the suffocating order of period Neo-Classicism; the Impressionists struck out against the sensationalism of the Romanticists; the Cubists reacted to the brilliance of the Impressionists and eventually modern art forked out like branches on a tree of expression to give birth to Existentialism, surrealism and eventually contemporary art. No two pairs of eyes will ever hold the same vision and ever shall the battle reign over the concept of life, art and imitation; but above all, one concept can never change; and that is the concept of Time and that in such time all artists will eventually bear different ideas on canvas or stone or whichever medium they choose to express their art.

"Everything changes and nothing stands still" or as the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates also added:  "The unexamined life is not worth living" comment drawn from Plato's 'Apology'.

Discussions in fine art by Pieter Bergli

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A historical landscape of Chinese Art

The history of art in China has a long span stretching far beyond the birth of Christ and the Roman Empire in Western civilization. Ancient paintings have been traced as far back as 4000 years BC which gives us an incredible span of 6000 years of Chinese art up to the modern era. To truly understand how immense this time span is we touch upon the art of the Roman Empire as a point of reference in time. Just to put things into perspective for my readers the most famous Chinese writer known to Western society is Confucius but most people do not seem to stop and think that Confucius is said to have lived in between the years 551 - 479 BC. Long before the Battle of Marathon where 10,000 immortal Athenians stood with 1000 Plataeans under the leadership of Miltiades the Younger and fought against 26,000 Persians headed by Darius I, China was already maturing as a civilization with it's arts and literature. During what is now known as the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history, Confucius flourished as a teacher, writer, scholar and politician expounding the virtues of traditional Chinese life best summed up through his belief that "one should not do to others what one would not do to oneself". Casting our perspective back even further in time we note that Confucius is acclaimed with having organized the Chinese classic texts including the Five Classics of pre-Qin Era literature consisting of: 'The Classic of Poetry' - a collection of some 305 poems, 'Book of Documents' - Chinese prose works of the 6th Cent BC, 'Book of Rites' - a description of social order and court ceremony, 'I Ching' - a divination system and 'Spring and Autumn Annals' - a historical record of the state of Lu through the period 721 - 481 BC, being the native state of Confucius himself. 

Thus, long before Alexander the Great, Jesus Christ and Octavius Caesar, the civilization of China flourished with a world of literature and art. This is the enormous span of ancient Chinese history that geographically more or less covers the same territory of modern China today can be best summed up as follows:

1. Western Zhou dynasty, ca. 1046–771 BC.

2. Eastern Zhou dynasty, 771–256 BC.

3. Spring and Autumn period, 770–ca. 475 BC.

4. Warring States period, ca. 475–221 BC.

5. Qin dynasty, 221–206 BC.

6. Western Han dynasty, 206 BC.–9 AD.

Thus the lives of Jesus Christ and Octavius Augustus of Rome would be seen to flourish at the same time the Western Han dynasty of China was drawing to a close and to be followed by the Later Han Period, the Six Dynasties and so on up to the Tang Dynasty of 618 - 906 AD which coincides with the fall of Rome and the dark Ages in Europe.

Whilst Rome was creating beautiful floor and wall mosaics and wall paintings as can be seen in the Roman ruins of Pompeii which was obliterated by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, The Chinese already had a long history of paintings and sculptures as can be seen for example in the famous Terra Cotta armies depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China who was buried in 210–209 BC.

All the terracotta figures are life-sized and possess such fine details of uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with the rank of the figure and most hold real weapons of spear, sword, or crossbow.  The Terracotta Army totals more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and a total of 150 cavalry horses.

Altogether historians can identify a span of about 900 years of Roman art up to the sack of Rome in 476 AD. 

The distinction between Roman art and Chinese art of this same period is distinct. Rome borrowed from ancient Greece the art form of stone sculpture and added frescoes and murals and decorative art of pottery. The Romans today are widely remembered for their marble sculptures and wall frescoes. Where the Romans mostly used the fresco technique of applying various pigments to fresh wall and ceiling or floor plaster with limestone chippings, the Chinese in contrast developed the medium of handscrolls and silks with the application of ink wash  techniques. Sine the use of plaster dictates how a fresco was to be made a painting would have to be planned according to the time of drying for each section of the wall. Plaster dries very quickly and so Roman artists would have to paint section by section as the plaster was laid. The Roman artist, by contrast, would not be able to cover and entire wall with pigments and then develop the main subject matter in an organic fashion as a whole. Roman frescoes were developed wall section by section contrasting to Chinese applications of ink wash over an entire surface area. However. Roman wall frescoes were very durable in time as can be illustrated below with a surviving fragment of a wall fresco in spite of the infamous Vesuvius eruption that leveled the coastal holiday town of Pompeii in 79 AD.

Roman wall fresco of a baker couple at Pompeii c. 79 AD.

Again from the devastation of Pompei the following beautiful wall paintings have survived to this day:

and once again:

Incredible it would seem that such beautiful wall paintings could survive the shock of a volcanic blast in 79 AD. But where the forces of  nature could not destroy the art of the Roman Empire, that finality was left to the hordes of barbarian tribes that sacked Rome in 479 AD and eclipsed its art culture for the next 500 years.

In terms of the Chinese technique of painting the medium and range of subject matter of decoration was more diverse in historical development than at Rome. Of course China had its own misfortunes with the arrival of Mongols in the 13th century AD; but its art continued to thrive whereas in Rome all art came to a complete and utter standstill of ruin. From sculpture to pottery and bronze working, to ceramics, and paintings on silk and scroll, Chinese are has had a rich diversification from a very early period in the story of it's civilization and art forms. Whilst in Roman society of the time artists were fond of adorning walls with frescoes on plaster, the Chinese developed paint brush and ink techniques with the expression yu pi yu meaning to have brush and to have ink. the intricacy of Chinese art very quickly developed into a philosophy of painting at about the same time of the Roman Empire. Different types of brush evolved to complete different types of strokes:

Essentially the main 3 types of paint brush:

    1. Hsieh chao pi: Crab claw brush in large and small sizes
    2. Hua jan pi: brush for painting flowers
    3. Lan yu chu pi: brush for painting orchids and bamboo
 
and for calligraphy art:

    1.T’u hao pi: rabbit's hair brush
    2.Hu ying pi: Hunan sheep's hair brush

Paper was made from wood pulp and the finest silk from the silkworm.

With Confucian philosophy at the heart of the Chinese social structure an emphasis evolved for ceremony and ritual in the organization of public affairs. In all aspects of society from Court traditions to military and public administrative functions, rigid precepts of conduct held together the fabric of society and it's art reflected the depth of such organization. The following painting below emphasized the Confucian philosophy of the organization of the family unit extending upwards through the social strata to the Emperor. The section of painting below is part of a section titled 'Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies' and is a wonderful handscroll, ink and color on silk made by the Chinese artist Gu Kaizhi c. 344 - 405 AD.

i

The Chinese artist Gu Kaizhi had started his life as a young royal officer and then subsequently went on to write 3 treatise on painting: On Painting, Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties and Painting Yuntai Mountain. The Admonitions scroll was originally in a total of 9 pieces. This section piece above is not the original which is lost, but is a Tang Dynasty copy c. 6th cent AD thought to be section #4/ 9. The first 3 sections are missing. this section is held at the British Museum. To draw a comparison of the life of the artist Gu Kaizhi we would have to draw upon the period in Rome  which covers the reign of the following Emperors in the West being: Constantius II regit 337-361 AD, Theodosius I 379-395AD and Arcadius 400-404 AD who all had to deal with frontier unrest and Barbarian incursions in a period of Western history synonymous with the beginning of the end of Rome.

Rome had come and gone and yet in the East, China would still prosper as the shades are drawn and the West descends into the dark night of chaos.

Riders on horseback, from a wall painting in the tomb of Lou Rui at Taiyuan, Shanxi province, China, dated back to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577 AD) almost 80 years after the Last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus faded away into historical obscurity in 475-476AD with the sack of Rome and end of Western Christendom.

As Europe descended into the Dark Ages Chinese artists flourished. Set below is the ink on scroll - "Strolling About in Spring" by the artist Zhan Ziqian, who flourished during the Sui Dynasty (581–618).

Once again below Chinese social order and ceremony illustrating the organization of a society that had its own fair share of political upheavals and yet managed to outlast the Roman civilization of the West. In the painting below the Confucian philosophy is once again the dominant backdrop in this portrayal of court ceremony and the EmperorTang Xuanzong by the Chinese artist that is known today as Ren Renfa, a government official of the 13th century AD. National Palace Museum Bejing.

On a  lighter note the foibles of man and government officials would also appear through artistic form. Here, Han Xizai Gives A Night Banquet- Gu Hongzhong b. 937 d.975. Painted scroll of minister of Li Yu by famous artist Gu during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history. The subject was known to miss his morning meetings with the Emperor due to frequent night revelry and banquets. The original is lost. this piece is a remake 12th-century during the subsequent Song Dynasty (960–1279). National Palace Museum Bejing.

Thus the historical 'Silk Road' trade route, which not only brought goods and services from the East to the West, would endear us to the memory of a fine panorama of sculpture and painting across an enormous span of time.

Chinese landscape painting eventually became the highest form of painting. Above we see a painting by the artist Ma Lin c. 1246 AD. which is a typical ink and color on silk painting. The painting above is titled: Ma Lin, Quietly Listening to Wind in the Pines Ink and color on silk. National Palace Museum, 1246. Thus long after the destruction of Rome in the West, Chinese art continued to flourish to the present day.

A brief illustration of Chinese Art by Pieter Bergli



For my readers that enjoy a cafe and something to read please turn to my other blog -

http://thegenteelworldofcoffee.blogspot.com/

and of course for lovers of art

https://www.pinterest.com/myartmusings/

 
Thank you

 * European Union laws require that all visitors to this blog from the European Union are aware that cookies are used by Blogger and Google, including the use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies and in reading all material from this blog readers based in the European Union hereby do consent to the use of such cookies for use by Google Analytics and AdSense