What is the mood of Chinese landscape painting?

"Context" is the soul of a work of art, it is the concentration of the essence of objective things, through artistic processing to achieve the beautiful realm of scenarios, but also the cultivation of human thoughts and feelings.

The word "mood" is interpreted in the Modern Chinese Dictionary as "the realm and mood expressed in literary and artistic works through image depiction." It can be seen that its earliest from literary works, the main reason is the development of China's ancient poetry, earlier exposure to this aesthetic category. Wang Changling of the Tang Dynasty first put forward the concept of mood in his Poetic Grades. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Chengjue further clarified this concept in Cunyu Hall Poetry. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Wang Guowei further summarized China's ancient poetic theories and combined them with the achievements of Western European aesthetics to make the theory of mood more systematic and perfect.

Landscape painting has a history of more than a thousand years since it appeared in the Warring States period. With the continuous improvement and development of ancient painting theories, landscape painting began to come into contact with the issue of "mood" from the Five Dynasties to the Song and Yuan dynasties. Once the category of "mood" was born, it became one of the highest goals of landscape painting, thus giving landscape painting a higher realm and mood.

Jing Hao of the Fifth Dynasty put forward the idea of "true scenery" in his "Record of Brushwork", saying, "You can forget the brush and ink, but there is a true scenery", and advocating that "painting is painting, painting is also, and the degree of the object is to take the real He said, "You can forget the brush and ink, but there is a real scene", and advocated that "Painter, painting is also, taking the real thing by measuring the object. And clarified that "the true temperament with full." Its works "Kuanglu Figure" (biography. Although still with the early landscape painting stereotypes, stagnant features, but from the structure of the rocks, tree form, the peaks of the turning machine perspective changes, portrayed are very specific. It shows the real mountains and real water of "the upper peaks, the lower view of the poor". Reflecting his artistic idea of "the precious similarity of the real". Another example is Guan Tong's "Autumn Mountain Evening Cuicui Tu" (now in Taiwan), which shows the mountains and rocks standing on end, imposing, and the mountain springs stacking and flowing in an orderly manner, with a sense of climbability. Compared with Jing Hao, it seems more real and natural. This real spatial situation, can make the viewer is infected, cause **** Ming, produce rich imagination. At the same time is also a vivid embodiment of the beauty of the mood.

The Song Dynasty is a mature period of landscape painting, landscape painting theory also tends to be perfect. Among them, Guo Xi, an outstanding landscape painter, began to elaborate the concept of "meaning" in "Linquan Gaozhi". He said, "The painter should use this idea to create, and the connoisseur should also use this idea to exhaust it." "That is, the idea of painting, is it not easy to reach? The realm has been familiar, the heart and hand has been responded to, before the vertical and horizontal in the degree, left and right." His Early Spring (now in Taiwan) is one of Guo's finest paintings. He was a master of his painting. He used light and heavy brushwork and ink to express the smoke and trees in spring, the small bridges and curved paths, and the traveling and trekking, which made people face the spring breeze, and made them fascinated. It can be seen that Guo Xi's landscape paintings have been exposed to the problem of mood. And "Linquan Gaozhi" can be regarded as the beginning of the landscape painting theory of mood.

The landscape paintings of the Yuan Dynasty were represented by the "Yuan Four Families", namely Huang Gongwang, Ni Zan, Wang Meng and Wu Zhen. Although the paintings of the "Yuan Four Families" have different personal styles. But the tendency to express mood is basically the same. All of them clearly show the expression of subjective imagery. The reality of the spatial realm they created is different from that of the Song Dynasty. More with the "intention to create" component, conscious of the intention to create a realm, the five items and the idea to achieve a full unity, so that the meaning of the situation has been fully expressed. Such as Huang Gongwang's "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" performance in the mountains and the Fuchun River around the early fall scenery. Dozens of peaks, dozens of trees, pen and ink pale and clear, elegant and light. Wang Meng's "with the area of the forest house map" pattern of dense, old and simple brush, trees and rocks, sparkling, boating and fishing gives a person outside the world, back to nature's real feeling. Compared with the Song, this reality has become subjective reality. Thus, the object and the idea to achieve a high degree of unity.

To the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the overall landscape painting mood still tends to be subjective. And Dong Qichang's North-South Zong theory in the Ming Dynasty was the fact that landscape painting was divided into factions in terms of form and geography, which also changed the mood tendency of landscape painting. "The Zen masters had two sects, North and South, which were divided during the Tang Dynasty; the two sects of painting, North and South, were also divided during the Tang Dynasty." (See Dong Qichang's The Eye of Painting.) It is evident that Dong Qichang's division between the North and South Sects originated from Chinese Zen Buddhism. With the introduction of Dong Qichang's theory of North and South Sect, landscape painting in the Ming Dynasty formed the theoretical view of Zen as a metaphor for painting in terms of expression and imagery. As a result, the landscape painting also has a certain Zen meaning in the expression of the mood. The Qing Dynasty Shi Tao, however, put the "North and South Zong theory" in disdain, and said; "Painting has the North and South Zong ...... Now I ask the North and South Zong, I Zong Ye? Zong me? One is to hold his belly and said: I use my own method." (see "big polyester son title painting poem trek" volume one). He strongly advocated that "ink and brush should follow the times." Shi Tao's extremely active thinking, so that the expression of his ink and brush is unrestrained, so that the expression of the mood has a diversity. Shi Tao's ideas transcended the trends of the times, and have had a great impact in recent times.

In short, the creation of mood in Chinese landscape painting needs to be accomplished with a high degree of intentional craftsmanship and medium of expression. At the same time, it also needs extensive reference to sister arts, so that the creation of mood to achieve perfection and unity, so as to create a new era of fresh artistic charm of the beauty of the mood.