Development history of ancient figure painting in China

Religious paintings in the Song Dynasty are rarely preserved, and mural manuscripts are preserved in the form of scroll paintings. The most famous is Wu Zongyuan's The Battle of the Immortals in Yuan Dynasty. Another manuscript of this scroll was called "Eighty-seven Immortals" by Song people.

The Battle of the Immortals depicts the ranks of three of the five emperors when they pay homage to the supreme ruler in heaven. This ranks should be composed of eighty-eight immortals (the legend of immortals in Yuan Dynasty lacked the last immortal, and the legend of eighty-seven immortals lacked the first one). Eighty-eight immortals, * * * four kinds: san huang (with a round lamp on his head), Eight Wu Shen, Ten male immortals and Sixty-seven female immortals (among these female immortals, there are jade girls and golden boys, but they are all women's clothes). The four types of characters are portrayed according to certain ideal characteristics, so most of them lack concreteness. But in the pursuit of personality, we can see the image of ten male immortals. All the characters are outlined with dense folds, and the headdress, etiquette and the posture of the sixty-seven fairies are changed as much as possible. These changes have produced rich and gorgeous effects in form, and try to avoid monotonous feeling. The characters in the whole volume have a complete and unified effect with flags, skirts, ribbons and flowers fluttering in the wind.

Wu Zongyuan (A.D. 1050) was an important religious painter in the Northern Song Dynasty, and was considered to be comparable to Wu Daozi. In addition to the above, his paintings are also famous, including ten Taiyi statues on the east wall of the Three Sages in Nangong, Luoyang, and murals of longxing temple (Xuchang), Song Yue Temple and Zhongyue Tianfengguan.

Taoist painting replaces the description of the supernatural world with the description of real life. Manuscripts named "The Guardian of the Heavenly Kings" and "The Spiritual Map of Xiyue" depict all kinds of people, including nobles and their families, even businessmen, beggars, fishermen, jugglers and so on. Showing the characteristics of various people in different degrees. Taoist paintings are released to describe street people, because Taoism believes that immortals will be hidden among ordinary people and can look like ordinary people. Therefore, such Taoist paintings have the characteristics of genre paintings.

Figure painting is a traditional branch of Chinese painting, which mainly describes people's activities. Painting in Song Dynasty is the peak of the development of painting art in China. The theme of figure painting in Song Dynasty is diverse, including Buddha painting, figure painting, meticulous figure painting, historical figure painting, genre painting and stick figure painting. It reflects a wide range of real life content, which is extremely prominent in the history of ancient painting. It adopts colorful and beautiful art forms. Created many artistic expressions. The maturity and completeness of figure painting in Song Dynasty further shows that painting in Song Dynasty is the heyday of ancient Chinese painting. Yuan ... figure painting developed to the Yuan Dynasty, and was relegated to a secondary position due to the influence of social politics and aesthetic thoughts. But figure painting, like landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting, is also in the transition period of form and style, so it presents a completely different style from the previous generation.

Due to the complicated ethnic relations in the Yuan Dynasty, the rulers, out of political needs, awarded high-ranking officials and generous salaries to scholars of the Han nationality, and some scholars embarked on the road of official career. There are many reasons for their official career, and they have not succumbed to Mongolian rule psychologically. Many people are in Cao Ying, and their hearts are in the Han Dynasty.

On the other hand, the rulers adopt a high-handed policy to deal with those rebels, while some literati who have no intention of official career are hidden in the mountains and rivers.

Based on this reality, there is a situation of "ignoring personnel" in painting. The painter expressed the idea of "escape" in the form of pen and ink reflecting social reality and his own psychological situation. From the perspective of subject matter, figure painting in Yuan Dynasty is obviously not the mainstream of this era. None of the so-called four great painters in Yuan Dynasty was a figure painter, but figure painting in Yuan Dynasty played an important role in the historical process of figure painting development.

Zhao Mengfu was criticized in the history of painting because of his official position, which also affected his position in the history of painting, but Zhao Mengfu made a special contribution in the history of painting.

His figure painting, represented by Drinking Horses in Autumn Suburbs, has a simple style and is regarded as another important figure painter after Li in Song Dynasty.

Zhao Mengfu's achievement in Man's Map, because of his efforts of the third generation, has opened up the performance field of figure painting in this respect.

His figure paintings benefit from various artistic attainments, stand out from the ancient methods of Tang and Song Dynasties, and at the same time combine the techniques of landscape painting and calligraphy, so his paintings are the first of the times.

Qian Xuan, another important painter, was famous for his flower-and-bird paintings in the Yuan Dynasty, but his figure paintings also had some influence. Representative works include Beauty Map and Lutong Tea Making Map.