What is literati painting?

Literati painting, also known as "literati painting" or "scholar's painting", is a form of painting that carries the sentiment of the literati in the painting and reveals the thoughts of the literati outside the painting. As early as the Wei, Jin, and North and South Dynasties, certain creative ideas and artistic practices of literati painting appeared, but literati painting, as a formal name, was put forward by Zhao Mengfu, a painter of the Yuan Dynasty.

1. "Literati paintings" are usually based on landscapes, birds and flowers, plums, orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemums, and wood and stone, etc., which are used to express their "spirituality" or personal ambitions, and also to express their resentment against national oppression or corrupt politics. They marked "Shi Qi", "Yatpin", advocating the character of algae, the interest of ink and brushwork, skimming the resemblance, emphasizing the charm, attaches great importance to literature, calligraphy and painting in the creation of the mood. "Interest is generated by the brush, the law is freely turned, words do not have to be Gongshang and QiuShan all rhyme, the meaning does not have to be Bixing and the grass and trees into a chant." Throughout the ages, literati painting has had a considerable impact on the aesthetic thought of Chinese painting and on the development of techniques such as ink and watercolor and freehand painting.

Ming Tang Yin, "Autumn Breeze Fan Figure"

2, literati painting, Du Fu said, "the intention of the craftsman in the miserable management," craftsmanship, can be recalled. Literati painting heavy simple, dry can be simple, even simple to "zero", "zero" is white is empty. "Counting white as black", blank is for "more", for "enough", in order to satisfy, blank can give a person endless far-reaching and long feeling, like" At this time, no sound is better than sound". Literati painting heavy book, Zhang Yanyuan in the "record of famous paintings through the ages," said "the bones of the air and shape are all based on the intention and return to the pen, so those who can book are able to paint". Zhao Mengfu's poem: "stone as white wood as pre-Han, writing bamboo still need eight law through, if someone can also know this, we must know that the painting and calligraphy was originally the same". Ke Jiushi on painting bamboo "write bamboo pole with seal law, branches with grass calligraphy, write leaves with octet method or with Lugong skimming method, wood and stone with folding hairpin stock, house leak marks of the legacy of the intention". These unique strong subjective consciousness expressed in the paintings are the essence of literati painting.

3, literati painting has the literary, philosophical, lyrical. In traditional painting its characteristic "elegance?" Distinguished from artisan painting and courtyard painting, unique. The Qing Dynasty advocated that "ink and brush should follow the times", "the law of self-establishment", and "searching for all the strange peaks to make drafts" towards life. The "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou" ("Yangzhou School of Painting") all played a profound influence.

Zheng Banqiao, "Bamboo and Stone Drawing"