Title: Chinese art | Britannica
Headings: Chinese art
Chinese art
Learn about Chinese art including their sculptures during the Han dynasty
Aesthetic characteristics and artistic traditions
Art as a reflection of Chinese class structure
The role of linearity in Chinese art

Content: Under the careful regulation of court patrons in the Shang and Zhou periods, design features were shared among specialists working in the various media and were remarkably uniform from bronzes to lacquerwares to textiles. During the Warring States period and the Han dynasty (206 bce –220 ce ), the growth of a landowning and merchant class brought new patrons. After the Han there began to emerge the concept of cultural practice as the product of the leisure of the educated gentry, many of whom were amateur practitioners of the arts of poetry, music, calligraphy, and, eventually, painting. At this time a distinction began to arise between the lower-class professional and the elite amateur artist; this distinction would have a great influence on the character of Chinese art in later times. Gradually one tradition became identified with the artists and craftsmen who worked for the court or sold their work for profit. The scholarly amateurs looked upon such people with some contempt, and the visual arts of the literati became a separate tradition that was increasingly refined and rarefied to the point that, from the Song dynasty (960–1279) onward, an assumed awkwardness ( zhuo) or understatement ( pingdan) in technique was admired as a mark of the amateur and gentleman. As a medium of highly individual expression, painting and calligraphy also became important media of exchange in a social economy where the giving of gifts was central to the building of an interpersonal network. Like skill in letters, poetry, or music, skill and expressive quality in the practice of calligraphy and painting helped establish one’s status in a society of learned individuals. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.