Title: Traditional Chinese Painting: History, Styles, Examples
Headings: Traditional Chinese Painting: History, Styles, Examples
Traditional Chinese Painting: History, Styles, Examples
From Meticulous to Freehand: Painting Techniques
History in a Nutshell
Landscapes That Grace Chinese Paintings
Related Tours
The Yellow Mountains (Huangshan in Chinese)
Guilin

Content: Some of the ancient works depicting court lives of emperors, their ladies, and imperial horses have been preserved in tombs and burial sites. Tang Dynasty also saw the beginning of landscape paintings, often referred to as shanshui (山水 /shan-shway/ 'mountain-water') paintings. These are less precise and allowed for individual freedom in interpreting the subjects. The time from the Five Dynasties period (907-960) to the Northern Song period (960-1127) is known as the “Golden Age of Chinese Landscape Painting”. Using bold strokes and black lines, artists depicted rolling hills, rivers and stones. Others used softer brushwork to paint peaceful scenes of nature, birds and animals. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), landscape paintings almost attained a mythical quality with blurred outlines of mountains and mists. During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), painters began adding poetry and calligraphy to their works to express their thoughts and feelings. Color printing techniques were perfected during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which was a huge advancement. This made it possible to create illustrated books and manuals on the techniques of Chinese painting.