Victoria & Albert Museum
Went back a second time to look at this; the first had been an overview, this time I was particularly interested in the material aspect of the works - how they were made and presented.
The shanshui (= mountain and water = landscape) paintings of the Song period (950-1290) meet the challenge of how to translate philosophical ideas - humanity's place in the cosmic order - into images. In the 12th century interest began to shift onto depicting naturalistic light.
In the Yuan period the austere 'aesthetic of solitude' emerged, black ink on white paper, with artists who had fled urban life with its constraints to live in the mountains, trying to express emotion and thought in image and poetry, the two interwoven. A bond emerging between monks and scholars, 'apparition paintings' in pale tones expressing the immateriality of things.
Paintings take the form of:
- horizontal scrolls which juxtapose or combine calligraphy and image with textile bands between - this aestheticises joins between sheets of paper
- hangings bound by fabric either just above and below, sometimes divided, or along the sides as well
- albums of small paintings
A lot of inventiveness in this e.g. in the relative size of textile to painting, colour links between the two. Upper bands (heaven) always larger than lower (earth)
Palette largely monochrome with touches - all the more effective for being just touches - of turquoise and soft jade green.
Ink washes appear to float on the surface of silk or paper. Colour is never textured.
No comments:
Post a Comment