The arts of China () have varied throughout its ancient history, divided into periods by the ruling dynasties of China and changing technology, but still containing a high degree of continuity. Different forms of art have been influenced by great philosophers, teachers, religious figures and even political leaders. The arrival of Buddhism and modern Western influence produced especially large changes. Chinese art encompasses fine arts, folk arts and performance arts.
General history
Early forms of art in China were made from pottery and jade in the Neolithic period, to which was added bronze in the Shang dynasty. The Shang are most remembered for their blue casting, noted for its clarity of detail. Early Chinese music and poetry was influenced by the Classic of Poetry, Confucius and the Chinese poet and statesman Qu Yuan.
In early imperial China, porcelain was introduced and was refined to the point that in English the word china has become synonymous with high-quality porcelain. Around the 1st century AD, Buddhism arrived in China, though it did not become popular until the 4th century. At this point, Chinese Buddhist art began to flourish, a process which continued through the 20th century. It was during the period of Imperial China that calligraphy and painting became highly appreciated arts in court circles, with a great deal of work done on silk until well after the invention of paper.
Buddhist architecture and sculpture thrived in the Sui and Tang dynasty. Of which, the Tang dynasty was particularly open to foreign influence. Buddhist sculpture returned to a classical form, inspired by Indian art of the Gupta period. Towards the late Tang dynasty, all foreign religions were outlawed to support Taoism.
Categories
Art type Main art Major category Start era Chinese folk art Paper cutting Chinese paper cutting Eastern Han dynasty Chinese paper folding Eastern Han dynasty Puppetry Glove puppetry Chinese shadow theatre Han dynasty Handicraft Chinese knot Tang dynasty Literature Chinese literature Chinese classic texts Spring and Autumn period Chinese poetry Spring and Autumn periodChinese historiography Spring and Autumn periodChinese dictionary Zhou dynasty Visual art Pottery Chinese ceramics Palaeolithic Embroidery Chinese embroidery Neolithic Chinese painting Ming dynasty painting Ming dynasty Tang dynasty painting Tang dynasty Ink and wash painting Tang dynasty Shan Shui painting Song dynasty Photography 19th century Chinese calligraphy Oracle bone script Shang dynasty Cursive script Han dynasty Drawing Daoist Talismans Tang dynasty Comics Lianhuanhua 1880s Manhua 1880s, termed in 1920s Film Cinema of China 1890s Chinese animation 1920s Chinese music Traditional Instrumental Zhou dynasty Yayue Western Zhou dynasty Modern National music 1910s C-pop 1920s Chinese rock 1980s Performing arts Variety art Chinese variety art Han dynasty Chinese opera Peking opera Kunqu Cantonese opera Theatre Xiangsheng Ming dynasty Shuochang narrative Quyi Dynastic times, termed in 1940sDances Dragon danceLion dance Architecture Landscape architecture Chinese architecture Gardening Chinese Garden Scholar's Garden Zhou dynasty Bonsai Penjing
Chinese Blue and White Porcelain Chinese Blue and White has been a major auction type in Western fine arts auction events. Sotheby's and Christie's act as major platforms for art collectors to trade collections. As of 2016, Chinese Blue and White porcelain antiques are traded for millions of US Dollars through these platforms.
Literature
Early Chinese poetry
In addition to the Book of Songs (Shi Jing), a second early and influential poetic anthology was the Songs of Chu (), made up primarily of poems ascribed to the semilegendary Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BC) and his follower Song Yu (fourth century BC). The songs in this collection are more lyrical and romantic and represent a different tradition from the earlier Classic of Poetry (Shi Jing). Many of the works in the text are associated with Shamanism. There are also descriptions of fantastic landscapes, examples of China's first nature poetry. The longest poem, "Encountering Sorrow," is reputed to have been written by the tragic Qu Yuan as a political allegory.
Han and Northern dynasties poetry During, the Han dynasty, Chu lyrics evolved into the fu (賦), a poem usually in rhymed verse except for introductory and concluding passages that are in prose, often in the form of questions and answers. From the Han dynasty onwards, a process similar to the origins of the Shi Jing produced the yuefu poems.
In the Northern Dynasties historical records indicate Cao Cao was a brilliant ruler and poet. Cao Cao was also the father of the well-known poets Cao Pi and Cao Zhi. Cao Pi is known for writing the first Chinese poem using seven syllables per line (七言詩), the poem 燕歌行.
Cao Zhi demonstrated his spontaneous wit at an early age and was a front-running candidate for the throne; however, such ability was devoted to Chinese literature and poetry, which was encouraged by his father's subordinate officials. Later he surrounded himself with a group of poets and officials with literary interests, including some who continually showed off their smartness at the expense of Cao Cao and Cao Pi's subordinates and even Cao Cao himself.
Tao Qian's poetry influenced the work of many subsequent poets. Approximately 120 of his poems survive, which depict an idyllic pastoral life of farming and drinking.
Golden age of Chinese poetry Yuefu are Chinese poems composed in a folk song style. The term literally means "Music Bureau", a reference to the government organization originally charged with collecting or writing the lyrics.
The lines are of uneven length, though five characters is the most common. Each poem follows one of a series of patterns defined by the song title. The term covers original folk songs, court imitations and versions by known poets.
From the 2nd century AD, the yuefu began to develop into shi—the form which was to dominate Chinese poetry until the modern era. The writers of these poems took the five-character line of the yuefu and used it to express more complex ideas. The shi poem was generally an expression of the poet's own persona rather than the adopted characters of the yuefu; many were romantic nature poems heavily influenced by Taoism.
The term gushi ("old poems") can refer either to the first, mostly anonymous shi poems, or more generally to the poems written in the same form by later poets. Gushi in this latter sense are defined essentially by what they are not; that is, they are not jintishi (regulated verse). The writer of gushi was under no formal constraints other than line length and rhyme (in every second line).
Jintishi, or regulated verse, developed from the 5th century onwards. By the Tang dynasty, a series of set tonal patterns had been developed, which were intended to ensure a balance between the four tones of classical Chinese in each couplet: the level tone, and the three deflected tones (rising, falling and entering). The Tang dynasty was the high point of the jintishi.
Notable poets from this era include Bai Juyi, Du Mu, Han Yu, Jia Dao, Li Qiao, Liu Zongyuan, Luo Binwang, Meng Haoran, Wang Wei, and Zhang Jiuling.
Li Bai and Du Fu Li Bai and Du Fu both lived during the Tang dynasty. They are regarded by many as the greatest of the Chinese poets.
Over a thousand poems are attributed to Li Bai, but the authenticity of many of these is uncertain. He is best known for his yuefu poems, which are intense and often fantastic. He is often associated with Taoism: there is a strong element of this in his works, both in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone. Nevertheless, his gufeng ("ancient airs") often adopt the perspective of the Confucian moralist, and many of his occasional verses are fairly conventional.
Much like Mozart, many legends exist on how Li Bai effortlessly composed his poetry, even (or some say, especially) when drunk; his favorite form is the jueju (five- or seven-character quatrain), of which he composed some 160 pieces. Using striking, unconventional imagery, Li Bai is able to create exquisite pieces to utilize fully the elements of the language. His use of language is not as erudite as Du Fu's but equally effective, impressing through an extravagance of imagination and a direct connection of a free-spirited persona with the reader. Li Bai's interactions with nature, friendship, and his acute observations of life inform his best poems. Some of the rest, like Changgan xing (translated by Ezra Pound as A River Merchant's Wife: A Letter), records the hardships or emotions of common people. Like the best Chinese poets, Li Bai often evades translation.
Since the Song dynasty, critics have called Du Fu the "poet historian". The most directly historical of his poems are those commenting on military tactics or the successes and failures of the government, or the poems of advice which he wrote to the emperor.
One of the Du Fu's earliest surviving works, The Song of the Wagons (c. 750), gives voice to the sufferings of a conscript soldier in the imperial army, even before the beginning of the rebellion; this poem brings out the tension between the need of acceptance and fulfillment of one's duties, and a clear-sighted consciousness of the suffering which this can involve.
Du Fu's work is notable above all for its range. He mastered all the forms of Chinese poetry: Chou says that in every form he "either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples" (p. 56). Furthermore, his poems use a wide range of registers, from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self-consciously literary. The tenor of his work changed as he developed his style and adapted to his surroundings ("chameleonlike" according to Watson): his earliest works are in a relatively derivative, courtly style, but he came into his own in the years of the rebellion. Owen comments on the "grim simplicity" of the Qinzhou poems, which mirrors the desert landscape (p. 425); the works from his Chengdu period are "light, often finely observed" (p. 427); while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a "density and power of vision" (p. 433).
Late Tang and Five Dynasties poetry Li Shangyin was a Chinese poet of the late Tang dynasty. He was a typical Late Tang poet: his works are sensuous, dense and allusive. The latter quality makes adequate translation extremely difficult. Many of his poems have political, romantic or philosophical implications, but it is often unclear which of these should be read into each work.
Li Yu was a Chinese poet and the last ruler of the Southern Tang Kingdom. His best-known poems were composed during the years after the Song formally ended his reign in 975 and brought him back as a captive to the Song capital, Bianjing (now Kaifeng). Li's works from this period dwell on his regret for the lost kingdom and the pleasures it had brought him. He was finally poisoned by the Song emperor in 978.
Li Yu developed the ci by broadening its scope from love to history and philosophy, particularly in his later works. He also introduced the two-stanza form, and made great use of contrasts between longer lines of nine characters and shorter ones of three and five.
Song poetry