Chinese art

The painting and sculpture of China. From the Bronze Age to the Cultural Revolution, Chinese art shows a stylistic unity unparalleled in any other culture. From about the 1st century AD Buddhism inspired much sculpture and painting. The Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) produced outstanding metalwork, ceramics, and sculpture. The Song dynasty (960–1278) established standards of idyllic landscape and nature painting in a delicate calligraphic style.

Neolithic art
Accomplished pottery dates back to about 2500 BC, already showing a distinctive Chinese approach to form.

Bronze Age art
Rich burial goods, with bronzes and jade carvings, survive from the second millennium BC, decorated with hieroglyphs and simple stylized animal forms. Astonishing life-size terracotta figures from the Qin period (about 221–206 BC) guard the tomb of Emperor Shi Huangdi in the old capital of Xi'an. Bronze horses, naturalistic but displaying the soft curving lines of the Chinese style, are a feature of the Han dynasty.

Early Buddhist art
Once Buddhism was established in China it inspired a monumental art, with huge rock-cut Buddhas and graceful linear relief sculptures at the monasteries of Yungang, about 460–535, and Longmen. Bronze images show the same curving lines and rounded forms.

Tang dynasty (618–907) Increasing sophistication is evident in idealized images and naturalistic portraits, such as the carved figures of Buddhist monks (Luohan). This period also produced brilliant metalwork and delicate ceramics, particularly of robed figures and animals. It is known that the aims and, broadly speaking, the style of Chinese painting were already well established, but few paintings survive, with the exception of some Tang scrolls and silk paintings.

Song dynasty (960–1278) The golden age of painting was during the Song dynasty. The imperial court created its own workshop, fostering a fine calligraphic art, mainly devoted to natural subjects – landscape, mountains, trees, flowers, birds, and horses – though genre scenes of court beauties were also popular. Scrolls, albums, and fans of silk or paper were painted with watercolours and ink, using soft brushes that produced many different effects. Painting was associated with literature, and painters added poems or quotations to their work to intensify the effect. Ma Yuan and Xia Gui (active c. 1180–1230) are among the painters; Mu-Chi was a monk known for exquisite brushwork. The Song dynasty also produced the first true porcelain, achieving a classic simplicity and delicacy in colouring and form.

Ming dynasty (1368–1644) Painters continued the landscape tradition, setting new standards in idealized visions. The painter Dong Qichang wrote a history and theory of Chinese painting. The Song style of porcelain gradually gave way to increasingly elaborate decoration in rich, polychrome enamels and the famous Ming blue-and-white patterned ware.

Qing dynasty (1644–1911) The so-called Individualist Spirits emerged, painters who developed bolder, personal styles of brushwork.

20th century
The strong spirit that supported traditional art began to fade in the 19th and 20th centuries, but attempts to incorporate modernist ideas have been frowned on by the authorities. Not directly concerned with the representation of political events, Chinese art took some years before responding to the political upheavals of the century. Subsequently, response to official directives produced a period of Soviet-style realism followed by a reversion to a peasant school of painting, which was the officially favoured direction for art during the Cultural Revolution.

Influence
Chinese art had a great impact on surrounding countries. The art of Korea was almost wholly inspired by Chinese example for many centuries. Along with Buddhism, Chinese styles of art were established in Japan in the 6th–7th centuries BC and continued to exert a profound influence, though Japanese culture soon developed an independent style.