Literati Culture in the Song: Books and Pictures


 * Confucian classics were the central part of Chinese culture
 * Stress was on trained intellectuals -> once one passed the exams, he became socially and financially elite
 * Poor peasant who becomes a trained intellectuals is the romanticized myth of chinese society

Gentry

 * Social Class
 * Would own large tracts of land
 * Once they had developed enough money -> they would focus on education
 * Becoming a massive part of the trained intellectuals who took the state examination
 * Locally, they were important as land-owners
 * Nationally, they became vassals for the Royal government
 * Success in the exam would give authority to their fiscal power

Invention of Printing

 * Hand-copying books was the only way to accumulate a library
 * Required many hours of copying to build access to knowledge


 * Development of printing made books much more available, much more easily, much cheaper


 * Printing was invented first in China
 * Probably around the 8th Century

Xylography (woodblock printing)

 * Chinese printing used woodblocks


 * 1) Scribe writes message
 * 2) Scribe's message is inverted, placed onto wood with "sticky ink"
 * 3) Paper is removed
 * 4) Wood cutters worked to cut out the characters
 * 5) Then the cut block could be printed

Diamond Sutra

 * Oldest printed book was 862
 * Began with beautiful Buddha print
 * It was pasted together into a scroll

Formats

 * Printed pages could be pasted together into a scroll
 * Or could be sewn together into a book

Arts of the Literati: Three Perfections

 * Three perfections are artistic disciplines that reveal the inner man
 * Arts are seen as self-expression
 * But also opportunity for others to "see" you

Poetry

 * Poetry was very important for the Song
 * New lyric form used
 * New subjects were taken up
 * Such as Lice or Mei Yaochen


 * Poems became much more personal
 * Took up subjects of protest

Painting

 * Different from those in the west
 * Forms are very different
 * Scroll form of painting -> unrolled to reveal a progression thru its narrative
 * Hanging paintings
 * Album leaves
 * Fan painted


 * Mass and volume were themes that were uninteresting to chinese paintings
 * Perspective (depth) also wasn't major
 * Originality was not seriously stressed, copying was important

Important elements

 * Brushstrokes were very important
 * Suggest the importance of calligraphy in art practice

Inscriptions

 * Seals (marks of ownership) were placed right on the art
 * Messages of approval added to the painting

Before the Song

 * Dominated by 'figure painting'
 * People make up most the earlier art
 * But slowly there is a transition from people into the landscape




 * Nymph of the Luo River


 * Emperor Minghuang Flight South

Example of Song Landscape Paintings

 * Travelers among Mountains and Streams
 * Landscape becomes major artistic focus
 * People are made small in the context of the overwhelming natural world


 * Guo Xi -> Early Spring
 * Often intrepreted as a Chinese understanding of the cosmos
 * All things in the universe are composed a single element -> 'chi' meaning breath or energy
 * Ch'i is in constant movement and transmission
 * Different types of ch'i make up the world
 * The painting seems to move -> it is composed of tones that represent ch'i

Southern Song Art

 * After loss of North China Plane, art changes focus away from nature
 * into a smaller scale of natural world with human figures


 * Scholar on a path

Literati Painting and Calligraphy

 * Literati painting was never done for money
 * Didn't use color, for it was considered vulgar
 * Subjects suggest symbolic understandings of nature
 * Bamboo
 * Symbol of man of culture
 * Through it appears weak and fragile
 * It is actually tenacious, and bends with forces of nature, but never loses its integrity


 * Pine
 * Survives difficult weather
 * Lonely, but produ


 * Calligraphy was a subject of much discussion and need for respect
 * Believed to reflect personality and temprament
 * Calligraphy could be analyzed as a site for understanding the larger man