AH 0102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Wang Xizhi, Portrait Painting, Chinese Art
12 May 2018
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Notes for Day 5: January 31, 2018
Class Announcements:
• Met trip final details
o please complete waivers, hand in today
o instructions were emailed out last night; let me know if did not get
o I will meet early visit students at the Fairfield train station; we will meet the rest
of you at the Met, by the group admission desk at around 3:15 pm
o If going on own, or to Yale or another museum, please take photo for upload; let
me know what museum so I can point out what to see
• Today’s Goals:
o Finish calligraphy discussion (revisit Wang Xizhi)
o Understand calligraphy – painting relationships
o Understand materials, formats, common brush strokes of Chinese painting
o Understand Chinese tradition of painting criticism
o Discussion of Chinese painting visual analysis assignment
Introduction to Chinese Painting:
• To look at a painting means to read a painting
• Colophons on a scroll:
o Main calligraphy section (columns of writing) and then the rest of the paper that is
left
o Colophons type of writing that comments on painting (is found on a piece of art)
• Dong Quichang is a popular artist and collector of Chinese art and his comments on
calligraphy have art as well (for his colophons)
o His letters on art take on a visual quality
o His writing was a social activity, many people (his friends) helped to speak about
the art (their names are added to the colophon)
o So these colophons can act as documentaries
• Colophons act as a form of appreciation of art especially for calligraphy
• Some letters can show how dramatic the writer is in his piece in terms of commenting on
an art piece
• Way a colophon is drawn can reflect the meaning and drama of a piece
• Categories of Chinese painting:
o Format and Materials/Medium: support of painting and the different divisions in
which include paintings; can get transferred from one form to another
(handscrolls are cut up into smaller pieces, fans mounted onto albums) [western
pieces are usually on canvas, rectangular pieces, on vases; no western painting
would be stamped all over to show the ownership of the painting, that would be
found behind the painting not on it)
• Handscrolls
• Screens
• Fan
• Albums
o Genre: the subject of the painting
• Figure painting (humans or animals)
▪ Narrative painting
▪ Portrait painting
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