Simplify Your Life...Art History Essay #1
Simplify Your Life
This representive painting of Ming Dynasty, “Poet on a Mountaintop” is a ‘Literati Painting’ which has poetry, calligraphy, and painting. Especially, this painting shows the simple line drawing, coloring and composition that were given by his noble philosophy. But this simplicity is not a slight knowledge, it come form his deep thoughts in his life. He ignores detail works in his painting by his strong message that was occurred on the top of mountain.
On the top of mountain, the world around our lives seems to be simple. The height of mountain gives us simple world in a natural mind. What is a life? The painter, Shen Zhou who didn’t need worry about money, he did read books and exercising calligraphy and making poetry, this all kinds of activity made literati painting. The literacy and painting are effectively laid on paper together by artist’s philosophical message. I want to say three aspects of painting in terms of composition, color and line. How could they work together in simple style for artist’s self expression.
First, in terms of composition, this painting has a huge negative space to express the distance from the human world. These negative spaces are filled with white clouds and high sky as an isolated area from a mundane world.
The main subjects on painting absolutely are composed of the sky, the earth (mountain), and human. Those subjects are main concept to understand the universal in China traditional Culture. Especially this painting shows the philosophy of naturalism. They think that the human being is harmonically a very small part of nature. Human figure was shown dwarfed. So, generally they do not draw the man big and detail in traditional painting. This philosophy is distinguishable comparing to western philosophy that the man is a conquer in nature. As a part of nature, the man’s figure is extremely simple and small.
In foreground, we can see the ever green pine trees that show intentionally the painter’s expression. Shen Zhou touched the trees with a strong black in his painting. The strength of pine trees caught the balance not only between foreground and back ground but also right space and left. The negative space is left area where the sky and clouds that is lighter than the earth area, so he used more touched with soft water than trees and rocks touched strong.
He wrote again poetry that shows his strong message the top negative area. Maybe it is very difficult to understand intention without interpretation his poetry in his painting. The poetry and the painting are strong related to his message with his own simple style. He was a wise scholar who was raised by education, trained by practicing calligraphy and painting at same time. It is difficult to understand this painting without his intensive poetry because the poetry is one of important factors in literati painting.
His message was shown on the top of the mountain like his title of painting. On the top of mountain, it looks too small to see the mundane world. The man who has only one stick on the mountain in this painting is just leaning one stick, he just sees the wide sky and white clouds around him. He wanted to be one man who should be in natural instead of having something. The big simple negative space is great to show the height of mountain that shows the greatness of nature as well as distance of a mundane and political world.
Second, this painting is just monochrome black and white color by ink. Like western traditional drawing skill, more time, more see, and the black is simple but evolves various deep colors. These monotonous collars with black and white were enhanced by painter’s intention. It is very great to be shown by black and white for painter’s massage without coloring. Maybe it is easier to see the volume of the nature without detail coloring.
If the painter used the color painting, the isolated white man looked so strange for his message. The painter creates his figure in white. That is also interesting factor to understand this painting. It is easy to see the man in white which shows the spiritual expression instead of colorful luxury clothes. The high noble natural man was expressed in white with bramble staff in painting would be a tradition style in future.
By color theory, the white color stands for “the purity”. He mentioned white clouds in poetry and depicted painting. Furthermore, he is in white instead of luxury colorful clothes.
We can see the pine trees strong black touched, and the back ground color is getting lighter in order to show the depth. He knew ‘the air perspective’ in painting. According to his perspective, he roughly touched foreground, this strong and rough touching are very effective to show his philosophy simplified.
Third, his painting lines shows mostly natural lines except the house which man made. The lines variously touched make the value, further more, and make distance. He expressed the subjects with deep observations, but they were shown with simplicity. He gave the powerful lines in expressing rocks rock with rough and simple strategy. And he tried to express the soft space such as clouds and sky and the line of far mountain by very soft light line in this painting. The extremely simple line drawings were well expressed in harmony on a mountaintop.
This literati painting that has poetry, calligraphy and painting is an expression of idea in high noble class in traditional China painting. The literature and Painting showed the artist’s philosophy to communicate with people. Ironically, the one man on the top showed the isolation from the mundane world. The style of this painting is simplicity in color, line and composition by his simple and noble philosophy on the top of mountain. The painting says that you live life in a simple style as a natural man.
Reference: Shen Zhou, Poet on a Mountaintop, c. 1500 (Sokstad 3 ed., p. 842/2 ed., p. 812)
This representive painting of Ming Dynasty, “Poet on a Mountaintop” is a ‘Literati Painting’ which has poetry, calligraphy, and painting. Especially, this painting shows the simple line drawing, coloring and composition that were given by his noble philosophy. But this simplicity is not a slight knowledge, it come form his deep thoughts in his life. He ignores detail works in his painting by his strong message that was occurred on the top of mountain.
On the top of mountain, the world around our lives seems to be simple. The height of mountain gives us simple world in a natural mind. What is a life? The painter, Shen Zhou who didn’t need worry about money, he did read books and exercising calligraphy and making poetry, this all kinds of activity made literati painting. The literacy and painting are effectively laid on paper together by artist’s philosophical message. I want to say three aspects of painting in terms of composition, color and line. How could they work together in simple style for artist’s self expression.
First, in terms of composition, this painting has a huge negative space to express the distance from the human world. These negative spaces are filled with white clouds and high sky as an isolated area from a mundane world.
The main subjects on painting absolutely are composed of the sky, the earth (mountain), and human. Those subjects are main concept to understand the universal in China traditional Culture. Especially this painting shows the philosophy of naturalism. They think that the human being is harmonically a very small part of nature. Human figure was shown dwarfed. So, generally they do not draw the man big and detail in traditional painting. This philosophy is distinguishable comparing to western philosophy that the man is a conquer in nature. As a part of nature, the man’s figure is extremely simple and small.
In foreground, we can see the ever green pine trees that show intentionally the painter’s expression. Shen Zhou touched the trees with a strong black in his painting. The strength of pine trees caught the balance not only between foreground and back ground but also right space and left. The negative space is left area where the sky and clouds that is lighter than the earth area, so he used more touched with soft water than trees and rocks touched strong.
He wrote again poetry that shows his strong message the top negative area. Maybe it is very difficult to understand intention without interpretation his poetry in his painting. The poetry and the painting are strong related to his message with his own simple style. He was a wise scholar who was raised by education, trained by practicing calligraphy and painting at same time. It is difficult to understand this painting without his intensive poetry because the poetry is one of important factors in literati painting.
His message was shown on the top of the mountain like his title of painting. On the top of mountain, it looks too small to see the mundane world. The man who has only one stick on the mountain in this painting is just leaning one stick, he just sees the wide sky and white clouds around him. He wanted to be one man who should be in natural instead of having something. The big simple negative space is great to show the height of mountain that shows the greatness of nature as well as distance of a mundane and political world.
Second, this painting is just monochrome black and white color by ink. Like western traditional drawing skill, more time, more see, and the black is simple but evolves various deep colors. These monotonous collars with black and white were enhanced by painter’s intention. It is very great to be shown by black and white for painter’s massage without coloring. Maybe it is easier to see the volume of the nature without detail coloring.
If the painter used the color painting, the isolated white man looked so strange for his message. The painter creates his figure in white. That is also interesting factor to understand this painting. It is easy to see the man in white which shows the spiritual expression instead of colorful luxury clothes. The high noble natural man was expressed in white with bramble staff in painting would be a tradition style in future.
By color theory, the white color stands for “the purity”. He mentioned white clouds in poetry and depicted painting. Furthermore, he is in white instead of luxury colorful clothes.
We can see the pine trees strong black touched, and the back ground color is getting lighter in order to show the depth. He knew ‘the air perspective’ in painting. According to his perspective, he roughly touched foreground, this strong and rough touching are very effective to show his philosophy simplified.
Third, his painting lines shows mostly natural lines except the house which man made. The lines variously touched make the value, further more, and make distance. He expressed the subjects with deep observations, but they were shown with simplicity. He gave the powerful lines in expressing rocks rock with rough and simple strategy. And he tried to express the soft space such as clouds and sky and the line of far mountain by very soft light line in this painting. The extremely simple line drawings were well expressed in harmony on a mountaintop.
This literati painting that has poetry, calligraphy and painting is an expression of idea in high noble class in traditional China painting. The literature and Painting showed the artist’s philosophy to communicate with people. Ironically, the one man on the top showed the isolation from the mundane world. The style of this painting is simplicity in color, line and composition by his simple and noble philosophy on the top of mountain. The painting says that you live life in a simple style as a natural man.
Reference: Shen Zhou, Poet on a Mountaintop, c. 1500 (Sokstad 3 ed., p. 842/2 ed., p. 812)
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