East Asian Art - 2nd Grading PDF

# East Asian Art - 2nd Grading ## Painting in China, Japan and Korea - In East Asia, the objects or items that are usually put into paintings are called **subjects, themes, or motifs**. - These may be about **animals, people, landscapes, and anything about the environment**. - He used red ocher an...

# East Asian Art - 2nd Grading ## Painting in China, Japan and Korea - In East Asia, the objects or items that are usually put into paintings are called **subjects, themes, or motifs**. - These may be about **animals, people, landscapes, and anything about the environment**. - He used red ocher and black pigment. - Early paintings often showed **hunting scenes of man chasing various animals such as horses, rhinoceros, lions, and buffaloes.** - These prehistoric paintings were **drawn on the walls of caves, blocks of stone, and found all over the world, including China.** ## Painting Subjects or Themes in East Asian Countries: ### China - Flowers and birds - Landscapes - Palaces and Temples - Human Figures - Animals - Bamboos and Stones ### Japan - Scenes from everyday life. - Narrative scenes crowded with figures and details. ### South and North Korea - Landscape paintings - **Minhwa** (the traditional folk painting) - Four Gracious Plants (plum blossoms, orchids or wild orchids, chrysanthemums) - Bamboo - Portraits ## Important Aspects in East Asian Painting ### Landscape Painting - Regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting. - Oriental artists often created landscapes rather than paintings with the human figure as subjects. - **Silk** was often used as the medium to paint upon, but it was quite expensive. - When the Han court eunuch, Cai lun, invented the paper in the 1st century AD, it provided not only a cheap and widespread medium for writing but painting became more economical. ### The Three Concepts of East Asian Art - Nature - Heaven - Humankind (**Yinyang**) #### Yin - Dark moon - Recessive/ Nurturing - Damp/ Cool/ Water - Female - Negative Change - Autumn and Winter #### Yang - Light/ Bright/ Sun - Strong/ Assertive - Dry/ Hot/ Fire - Male - Positive Change - Heaven - Spring and Summer ### History of Korean Painting - Dates to 108 C.E., when it first appears as an independent form. - The primary influence of Korean paintings were Chinese paintings. - However, Korean paintings have subjects such as landscapes, facial features, Buddhist topics, and an emphasis on celestial observation in keeping with the rapid development of Korean astronomy. - Mountain and water are important features in Korean landscape paintings because it is a site for building temples and buildings. - Landscape painting represents both a portrayal of nature itself and a codified illustration of the human view of nature and the world..