Mô tả
Thông tin chi tiết về Chinese Culuture: Art
SKU | 6232374633674 |
EditorialReviews
This book briefly introduces the courses of development of six types of Chinese art, namely, calligraphy, painting, sculpture, music, dancing and drama, focuses on artworks, artists and art events, and allows readers to get familiar with Chinese art, appreciate the joy of life in it, feel creative power and understand the meaning of life.
Main Content
The “Chinese Culture” book series includes ten books on philosophical thoughts, literature, art, Chinese characters, festivals, foods and drinks, crafts, clothes, architecture and medicine. Each book introduces the history of a field or theme and the same origin of Chinese culture reflected by it, pursues its existence and manifestation in Chinese people’s life today, tells those “unknown stories” through smooth and relaxing words and exquisite pictures, reveals Chinese people’s thinking habits, behavioral modes, traditional concepts and social life, and helps readers understand “what Chinese people are like and what their thinking modes and living customs are.”
Art emerged with the emergence of man. In the past thousands of years, Chinese art inherited the spirit of China’s traditional culture, pursued unity of beauty and kindness, combination of sensibility and sense and harmony between man and nature, emphasized improvement of artists’ personal qualities and the educational function of art, and ultimately became a broad and deep world with the Chinese nation’s unique characteristics.
丛书从源远流长的中国文化中,选取有代表性的10个领域和专题进行介绍,包括哲学思想、文学、艺术、汉字、节日、饮食、工艺、服饰、建筑、医药等10分册。通过流畅、轻松的文字和精美的图片,使海内外广大读者在愉快的阅读体验中,领略中国文化的丰富多彩、博大精深。整个系列中的每种图书既各自独立,综合起来又在精心搭就的框架下,勾勒出中国文化的总体面貌。
艺术伴随着人类的诞生而诞生。数千年来,中国艺术传承了中国传统文化的精神,追求美与善的统一、情与理的会通、人与自然的和谐,重视艺术家的人格完善和艺术的教化功能,最终发展为一个独具中华民族特质的博大精深的世界。
Author
Liu Qiangong earned a BA degree at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University, a MA degree in education at the College of Humanities and Social Science, Beijing Language and Culture University, and a Ph.D. degree at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. Now she is a professor at Beijing Language and Culture University, offering courses related to China’s art history at home and abroad throughout the entire year. Her research areas are Chinese and foreign art history, international Chinese education, and Chinese language and literature. She has published many monographs and academic treatises including An Essay on China’s Art History.
刘谦功,北京大学中国语言文学系文学学士、北京语言大学人文学院教育学硕士、清华大学美术学院文学博士。现为北京语言大学教授,常年在国内外讲授中国艺术史方面的课程,研究领域为中外艺术史、汉语国际教育、中国语言文学,著有《中国艺术史论》等专著和学术论文多种。
Catalog
Contents
Preface
Calligraphy: Writing as Art
Unique Chinese Characters
The Four Treasures of the Study
The Sage of Calligraphy and the Best Running Script Work in the World
The Four Regular Script Masters
Unrestrained Cursive Script
Traditional Calligraphy and Modern Life
Painting: Silent Poems in Praise of Nature and People
Unique Chinese Painting
Depicting Both Ancient and Contemporary Figures
Elegant Ladies
Expressing Feelings through Mountains and Rivers
Flowers and Birds
Along the River During the Qingming Festival
Changing with the Times
Sculpture: Three-dimensional Art
Oriental Charm
Ancient Bronze Sculptures
The Terracotta Army
Buddhist Statues in China
Public Sculpture
Music: Sound for the Soul
Music and the Mind
Traditional Stringed and Woodwind Instruments
Ancient Tunes
Ethnic Music
Singing Aloud: Popular Songs
Chinese Musicians in the Modern Age
Dance: The Beat of Life
When Singing Is not Enough, People Dance
Ceremonial Dance
The Golden Age of Dance
Folk Dance
Dances from Nature
Dance that Celebrates Life
Drama: A Big World on a Small Stage
An Ancient Art
Chinese Drama: from Birth to Maturity
The Elegance of Kun Opera
Beijing Opera
From Greek Drama to Chinese Huaju
Digest
Ancient Bronze Sculptures
In 1986 two sacrificial pits were excavated at an ancient site in Sichuan called Sanxingdui. Ancient people in Sichuan offered sacrifices to the gods of nature, heaven, earth, mountains and rivers on this site and rare treasures were unearthed: more than 1,000 ancient utensils, including bronze vessels, items made of jade, and gold vessels, were piled up in the pits, all dating back to the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties.
Other spectacular archeological finds from Sanxingdui include a standing figure in bronze, sculptures of heads in bronze, and bronze masks. Before the excavations at Sanxingdui archaeologists thought that no bronze figure sculpture took place in China before the Zhou Dynasty but these discoveries changed this assumption.
The bronze standing figure sculpture from Sanxingdui is complete and is 182 centimeters tall, with a base of 80 centimeters. Because of the height of the base, the viewer must look up to the figure, which is sublime and solemn: it has two large eyes, a straight nose, a square lower jaw and two big ears, and wears a long robe with buttons to the left on the forepart and anklets. The sculpture provides scholars with valuable information about the look and clothes of ancient people in Sichuan. The figure’s overcoat is neatly carved with dragon patterns, unusual beasts, clouds and mountains. According to The Book of History, dragons, animals, the sun, the moon, mountains and other images were usually featured on ancient rulers’ clothes, banners and flags, implying that the bronze figure represents a person of the ruling class.
Apart from the bronze standing figure sculpture, most of the bronze sculptures unearthed from Sanxingdui were head sculptures or masks. The facial features of these head sculptures are very particular, with exaggerated eyes and ears. Located at the most important positions on the heads, these features are much bigger than real eyes and ears. The heads can be grouped into two types: bony faces, which look solemn and cold, and round faces, which look mild and friendly. Incredibly, bronze head sculptures wearing gold masks were found, together with gold staffs—which begs the question, were the ancient people of Sichuan natives or immigrants? No similar gold find has been located elsewhere in China, but these gold objects are remarkably similar to ancient Egyptian artifacts.
There are also some large bronze masks amongst the sculptures of Sanxingdui, which look like both humans and beasts, or may be gods. The biggest of these masks is 65 centimeters tall, and the ears are 138 centimeters apart. The two eyes look far ahead and two halberd-shaped ears perhaps signify “clairvoyants and clairaudients”, capable of watching and listening in all directions. Another mask is smaller but more unusual: it has a forehead ornament in the shape of a Kui dragon, which is 68 centimeters tall. Some researchers think that this is an image of Cancong, the earliest ancestor of the ancient people of Sichuan. The mask’s exaggerated facial features may symbolize Cancong’s superhuman abilities, or his resourcefulness.
Other types of bronze sculptures were unearthed at Sanxingdui, which also have peculiar and mysterious shapes.
There is a bronze tree almost 4 meters in height (395 centimeters). This astonishing object is thought to be a sacrificial utensil capable of linking earth and heaven, capable of communicating with the gods. This “divine” tree consists of several sections, including a thick trunk and a ribbon base. Archaeologists think that it used to include a big iron bird. The surviving tree has three levels and three branches, complete with fruit and birds, extend from each level. There are records of divine trees in ancient books— for example, the “huge mulberry tree” in The Classic of Mountains and Seas refers to a massive legendary tree beyond the sea, where the sun rises. In terms of cultural meaning, this huge bronze divine tree is perhaps more peculiar. Laozi said in Tao Te Ching: “The way begets one; one begets two; two begets three; three begets the myriad creatures.” This divine tree’s trunk consists of three levels and nine branches and “nine” is consistent with ancient views of the divine. The presence of a climbing dragon beside the tree symbolizes the vast universe.
A bronze sun wheel is another of the mysterious objects found at Sanxingdui. For human beings, the sun is the most important celestial body in the universe. The sun has been worshipped throughout human history. The ancient Chinese worshipped their ancestor the Yan Emperor as the sun god, and in ancient Greek mythology the sun god is the King of the Gods. The sun wheel from Sanxingdui is related to sun worship, which was a particularly important aspect of this agricultural society. The wheel is evenly divided into five parts. Ancient people appreciated symmetry for its beauty and simplicity. For example, a gold ornament in the shape of a sunbird from the Jinsha Culture, contemporary with the ancient Sanxingdui culture, emits 12 rays. Dividing a circle into five even parts was very difficult before modern measuring techniques, so why did the ancient people of Sichuan pursue complexity instead of simplicity? Perhaps we can find clues in the Jinsha sunbird. Its 12 balanced, flowing and rotating rays and four symmetrical totem sunbirds are stunning, but this design is not merely decorative; this divine object is invested with the fundamental properties of the sun—it represents the 12 months and the four seasons of a solar year. These ancient people obviously had a deep understanding of astronomy and calendars, so it may be logical to conclude that the bronze sun wheel might also contain information about the stars and the calendar.
Since the first major archaeological discovery of 1986, more ancient cultural sites and relics have been discovered at Sanxingdui, proving that it was a highly developed society more than 3,000 years ago. The bronze sculptures of Sanxingdui are the highlight of this sophisticated culture.
……
Preface
Preface
Art appeared along with people and has been developing ever since. Chinese art is unique, with distinctive features. The essence of these features can be explained using the “vigor of style” theory put forward by the Chinese literary critic Liu Xie (c. 465–520). But how do we define vigor of style?
Firstly, vigor of style harmoniously combines movement and stillness.
Nature is constantly on the move—it is always evolving, always bringing new life into being. The sculptures created by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) essentially manifest all kinds of movement. His view on art was: “‘Movement’ is the truth of the universe, and only ‘signs of movement’ can show life, spirit and the incredible things hidden behind nature” (On Rodin’s Art). Chinese sculpture is also like this. The Han Dynasty bronze sculpture Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow shows extraordinary “movement” alongside extraordinary “stillness”. This dialectical relationship between movement and stillness is present in many aspects of Chinese culture—for example, the cursive script and regular script of calligraphy, landscape painting and flower-bird painting, continuous music and silence in music, flying movements and stillness in dance, and the parallels between the martial arts and Chinese traditional opera—all of these art forms feature relationships between movement and stillness. Movement and stillness co-exist: mountains tower in a storm—there is no absolute movement or absolute stillness.
Secondly, vigor of style combines the virtual and the real.
Chinese calligraphy, painting, sculpture, music, dance and traditional opera all attach great importance to blank, or empty space. But blank space is not actually empty—it is space where art can breathe. Both poetry and painting use emptiness to emphasize the vigor of style that exists between real and virtual worlds. For example, the Tang poet Cen Shen (c. 715–770) describes snow in the following way: [It] “Is like a spring gale, come up in the night, Blowing open the petals of ten thousand pear trees” (A Song of White Snow in Farewell to Field-clerk Wu Going Home).
The people of the Jin Dynasty were the most accomplished at representing reality as a state of mysterious philosophy. This is particularly obvious in their landscape paintings. In Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River by Gu Kaizhi (348–409), the Goddess of the Luo River and poet Cao Zhi (192-232) appear repeatedly, and important visual references can be seen in the background: people are bigger than mountains, and water flows on riverbanks. The virtual and the real appear alternately in Chinese art: flowers, birds, fish and worms in Chinese flower-bird paintings seem lost in a vast universe.
When speaking of the virtual and the real, Chinese traditional opera must be mentioned. In Chinese traditional opera performances, movement and props represent things larger and more significant than themselves: three or five steps represent a long distance, seven or eight people represent one million mighty soldiers, a horse is symbolized by a whip, a boat by an oar. Performers in Chinese opera pay attention to beauty of movement instead of the reality of imitation on stage. The audience enjoys these conventions of performance and do not insist on realism in actors’ performances, leaving this to their own imaginations.
Thirdly, vigor of style combines flexibility and rigidity, also known as the “wind and bone” theory of art.
The wind is flexible and possesses sound but no form; bone is rigid—it has form but no sound. The combined and contrasting rigidity and flexibility that typifies vigor of style—“wind and bone”—can be seen in Chinese calligraphy, painting, sculpture, music, dance and traditional opera.
In calligraphy, the use of the writing brush best demonstrates the opposition and unity between rigidity and flexibility. There is a vivid description of this practice in Treatise on Calligraphy written by Sun Guoting (646–691) during the Tang Dynasty: “Thin like the crescent moon in the sky and graceful like stars in the Milky Way, they are wonderful creations of nature instead of the results of effort.” This means that before the writing brush touches the paper, rigidity and flexibility do not exist; when the writing brush touches the paper, rigidity and flexibility coexist with each other, rely on each other and transform each other. Tilting in the composition, black and white in the layout, unsmooth and stable stroke structures: these are all results of the combination of flexibility and rigidity. For example, Chinese characters written by Wang Xianzhi (344–386) in the Eastern Jin Dynasty are deemed to be “majestic but enchanting”: “majestic” means rigid and absolutely still, like jagged rocks; “enchanting” means flexible, gentle and touching, like rippling water. Medicine Pill in the Shape of a Duck Head, and Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River by Wang Xianzhi, combine flexibility and rigidity, and this sensibility has been handed down from ancient times.
Illustration
[{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280345,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10757,”propertyValue”:”9787508528113″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280076,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10759,”propertyValue”:”刘谦功”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280097,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10760,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280119,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10761,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280140,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10762,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280156,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10763,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280184,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10764,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280204,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10765,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280232,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10766,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280258,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10767,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280271,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10768,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280293,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10769,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280312,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10770,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280328,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10771,”propertyValue”:”五洲传播出版社”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280364,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10772,”propertyValue”:”1″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280417,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10774,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280440,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10775,”propertyValue”:”中国文化系列丛书”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280466,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10776,”propertyValue”:”16开”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280486,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10777,”propertyValue”:”2015-05-01″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280513,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10778,”propertyValue”:”胶版纸”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280534,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10779,”propertyValue”:”192″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280560,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10780,”propertyValue”:”0″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280583,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10781,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280610,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10782,”propertyValue”:”英文”,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280635,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10783,”propertyValue”:”2015-05-01″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280663,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10784,”propertyValue”:”1″,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280687,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10785,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280714,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10786,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280387,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10788,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847007000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280404,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847007000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10789,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1},{“created”:1520847008000,”creator”:”system”,”id”:17280739,”langId”:2,”modified”:1520847008000,”modifier”:”system”,”propertyId”:10790,”propertyValue”:””,”wareId”:1479601,”yn”:1}]
Đánh giá
Clear filtersChưa có đánh giá nào.