Art of Asia
Course: Art of Asia > Unit 2
Lesson 15: Ming dynasty (1368–1644)- Ming dynasty (1368–1644), an introduction
- An introduction to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Technology during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
- Spirit path to the tomb of the first Ming Emperor
- Red so rare it was lost to time —a ritual Ming dish
- The Forbidden City
- The Forbidden City
- Wang Lü among the peaks, Ming paintings of Mt. Hua
- The Abduction of Helen Tapestry
- Standing figure of Guanyin as Buddha
- Covered jar with fish in lotus pond
- Classical gardens of Suzhou
- Song of the morning
- Whirling Snow on the River Bank
- Shen Zhou, A Spring Gathering
- Shakyamuni, Laozi, and Confucius
- Congyi, Cloudy Mountains
- Qiu Ying, Journey to Shu
- Copy after Qiu Ying, Playing the Zither Beneath a Pine Tree
- Palace Women and Children Celebrating the New Year
- Eleven Dragons handscroll
- Wang Wen, Poem in cursive script
- Li (tripod)-shaped cloisonné incense burner
- Canteen
- ‘Kraak’ bowl, from Jingdezhen
- Brushrest with Arabic inscription
- Miniature figurines and furniture in a Ming Tomb
Congyi, Cloudy Mountains
Met curator Maxwell K. Hearn on emptiness in Fang Congyi’s Cloudy Mountains, second half of 14th century.
Fang Congyi, a Daoist priest from Jiangxi, traveled extensively in the north before settling down at the seat of the Orthodox Unity Daoist church, the Shangqing Temple on Mount Longhu (Dragon Tiger Mountain), Jiangxi province. Imbued with Daoist mysticism, he painted landscapes that "turned the shapeless into shapes and returned things that have shapes to the shapeless."
According to Daoist geomantic beliefs, a powerful life energy pulsates through mountain ranges and watercourses in patterns known as longmo (dragon veins). In Cloudy Mountains, the painter's kinetic brushwork, wound up as if in a whirlwind, charges the mountains with an expressive liveliness that defies their physical structure. The great mountain range, weightless and dematerialized, resembles a dragon ascending into the clouds.
View this work on metmuseum.org.
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- The artist who originally painted the scroll did a beautiful and a well done job.
Did they make a lot of scrolls like this one?
How long would it take the artist finish one scroll?(7 votes) - Exceptional video, but I would ask if what is ahead of us is just behind the mist?(4 votes)
- Different with realistic arts, Chinese paintings always have this "mist", its kind of an artistic conception, it's called "意境" in Chinese, you can never know what's really behind that mist or what was the author's idea, you can have your own imaging in your head and there's no right or wrong on this.(4 votes)
- the scroll has almost a poetic feel to it. the mountains are highlighting how small we really are, and the mysterious fading at the end is most interesting to me, not only art wise, but also symbolically. although, i do wonder...was this painting done on cloth, or paper? if either, what kind?(2 votes)
- Chinese landscape paintings were always on silk scrolls, meant to be unrolled gradually so as to get a sense of movement and space: movement, that is, of you moving through the spacial landscape. (see). 0:15(2 votes)
- I miss videos about the Ming vases...were they not one of a kind? shouldn't they be considered in this Art course?(1 vote)
- There are many red stamps on the scroll. Why did they stamp them in the middle of the picture () instead of onto the side -- don't the red letters interrupt the unfolding scene and distract from the message? Isn't it ironic that a Buddhist message of transience is corrupted by symptoms of consumerism? 1:48(1 vote)