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Chinese Painting and Its Audiences
A history of the reception of Chinese painting from the sixteenth century to the present
What is Chinese painting? When did it begin? And what are the different associations of this term in China and the West? In Chinese Painting and Its Audiences, which is based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts given at the National Gallery of Art, leading art historian Craig Clunas draws from a wealth of artistic masterpieces and lesser-known pictures, some of them discussed here in English for the first time, to show how Chinese painting has been understood by a range of audiences over five centuries, from the Ming Dynasty to today. Richly illustrated, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences demonstrates that viewers in China and beyond have irrevocably shaped this great artistic tradition.
Arguing that audiences within China were crucially important to the evolution of Chinese painting, Clunas considers how Chinese artists have imagined the reception of their own work. By examining paintings that depict people looking at paintings, he introduces readers to ideal types of viewers: the scholar, the gentleman, the merchant, the nation, and the people. In discussing the changing audiences for Chinese art, Clunas emphasizes that the diversity and quantity of images in Chinese culture make it impossible to generalize definitively about what constitutes Chinese painting.
Exploring the complex relationships between works of art and those who look at them, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences sheds new light on how the concept of Chinese painting has been formed and reformed over hundreds of years.
Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
What is Chinese painting? When did it begin? And what are the different associations of this term in China and the West? In Chinese Painting and Its Audiences, which is based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts given at the National Gallery of Art, leading art historian Craig Clunas draws from a wealth of artistic masterpieces and lesser-known pictures, some of them discussed here in English for the first time, to show how Chinese painting has been understood by a range of audiences over five centuries, from the Ming Dynasty to today. Richly illustrated, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences demonstrates that viewers in China and beyond have irrevocably shaped this great artistic tradition.
Arguing that audiences within China were crucially important to the evolution of Chinese painting, Clunas considers how Chinese artists have imagined the reception of their own work. By examining paintings that depict people looking at paintings, he introduces readers to ideal types of viewers: the scholar, the gentleman, the merchant, the nation, and the people. In discussing the changing audiences for Chinese art, Clunas emphasizes that the diversity and quantity of images in Chinese culture make it impossible to generalize definitively about what constitutes Chinese painting.
Exploring the complex relationships between works of art and those who look at them, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences sheds new light on how the concept of Chinese painting has been formed and reformed over hundreds of years.
Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
302 pages, Hardcover
Published February 28, 2017
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February 27, 2019
This is not a book for those new to Chinese painting as it's not a survey, but a series of arguments that Clunas makes for how we look and have looked at Chinese paintings and how Chinese audiences might have seen them differently. After all, as he points out, what are Chinese paintings? To the Chinese, they are only paintings; what makes them Chinese? Which then begs the questions that Clunas continues asking: "Are portraits of Chinese, Chinese paintings? Are religious (Buddhist, Daoist) paintings 'Chinese' paintings? It is these sort of questions that make this one of those books one truly enjoys reading and re-reading given the reader's background. Two examples:
Chapters are devoted to such thoughtful questions as to the nature of that 'fourth' gentlemanly activity of the qin-qi-shu-hua chain -- (hua)painting. Clunas says, "Look at the paintings. Are the literati in them doing the painting, or looking at paintings--as you are now looking at a painting of a literati looking at a painting." His point is that while three of the 'Four Arts of the Scholar' are actively engaged in an activity (playing a musical instrument, playing chess, writing [calligraphy]), the reference to painting does not involve actively painting. Painting should be left to professional artisans; it is not how a true gentleman (a junzi) spends his time; he appreciates art and to do it correctly, he does it with colleagues, in a social setting.
Chapter three focuses on the emperor and how and when he appears in paintings, in which garb or settings, as well as how an emperor's taste set court standards. Most paintings for the emperor are what are known as xingletu or "pictures of enjoying pleasures". Such paintings show not only power, but also ownership. As Clunas quotes (p. 94) "There is but one Man here; and that is the Emperor. All Pleasures are made for him alone." How lucky for us that Clunas shares his pleasureful thoughts with us!
I'll stop here or I'll have to mark this review as containing 'spoilers', but I must share one of the more amusing discoveries Clunas shares with us--the five literati don’ts of displaying calligraphy or painting: “don’t show it under a light, on a rainy day, after drinking, in the presence of a vulgar person, or in the presence of a woman” (p. 76)
Chapters are devoted to such thoughtful questions as to the nature of that 'fourth' gentlemanly activity of the qin-qi-shu-hua chain -- (hua)painting. Clunas says, "Look at the paintings. Are the literati in them doing the painting, or looking at paintings--as you are now looking at a painting of a literati looking at a painting." His point is that while three of the 'Four Arts of the Scholar' are actively engaged in an activity (playing a musical instrument, playing chess, writing [calligraphy]), the reference to painting does not involve actively painting. Painting should be left to professional artisans; it is not how a true gentleman (a junzi) spends his time; he appreciates art and to do it correctly, he does it with colleagues, in a social setting.
Chapter three focuses on the emperor and how and when he appears in paintings, in which garb or settings, as well as how an emperor's taste set court standards. Most paintings for the emperor are what are known as xingletu or "pictures of enjoying pleasures". Such paintings show not only power, but also ownership. As Clunas quotes (p. 94) "There is but one Man here; and that is the Emperor. All Pleasures are made for him alone." How lucky for us that Clunas shares his pleasureful thoughts with us!
I'll stop here or I'll have to mark this review as containing 'spoilers', but I must share one of the more amusing discoveries Clunas shares with us--the five literati don’ts of displaying calligraphy or painting: “don’t show it under a light, on a rainy day, after drinking, in the presence of a vulgar person, or in the presence of a woman” (p. 76)
May 21, 2026
藝術史，或者稱藝術的觀念史作品。從士紳、帝王、商賈、人民、民族等不同角色如何理解「繪畫」-「中國畫」來爬梳「中國繪畫」究竟是什麼的問題。
第一章討論文人如何看畫時，開門見山地說實際上「至少基于图像证据，我们可以停下来反思，明代士绅的四项雅好其实应该分别是：抚琴、下棋、习字和“赏”画」——「意味着从某种意义上理解，绘画本身在概念上讲是一种由观者创造和维持的活动，是观看成就了“画”」。
而本書確實也是圍繞著這個母題，即「怎麼看畫」、「怎麼理解『畫』這個字眼、這個社交形式、這個物質性存在」開展的。
月初先讀了《重屏》，和本書不約而同的都在討論畫中畫-元繪畫的問題：
「一张十五世纪早期的中国绘画能够相当自然轻松地展示出画作表层的背面（图2.13、2.22、2.25），并将其视作一种关键的处理方法，强调一幅绘画就是一幅绘画，而不是世界上的一扇窗口，让图像指向其作为图像本身的存在。43因为这些事情不被知道，欧洲的元绘画因此可以似幽灵的前兆般将一切引向我们例证（“中国艺术”“非洲艺术”）中的“艺术”是与“现代性”相悖的」⋯「元繪畫或嵌入式圖像（mise en abyme ）在歐洲於1600年左右進入了繁盛阶段，而此时，它在中国已经开始面临被人摒弃的境地。这些表现士绅赏画的作品，这些在作品的构图中部分或完整地被描绘为可辨认图像的“画中画”，似乎在十六世纪早期的中国曾达到过创作顶峰，然而旋即开始迅速衰落。这是为什么呢？一种解释是可能到了1600年，人们认为一幅画首先以及最重要的是它必须是一幅画，一幅画通过其表层图像体现出画家的能动性。这样的观念在中国的精英写作中如此牢固，以至于一些早期图像的彻底写实主义风格就显得有些粗拙。相较于“形似”，艺术家的创造力和个人风格在绘画中的首要地位一直以来都得到了承认，当时的大理论家董其昌甚至宣称：“以笔墨之精妙论，则（真实的）山水决不如画。”」（寫實—>寫意的發展；同時明代發達的經濟和物質文化讓賞畫向下擴散到文人階層以外，導致菁英更少主動在畫作中去表現仕紳賞畫）
如果說本書前半更偏向本體論/知識論考察，那後半很恰當的轉向，改尋找主體與他者的界線如何重新定義中國繪畫（但這部分更像社會學文獻裡的史料一點）。在有他者出現、需要明確界線之前，中國繪畫就只是「畫」而不是「中國畫」。這跟日本大和繪/唐畫的區分放在一起讀很有趣。
從這篇review也能看出來，內容相當豐富，而我還未能整理出個體系來掌握。今年好像會變成重新找回中國古典文化的一年⋯。
第一章討論文人如何看畫時，開門見山地說實際上「至少基于图像证据，我们可以停下来反思，明代士绅的四项雅好其实应该分别是：抚琴、下棋、习字和“赏”画」——「意味着从某种意义上理解，绘画本身在概念上讲是一种由观者创造和维持的活动，是观看成就了“画”」。
而本書確實也是圍繞著這個母題，即「怎麼看畫」、「怎麼理解『畫』這個字眼、這個社交形式、這個物質性存在」開展的。
月初先讀了《重屏》，和本書不約而同的都在討論畫中畫-元繪畫的問題：
「一张十五世纪早期的中国绘画能够相当自然轻松地展示出画作表层的背面（图2.13、2.22、2.25），并将其视作一种关键的处理方法，强调一幅绘画就是一幅绘画，而不是世界上的一扇窗口，让图像指向其作为图像本身的存在。43因为这些事情不被知道，欧洲的元绘画因此可以似幽灵的前兆般将一切引向我们例证（“中国艺术”“非洲艺术”）中的“艺术”是与“现代性”相悖的」⋯「元繪畫或嵌入式圖像（mise en abyme ）在歐洲於1600年左右進入了繁盛阶段，而此时，它在中国已经开始面临被人摒弃的境地。这些表现士绅赏画的作品，这些在作品的构图中部分或完整地被描绘为可辨认图像的“画中画”，似乎在十六世纪早期的中国曾达到过创作顶峰，然而旋即开始迅速衰落。这是为什么呢？一种解释是可能到了1600年，人们认为一幅画首先以及最重要的是它必须是一幅画，一幅画通过其表层图像体现出画家的能动性。这样的观念在中国的精英写作中如此牢固，以至于一些早期图像的彻底写实主义风格就显得有些粗拙。相较于“形似”，艺术家的创造力和个人风格在绘画中的首要地位一直以来都得到了承认，当时的大理论家董其昌甚至宣称：“以笔墨之精妙论，则（真实的）山水决不如画。”」（寫實—>寫意的發展；同時明代發達的經濟和物質文化讓賞畫向下擴散到文人階層以外，導致菁英更少主動在畫作中去表現仕紳賞畫）
如果說本書前半更偏向本體論/知識論考察，那後半很恰當的轉向，改尋找主體與他者的界線如何重新定義中國繪畫（但這部分更像社會學文獻裡的史料一點）。在有他者出現、需要明確界線之前，中國繪畫就只是「畫」而不是「中國畫」。這跟日本大和繪/唐畫的區分放在一起讀很有趣。
從這篇review也能看出來，內容相當豐富，而我還未能整理出個體系來掌握。今年好像會變成重新找回中國古典文化的一年⋯。
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews