Chinese and Western Landscape painting - Essay Example

Chinese and Western Landscape painting By of the of the School Chinese Landscape Huang Gongwang (Chinese: 富春山居圖) (1269–1354)  Changshu, Jiangsu. Background and Location "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" is a painting by Huang Gongwang created about 660 years ago in the Yuan Dynasty. The painting is in two pieces. One piece is kept in National Palace Museum in Taipei while the other piece is kept in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Provincial Museum. It is a ranked as one of the fifteen best painting in the history of China.

  Features The historic hand-scroll portrays an idealized panorama of the mountains of Fuchun, west of Hangzhou. Tree limbs and detailed foliage are condensed to the simplest of outline as Mother Nature has since been translated into the painter’s terms of brush and ink. The painting just like many other Chinese painting is seen as an enlarged of calligraphy and employs the similar brushstrokes. The unique colours are subtle and restrained and the painting is created in ink on paper, with a limited amount of watercolour.

All the pieces are not glazed or even framed but mounted on silk in hand scrolls technique. The artist didn’t paint real Chinese features but imaginary or idealized nature(Elkins, 2010 p., 96). China s known for rich history, mountains as a natural feature are connected to religion since they reach up in the direction of heavens. Many in the region thus imagine that looking at paintings of mountains is perfect for the soul. Comments The painting offers a unique feature that makes it one of the greatest surviving masterpieces not just in China but throughout the artistic world.

 The significance of this painting is reflected in the time taken to finish it. The landscape painting had emerged into an autonomous genre that clearly embodied the nature longing of cultivated persons to escape quotidian world to commune with the universe. Western Landscape George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley, 1856 The Lackawanna Valley  is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. the artist inclusion of various tree stumps in the in his work foreground makes the piece of work unique, The painting exemplifies a significant philosophical dilemma that many Americans were tackling in the 1850s; Growth inevitably demanded the widespread destruction of nature which was not spoiled.

My final comment to this piece of art is the effective use of muted colors experience also known as (Tonalism). This makes the paint a unique master piece and a reflective of the era that is such important in the history of American civilization. From these and other observations, I came to a conclusion this work would be associated to the theme of westward expansion and its effects. Unique comparison of West and Chinese Paints Both landscape painters from the West and China have embedded their emotion and personal feelings towards the image as opposed to shallow depiction or appearance of the object.

Nonetheless, most of the landscape painting from the west like this one in particular is largely affected by faith of Christian religion. Likewise, unlike Westerners Chinese use of stroke and line forms the main expression as they compose the picture structure (Elkins, 2010 p., 36). Westerners are commonly known with oil painting as the main type of western painting. The motive for this is to create the realistic scene that is outstanding as much as the painter can. So normally, Western painters will objectively portray color, look and the relationship between the shadow and the light in order to let the lovers of their work to feel they are part of the environment and the nature that painter has created.

Reference Elkins, J. 2010. Chinese landscape painting as Western art history. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press.