Top Ten Paintings In Chinese History

Presented by www.chinese5art.com at 2010-2-20

 

Top Ten Priceless Chinese Paintings in the history

 

"Chinese Top Ten Masterpieces of Painting" is an eternal monument in the history of Chinese Fine Art; it is the ten-great-masterpiece of Chinese Civilization. It is also considered as a floating Chinese history, a silent movement, and a permanently Bookmark of Chinese civilization.

 

These Chinese Top Ten Paintings are all priceless treasures since the origin of Chinese civilization year after year. And they were well collected during Jia-Qing Period of QING Dynasty, After numerous civil war followed by the whole world dispersed, all these paintings are now being collected in different museums nationwide. In the below section, I would like to go through them one by one.

 

东晋•顾恺之《洛神赋图》

“Goddess Luo Rhapsody” Gu Kaizhi from Dong Jin Dynasty

"Goddess Luo Rhapsody", is now being collected in the Beijing Palace Museum of the Forbidden City, which is mounted by Silk with colors, with vertical height of 27.1cm and horizontal length of 572.8cm.  The original "Goddess Luo Rhapsody" was drawn by the famous artist Gu Kaizhi at the Eastern JIN Dynasty.

 

This painting was created and sourcing from portray of Cao Zhi who was the famous poet at Three Kingdom Dynasty. This famous painting to some extent, keep retaining the traits of Gu Kaizhi art and his unique drawing characteristics. The whole story is divided into three parts to careful structure the genuine love story between Cao Zhi and his Goddess.

 

This painting was ranking the best quality of its kind in the ancient China history and for those who love Chinese painting I would highly recommend a visit to the Forbidden City of Beijing for more details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

唐•阎立本《步辇图》

“Pace of Emperor”, Yan Liben from Tang Dynasty

 

"Pace of Emperor," which is collected in Beijing Palace Museum of The Forbidden City, was mounted by Silk in colors, sized in 38.5cm*129.6cm. Yan is a painter in the Tang Dynasty famous in skillful & fluent streak painting, and his artwork here is now an historical treasure and priceless.

 

"Pace of Emperor" talks about the marriage of Tibetan leader Songtsan Gambo and Princess Wen Cheng in sixth century.Person in the right is the Emperor of Tang, who is sitting & surrounded by maids of honor, while the first left is Translator, second is Lu Dongzan, and the third one is Tang Officer. 

 

From the perspective of the Chinese painting, presentation skill of the artist is considered quite proficient. Primary characters of the painting look full of youth and vitality. This is an imitated copy in Song Dynasty and it was well painted compared to the original copy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

唐•张萱、周昉《唐宫仕女图》

“Maid of Honor”, Zhang xuan & Zhou Fang from Tang Dynasty 

 

 

"Maid of Honor" came from the Tang Dynasty as the most glorious era of feudal society, and Tang Dynasty is also the prosperity and flourishing period of Chinese Painting. Creatures like the ladies and maid of honor from noble families in the ancient Tang China are the preferred target among artists. Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang is the most famous painter in Tang Dynasty with world-class reputation in drawing noblewomen. And even now for today, drawing ladies is one of the main categories when creating a Chinese painting among artist, for those who over painting with this subject please visit Museum of Liaoning Province and Forbidden City, where some other ancient masterpieces are well collected.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

唐•韩滉《五牛图》

“Five Oxen”, Han Huang from Tang Dynasty

Painting of "Five Oxen" is currently collected in the Beijing Palace Museum of Forbidden City. Mounted by Hemp paper, sized 28.8cm*139.8cm, which was drawn by Prime Minister of Tang Dynasty Mr. Han Huang. (723-787 AD).Han was born in Chang’an and strong in drawing Oxen. The painting "Five Oxen" is Han Huang’s most vivid one, it was early or late collected by most of famous people like Zhao Gou (Song Emperor), Qian Long (Qing Emperor), etc.

 

Today, visitors are able to found this painting in the museum of Beijing Forbidden City and it is so far considered as the first-of-the-kind famous in drawing OX in such a vivid and pictorial way historically.

 

 

 

五代•顾闳中《韩熙载夜宴图》

“Han Xizai Banquet”, Gu Hongzhong from Five Dynasties

　　

 

Painting of “Han Xizai Banquet” is collected by Beijing Palace Museum of Forbidden City, which is mounted by Silk and sized in 27.9cm* 69cm. it was from the great painter in Five Dynasties, Gu Portrayed scene where giant Han family hosted their even banquet with plenty number of guest together in the form of long scroll painting. And this is considered as the most famous and valuable one that created in the Five Dynasties.

"Han Xizai Banquet" is three meters in length, and it’s divided into five sections, each part is screen off technically.  The first section talks about scene that Han and his guests listening to the play from maids, while in section two Han himself play drum for plays. Each section of the painting is different from others and all of them are rich with contents in regards to banquet and plays.

 

This Scroll painting is not just a description of private life, but more importantly it reflects the lifestyle of that particular era.  Due to the subtle observation from the artist, we may not miss out any of the details from Han’s evening banquet. With amazing powers of observation and his deep understanding of life, Gu had finally created such a wonderful work of painting that leave endless aftertastes.

 

 

北宋•王希孟《千里江山图》

“The Grand Territory”, Wang Ximeng from Song Dynasty

"The Grand Territory" is now collected by the Beijing Palace Museum, it was mounted by Silk in colors, sized 51.5cm*1191.5cm and it came from the famous landscape painter Wang XiMeng in Song Dynasty.

 

Wang Ximeng studied in Northern Song Painting Academy school at his age of 18, who used to taught by Emperor Song Huizhong. However this talented artist die in the early 20s which is considered as a tragedy lost in Chinese art field.

 

"The Grand Territory" pictures the Stretching of mountain, secluded rock & deep valley, slope peak, flowing river & spring, etc. it was fully Inherited landscape drawing techniques since the Sui and Tang dynasties, when green color was strongly popular in Chinese painting. “The Grand Territory” as one of the best Chinese painting with landscape theme, it had even been then remarked by Mr. Cai Jing, who was the Prime Minister of Song Dynasty. From this we can see how outstanding this painting was in tern of quality, creativity and popularity.

 

 

 

 

北宋•张择端《清明上河图》

“Qingming Riverside”, Zhang Zeduan from Song Dynasty

 

“Qingming Riverside” is the only copy that created by the famous artist Zhang in Song Dynasty. And it is currently collected by Beijing Palace Museum. it was mounted by Silk in colors, with dimension width 24.8cm and 528.7cm in length.

　　

"Qingming Riverside" is ranked as a state-level masterpiece & treasures that talk about folks & custom during Song Dynasty. As one of the most famous painting in China history, “Qingming Riverside is not only full of excellent skills but also paint down quite a number of the different stories among peoples. This painting is all about the prosperity & scene of capital city of Song Dynasty BIAN JING (Now Kaifeng City of Henan Province), which allows us today to fully understand the circumstance and lifestyle of all social castes in those days. We have to admit that “Qingming Riverside” has priceless value and contribution that others never ever have. 

 

Painting of "Qingming Riverside" is a meticulous record of the capital of Song Dynasty in HUI ZHONG period. It focus mainly the palace of emperor and scene in around Bian River during Chinese traditional Qingming festival. There are 500 plus characters dressed differently, and each of them in this painting work on their own.

 

Basically, this painting was divided into three sections, first one talk about the seasonal scenery of Spring in the countryside of Bian Jing city, While the second section is all about scenery during the peak hour of Bian Riverside and Dock. And it eventually ends up with drawing the most hustle street of the city and the hustle of life among peoples. 

  

It is all amazing that within this five-meter-long painting, there are 550 people, excluding Caws, horses, donkeys, vehicles, bridges, ships, houses that all came from the SONG Dynasty. Well for the end, I am crazy about this painting and used to watch on it for as long as 4 hours that never makes me feaze, and I do believe you too when it come to the right time. 

 

 

 

元•黄公望《富春山居图》

“Spring Dwell in Mountain”, Huang Gongwang from Yuan Dynasty

“Spring Dwell in Mountain” is 33cm in width and 636.9cm in length, paper mounted and freehand style in ink painting. It was created in year 1347 and it took 3 years to complete. This painting was partly destroyed in Shunzhi period of Qing Dynasty but then repaired and now it is collected in the State Museum of Zhejiang Province.

 

 

“Spring Dwell in Mountain” was created in the later years of Huang Gong wang painting and it is considered as another masterpiece of landscape artwork historically. And Huang himself was also called as the leading person of the “Four Giants” during Yuan Dynasty.

 

This painting had been collected in the last hundreds of year and when it passed to Wu in the Ming Dynasty, Wu tried to burn it as his sacrificial object since he love it too much, and luckily the son stopped when the time half of the painting gone. And from that time on, this painting was actually separated into two parts. It is quite sad about damage of this famous painting, however I feel lucky too as part of it is safely kept and it is now publicly exhibited in Zhejiang Museum, for those who like this painting should not miss out such opportunity to make a short visit.   

 

　

 

 

 

 

明•仇英《汉宫春晓图》

“Palace in Early Spring”, Qiu Ying from Ming Dynasty

　

 

“Palace in Spring” is considered as the first long scroll heavy meticulous style of Chinese painting mounted in silk, in its dimension of 37.2cm × 2038.5cm.

 

Qiu Ying was born in year 1498 (Hongzhi Period of Ming Dynasty) at the city of Tai Cang (now in Jiangsu Province)Taicang (Taicang Jiangsu Province today).

 

Qiu Ying is a representative painter of the Ming Dynasty, together with Shen Zhou, Wen Zheng-ming and Tang Yin were later known as the "Four Giants of Ming". Among four of them, Qiu Ying was outstanding with his heavy-color meticulous style of painting, especially when it comes to drawing maids with honor. Here the “Palace in Spring” is the most outstanding copy during Qiu’s lifetime, and artists right after him was hardly go beyond with better works. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

　　

清•郎世宁《百骏图》

“The Hundred Horses”, Lang Shining from Qing Dynasty

“The Hundred Horses” was work on paper, sized 102cm*813cm, and it is Currently collected in the Taipei Palace Museum. Italian missionary Giuseppe Castiglione was in call to serve the royal emperor families as a painter in year 1715.

 

With his 50 years serving in the Palace, Giuseppe Castiglione was regard highly by Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong with his unique & stylish painting; here “The Hundred Horses” is considered one of his best creations. Qing Dynasty as the peak of Chinese palace painting, has plenty number of painters who were strong in Chinese painting blended with western factors, while Giuseppe Castiglione was definitely one of the best.

Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), who was born in Milan, used to learn and help drawing catholic monks in Europe, and arrived China in Kangxi Period of Qing Dynasty and then become Loyal Painter. He was able to come up with Chinese paintings that well mix with western factors, strong in the three-dimension and lighting effect of the painting. Giuseppe Castiglione contributed a lot in the cultural exchange field between the east and west, and he was buried in China after dead. In my mind, Giuseppe Castiglione is a legendary painter as he was the one to socially reintegrated in the ancient China, it is definitely not lucky but because of this outstanding painting skill as well as his creative thoughts to blend Chinese painting with western factors. It is an miracle!

Fine Chinese Art and Chinese Painting, Chinese Traditional Calligraphy