Chinese painting evolved from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries as technological sophistication, coupled with cultural transformations, affected the creative arts. Helen Gardner (380) sees these changes as linked, at least in part, to the growing significance of Zen Buddhism that emerged in Sung painting as of the late tenth century. This brief essay will examine a small selection of Chinese paintings to trace these changes.
The five traditional colors employed in China are white, black, red, yellow, and blue-green - which correspond to metal, water, fire, earth, and wood ("Some Landscapes" 1). An early example of Chinese painting from the late fourth or early fifth century is Lady Feng and the Bear, attributed to Ku K'ai-Chih. This artist is considered one of the greatest early Chinese painters. He took his subject for this scroll from a Chinese writer who explains the principles that an instructor in the royal palace would teach to the princesses under her care. Gardner (219) says that the secular subject is interesting, depicting the emperor surrounded by his courtiers with Lady Feng calmly viewing two soldiers attacking the bear. Perhaps "the most striking characteristic is the great amount of expression created almost alone by line" (Gardner, 218). The spirited rhythmic movement of this early scroll expresses what Gardner (220) calls "an inner vitality, a spiritual quality, universal in Chinese painting."
It was not until Buddhism entered China in the T'ang Dynasty that the Chinese native tradition was blended with that of Buddhism. One of the greatest T'ang painters was Wu Tao-Tsu (circa 700 A.D.) who executed frescoes for Buddhist temples. However, by the time the Sung Period emerged, Buddhism combined with Chinese traditions to establish a school of landscape painting which is one of the greatest accomplishments of Chinese art.
Examples of this approach to painting include Tung Yuan's late ten...