Ming6

Ming arts and artisans

The culture of travel that developed during the Ming inspired the production of paintings in several ways:

► artists and collectors traveled to collections to see famous paintings in collections

► artists and poets traveled to see and experience famous sites that had been mentioned in poetry or were depicted in paintings (while some painters believed that the creative process when producing art could be approached by meditation an visualization of the topic, others argued that only the direct contact with the landscape etc. would be helpful in stimulating individual creative forces).

► merchants traveled to buy paintings (which they sometimes commissioned) in order to sell them to patrons

While calligraphy traditionally used to be held in higher esteem among scholars than painting, this notion changed considerably during the Ming.

From the 11^th century on it had become common to inscribe paintings with poetry, a dedication etc. Painting and calligraphy could be appreciated together as complementary arts.

In the Ming it sometimes even happened that a calligraphy could be removed from a painting if the occasion for which the painting had been created had long passed or if the addressee of the inscription was less famous than the painter and the painting was no longer in the hand of its first owner.

This “privileging of the picture over the word” was a new trend that was closely related to

► the prestige of owning famous paintings that was added to the ideal of the scholar.

Since the Song dynasty (960-1279) this ideal had shaped the education and behavior of generations of scholars. It demanded that a scholar should be an accomplished poet, have a command of calligraphy and painting, and think and act in an upright, honest, and cultivated manner. This included acquiring a fine taste for objects that could express his status such as the interior design of the scholar’s studio (furniture, the utensils used for calligraphy and painting, musical instruments, plants (potted landscapes) which came to serve as an hermitage for the scholar/politician in the city. If available, a garden adjacent to the studio could increase the appreciation (and the value) of the scholarly mansion.

► “Privileging the picture over the word” is furthermore related to the growing influence of the commercial market for works of art.

While since the Tang dynasty (618-907) the producers of paintings had formed two groups, the dividing line between professional painters and scholarly painters began to disappear in the Ming:

Professional painters traditionally had been regarded as inferior because they

► worked (in workshops) to make a living

► painted in the ‘meticulous brush’ style copying nature as closely as possible

► made intensive use of color in their paintings

► painted on prepared silk or painted murals in large formats

The members of this group were collectively called the ‘Northern School’ (in an allusion to different schools of Chan Buddhism).

The ‘Southern School’ of scholarly amateur painters were considered to be the superior artists because they

► expressed ideas instead of representing forms

► painted with ink on paper

With the emerging market of art objects in the Ming it became socially acceptable that painters painted for a living. There are many cases of well-known painters, sometimes of families with several generations of painters, who painted for cash. Some famous painters who painted to make a living became monks for a period in their lives in order to escape the political turmoil during the transition from the Ming to the Qing. (Shitao, 1642-1707; Bada Shanren (1626-1705; he left the monastery again in the 1670s.) Wen Shu (1595-1634) the great-granddaughter of the famous scholar-official Wen Zhengming (1470-1559) sold her paintings to support her family.

Paintings became a commodity and element of the network of gift-giving and paying for obligations described by Brook in SUMMER.

Paintings were used as

► spontaneous or prepared gifts (ordered from a painter) exchanged in a social gathering of friends. Oftentimes painted fans were given away as a token commemorating the occasion.

► Farewell paintings became popular in the 15^th century. They could be bought from a vendor in the street or ordered from a famous workshop.

► Paintings were popular as birthday presents.

New subjects were added to the canon of paintings topics:

► Portraits of gentlemen in a landscape often show scholars outdoors enjoying the landscape, or appreciating works of art outside of their studio.

► Realistic commemorative portraits were used in funeral rites and placed on the ancestral temple. (Printed portraits of authors or eminent local worthies also appeared in books.)

► Large format paintings that were hung up when the seasons changed or on special occasions in reception halls became commercial objects ordered from painting workshops in increasing numbers. To follow the requirements of taste a family needed different images to adorn the hall.

New formats of paintings became popular as well:

While appreciating a hanging scroll required servants who would help to hang up or hold the painting during a presentation, small sized albums allowed for enjoyment by the connoisseur in solitude.

The motifs and designs of painting themes were reproduced on different materials during the Ming:

They could be found in colored woodblock prints, on porcelain, carved in lacquer objects, cast in metal works, embroidered on textiles, carved in jade or bamboo, adorn ink-cakes.

The artisans who created these works of art signed their works just like the painters. Just as in painting the name of the artisan could raise the price of an object tremendously. Therefore the market for copies and fakes flourished.

Religious art

Qiu Shi (act. C. 1550-1580), the daughter of the famous painter Qiu Ying painted religious images and specialized on depictions of the deity of mercy, Guan Yin. In her paintings Guan Yin is shown as the female goddess of mercy holding a child on her arm. Guan Yin was also revered as the deity of bringing sons to a family. Qiu Shi may have been inspired by depictions of the Virgin Mary brought to China by Jesuit missionaries. (The Jesuits stressed the importance of the Virgin Mary in their teachings when they reluctantly realized that her role in Christianity was more appealing to the Chinese audience than the crucified Jesus. Some Ming authors claimed to ‘know that the Western god was a woman’).

Pictorial printing added a new scale of distribution to religious art: Religious images could be produced in great quantities. Ceramic, wooden, and stone sculptures of religious content were more prominent during the Ming than in earlier times. Painting and monumental sculpture were less dominant.