Evolution of Chinese Landscape Paintings

The two paintings in question are in dialogue with each other. Or, it may be more accurate to say that the first is answering a question that had been posed by the second. These two were written approximately three-hundred years apart from each other and under different circumstances. And yet both are not only emblematic of Chinese Landscape paintings, they equally demonstrate its evolution.

Chinese landscape painting is easily identified by its avoidance of perspective and idealized depictions of nature, as opposed to representing actual scenes. Both of the pieces in question adhere to these markers, but it is in how they are utilized that is essential to understanding to centuries-long perfection of this craft.

The second piece is the earliest. It’s a detail from the paper hand scroll Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains by Zhao Mengfu. Zhao was a high-ranking official for the Yuan Government who was descended from Song dynasty royalty. Although he was considered highly talented as a politician, calligrapher, poet, and musician, his skills as a painter would prove to be the most influential. Zhao traveled widely to study nature and gradually adopted the Dong Yuan style of “hemp-fiber” strokes, as well as the Tang dynasty landscape style that used green and blue pigments. It is his style that would be widely adopted among the greats of landscape painting. In particular, One of the Great Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Dongwang, was clearly influenced by Zhao in his work, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains. Huang, in turn, would prove to be incredibly influential to the artist of our first work.

Autumnal Landscape by Dong Qichang, like our other work, is an ink and color hand scroll, although this one is on silk rather than paper, and it would continue the tradition of impossible landscapes, but this piece in particular is a crucial example of the changing philosophies of the medium. Dong is important to the evolution of Chinese art in how he codified, and thus substantiated, the concept of Literati artists. Dong consolidated the ideas of his friends and fellow artists that when Zen Buddhism branched into the Northern and Southern Song schools, artists similarly branched and formed into two camps. The professional court artists of the Northern school and the Southern school, which contained the Four Yuan masters, including Huang, that would eventually create the style of the Literati. Dong’s style promoted forgoing the study of nature to instead study the masters and their works. The details from Autumnal Landscape show this perfectly. It is far more minimal in color than Zhao’s Autumn Colors. It’s trees less detailed, and with a noticeably sharp contrast between mass and void. The hemp-fiber strokes are still visible, but are accompanied by a variety of other types of brushstrokes.

It is the way of art to evolve over time and adapt to changing tastes and environments, and between these two hand scrolls, we see that change in action over the course of hundreds of years. The question asked and answered between these works is a complicated one: Can there be a way to make art, outside of what has always existed? Zhao’s work was influential because of how it differed from the norm of the time, and Dong’s because of how it would set a new standard. Evolution requires building off what already exists and using it for something new.

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Bibliography

Neave, Dorinda, Lara C W Blanchard, Marika Sardar, and Miranda Bruce-Mitford. 2015. Asian Art. Boston: Pearson.

Qu, Shen. “Section 10: Secular Painting of China’s Southern Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasties .” Asu.edu. 2025. https://canvas.asu.edu/courses/218834/pages/section-10-secular-painting-of- chinas-southern-song-dynasty-and-yuan-dynasties?module_item_id=16081218

---. “Section 11: Literati Painters of China: Establishment of the Orthodox Style.” Asu.edu. 2025. https://canvas.asu.edu/courses/218834/pages/section-11-literati-painters-of-china-establishment- of-the-orthodox-style?module_item_id=16081225.

Stokstad, Marilyn.  Art History. First Edition. Prentice Hall Abrams. 1995