When is a landscape more than a landscape? This is a richly
illustrated study of an important genre of Ming-dynasty Chinese
painting in which landscapes are actually disguised portraits that
celebrate an individual and his achievements, ambitions, and tastes
in an open effort to win recognition, support, and social status.
In this unique study, Anne de Coursey Clapp presents a broad view
of these commemorative landscape paintings, including antecedents
in the Song and Yuan dynasties.
The book traces how in commemorative landscape painting members
of the literati address their peers in a deeply familiar language
of values, just as they had for centuries through literary
biography. Although the setting for such pictures is always natural
landscape, it is secondary to the man, and its true function is to
mirror him as the humanistic ideal of the recluse-scholar. The book
shows how the literary associations attached to the new landscape
increased during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), when the first
commemorative paintings appeared, and flourished through the Ming
(1368-1644), producing an art form that was simultaneously
pictorial and verbal. In the course of exploring the sources and
meaning of these paintings, the book examines several varieties of
dedicatory paintings, including departure paintings, and the
interesting subgenre of "biehao," in which portrait subjects are
symbolized through pictorial representations of their literary
names.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!