Asian Art – Part II

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• March 20, 2009 at 3:15 pm #4982
  Rob_Hugo@PortNW

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  China is completely surrounded by Asian countries plus those broken off geographically, like Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Buddhist monks who spread their ideas and religion were very evangelistic. India didn’t proselytize like China did. Therefore, the styles of art between China and India are less similar than China and many of her surrounding nations. Our first viewing was of a painting called: “Pine Bat Deer”. They are all separate entities in the painting. The picture depicts several aspects, like scenes of creation. They’re all living things and full of movement. You can clearly see the needles and branches, whereas the trunk looks faded. Our instructor told us this is a technique used in Asian art called dry brush. The painter pulls the brush down until it’s dry. The background is a tea stained background and uses only black ink. No other color is used in order to emphasize the theme and enhances the observers’ interaction with the piece. There are spots on the deer and tree. This captures a moment in nature and unites the tree with the deer. The deer symbolizes being “love sick”, whereas a tiger symbolizes, “anger” and a monkey, “greed”. These are called the three foolish ones in nature. The bat is a symbol of endless happiness. The pine symbolizes the three friends of winter. The Mongols invaded China in the twelfth century. They burned and pillaged. The painting of a pine is a silent rebellion against the Mongols of how beautiful China was before this invasion (along with paintings of plum and bamboo). The observer is looking at the deer from its rear. The deer hears the bat and is looking to see if the sound is safe. Each entity: the pine, the bat and the deer were painted by three painters. A painter is usually a specialist and paints just that entity. The parts are put together as one piece. There are three chops signifying each painter. A chop is a stamp on the bottom of a cylinder. The painters will place their chops and owners may also add their chops. The more chops, the more valuable the painting is. The next item was a large golden fan that was mounted to the wall. It had a (red) moon and several groups of cranes. Several cultures use the moon but it is usually associated with Korea. The moon shows this is a quiet time of day. The cranes are relaxing, secure and peaceful at this time of day. There are two groups of cranes. Groups are significant. There is a pair, probably male and female and a triad, a male and two females. Buddhism classifies animals by wiseness. Tortoises are considered the wisest followed by cranes. The fan’s gold background, as has been stated, was common. Often, windows were covered with rice paper which throws light into the room. The golden background stands for light. We compared these two pieces (Chinese and Korean) to a cloth painting of an elephant from India. The elephant is chosen above all other animals because it is considered to be a friend to man, hard working and loyal. The instructor told us that during the tsunami, elephants broke loose from their enclosures and rescued many people, going back again and again for more people, all on their own without human direction. The Asian elephant is smaller in size with smaller ears than the African elephant. The Asian elephant is domesticated and the African elephant is not. They swim 50 miles to an island, work all day land then swim back. In the painting, the elephant is wearing bracelets, a blanket, and jewels and is painted. The bracelets are to ward off evil spirits. The rest is part of the worship Indians have for elephants. Other cultures respect the elephant but the Indians worship it as a god.
  

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