Cultural relics and art

Author: Yang Hong, Li Li
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-07-01
Features: Compared to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the artistic style during the Five Dynasties period underwent a transformation. The Night Banquet of Han Xizai, now preserved in the Palace Museum in Beijing, is one of the representative works (Color Plate 3). Painted by the Southern Tang artist Gu Hongzhong, it is currently a Song dynasty copy, on silk, with colored ink. The vertical dimension is 28.7 cm, and the horizontal dimension is 335.5 cm. The painting depicts five interconnected yet relatively independent scenes of activities, showcasing the luxurious and unrestrained nature of Han Xizai's homecoming banquet as the Zhongshu Sheren (a high-ranking official) of the Southern Tang, thereby shaping the image of this politically disgraced senior official. Legend has it that the artist was commissioned by the Southern Tang Emperor Li Huizong to visit Han's residence at night, observe and memorize the scene, and then paint it upon returning. The Southern Tang was a small court that broke away during the Five Dynasties period, marked by debauchery and corruption, where rulers and officials competed in pursuing pleasure. The painting themes they favored evolved with the social climate, and this change in figure painting led to positive outcomes. The themes depicted in the figures broke free from the traditional subjects of emperors and meritorious officials from the Han and Tang dynasties, allowing for a more realistic portrayal of daily life and reflecting the myriad aspects of society. This demanded that artists not only be skilled in depicting forms but also in capturing the inner thoughts and emotions of characters, achieving the realm of "writing the heart" to fully embody the spirit of the figures. The Night Banquet of Han Xizai thus marks the milestone for ancient Chinese figure painting to enter this phase of development.
Among Southern Tang figure paintings, in addition to Gu Hongzhong's aforementioned work, copies of Chess Game with Double Screens and Palace Scene Scroll by Zhou Wenju have also been preserved. The Chess Game with Double Screens, now housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing, depicts the scene of the Southern Tang Emperor Li Jing playing chess with his three younger brothers. The composition is ingenious: behind the four players on the bed and stools stands a large screen, which itself features another screen and a painting of figures. This is why it is called "double screens." It is said that during the Song dynasty, someone compared this painting to the known portrait of Li Jing, finding that the "features and attire were not even slightly different." Flower-and-bird painting and landscape painting also underwent new transformations during the Five Dynasties period. Currently, the only surviving flower-and-bird painting from the Five Dynasties is Huang Quan's sketch Birds and Insects, now preserved in the Palace Museum in Beijing. The paintingly arranges ten birds, two turtles, and some grasshoppers and insects, with meticulous brushwork, accurate modeling, and a light and elegant color palette, reflecting the artist's profound skill. In landscape painting, Southern Tang artists such as Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, Zhao Gan, and Wei Xian achieved remarkable results. Notably, Dong Yuan and his disciple, the monk Ju Ran, were renowned for depicting Jiangnan landscapes, employing different ink lines—wet and dry—to create the "mace crinkling" technique, which vividly captured the misty and ethereal scenery of southern mountains and rivers. Meanwhile, in the north, Jing Hao, a landscape painter with a lasting influence on later generations, emerged. He retreated to the Taihang Mountains during the late Tang dynasty and lived among northern mountains and forests for a long time, taking the northern landscape as his subject. He primarily created panoramic ink landscape paintings. His compositions emphasized the balance between foreground and background, and the scenes he painted were grand and majestic, with a robust and extraordinary style. He also proposed the "Six Essentials" for landscape painting—qi (spirit), yun (charm), si (thought), jing (scene), bi (brushwork), and mo (ink). This indicates that the "truth" the artists valued at the time was not a mere imitation of real landscapes but rather the recombination of the forms observed in nature in the artist's mind according to an ideal model, infused with vitality and emotion, to achieve a realm of "vivid charm." Jing Hao's grand panoramic landscape masterpieces have been passed down.