IME FAKULTETA OVDE

Arts of China
Essay

2020
Mehmedović (Dodaj kinesko ime
 Apstract: When it comes to Chinese arts we should be concious that we are speaking about
very long and rich tradition which is by the same time one of the oldest art culture in human history
that includes every form of arsts, from the paintings, through music, wrtings to the sculpture works.
To follow the lead of its tradions is without any doubts interesting journey which at the same time
raises our spirit and give us knoweldgde and diffrent prespective about life in general. In this work
we will just scracht the surface of different form of arts that are caracteristic for Chinese
traditon.Key words: Arts, chinese arts, music, drama, painting, dance
 Paintings

Chinese art, painting and calligraphy originated from the same source
and countless connections have been created between them during their long
development. These two arts have a common foundation in terms of concept,
composition, style. Painting has two basic elements - drawing and color.
Drawing is the essence of Chinese traditional painting. With the development
of painting, more and more colors appear, whose role is becoming more and
more important.
Chinese painting developed from Neolithic paintings created on pottery and in
caves. Yangshao culture, which included the provinces of Henan, Shanxi,
Shanxi, Gansu, Hebei and Ningxia, whose center was the Loeska plateau,
existed as far back as 7,000 years ago and marked the most successful period
in prehistoric Chinese painting. Drawing and colors, simple and complex
paintings found on vessels from this period, reach the basic standards of
painting and represent a good foundation for its later development. In addition
to pottery painting, there is widespread rock painting in China. China is a
country with very rich remains of painting on stone, so far more than 1000
places with painted rocks have been discovered. Among them are the painting
of Mount Yin in Inner Mongolia, the painting of Mount Helan in Ningxi, the
Altai in Xiang, as well as the Kang-Yuan painting in Yunnan, the paintings on the
rocks around the Cuo River in Guangxi. Over a long period of time, Chinese
painting has created five basic types:

 Figurative painting appeared in the Warring States Period. Already in that period, we
find mature figurative painting, as evidenced by the paintings on silk, found in Chu's
tomb in Changshu, in the territory of Hunan Province.
 Landscape painting developed during the Sui and Tang dynasties, and was most
significant during the reign of the Sung dynasty. Various artistic concepts appear in
landscape painting.
 Painting depicting flowers, fruits, bamboos, rocks, birds, beasts and fish is one of the
types of painting that appeared in early Chinese art. Its basic themes can be seen on
Neolithic pottery, as well as on bronze vessels from the Shang and Chu dynasties.
During the Tang Dynasty, this painting developed into an independent type of
painting. Many Chinese images of flowers and birds have a symbolic meaning.
 Painting of palaces, houses, pavilions and other buildings was done with the help of a
paintbrush and a ruler.
 Various paintings deviate from the mentioned types, it includes painting rocks and
unusual shapes, old objects made of porcelain, bronze, jade and stone, paintings of
canopy curtains, paintings of egg shells and colored lanterns.

Chinese painting has its own style. Unlike Western realistic painting, which
adopts a geometric perspective, Chinese painting accepts an illusionist
perspective. Artistic conceptions form the core of the ancient Chinese
theory of painting. They refer to a system of images that connects the
feelings and the displayed scene. This system connects imaginary and real
aspects of painting, as well as its aesthetic and imaginary space. The
differences between Chinese and Western painting also lie in the different
means of painting, the different attitude towards culture and aesthetic
values. Chinese painting creates a unique and independent art system. In it,
both large and small works are specific and have an infinite number of types
and connotations.
Sculpture

Guided by the needs of life and work, man began to carve and shape
figures in the Stone Age. Over time, the sculpture acquired increasing artistic
properties. Now it has become an inevitable art form in human life. Sculpture
is a form of three-dimensional fine art, its appearance is associated with
human productive activity, and at the same time it is under the direct influence
of various types of ideology, culture, religion and philosophy. There are three
basic forms of sculpture: free sculpture, relief, and indoor sculpture.

Free sculpture includes individual or group sculptures, works that take

up space and which we also call three-dimensional statues. Free sculptures are
visible from all sides and are placed where they can be fully seen.

Relief is a type of sculpture that, just like a painting, has length and
width, but differs from a two-dimensional painting in the degree of convexity
of its figures. In accordance with the rules of perspective, there is a negative
correlation between distance and height, as well as between distance and
thickness of relief figures. According to the degree of convexity, reliefs can be
divided into: low and high, is shallow and deep reliefs.

Sculptures in an enclosed or hollowed-out space are placed in a deeper

or shallower cavity. This sculptural form is mainly used for relatively small
works of art.

Chinese sculpture is impressionistic, Chinese ancient sculptors

consciously do not adhere to the principles of anatomy and visual similarity in
shaping human and animal figures. According to the purpose, Chinese
traditional sculptures can be classified into four types, namely: cemetery,
religious, architectural and artistic sculpture. The development of Chinese
sculpture was often connected with the history of China and because of that, it
was often determined by the historical hinterland.

Terracotta Warriors
Terracotta warriors and horses today have the original color of gray clay,
but at the time of their creation they were painted in nine colors: red, green,
blue, yellow, purple, brown, black, white and turquoise. Laboratory tests show
that the paints are composed of mineral pigments, ie the main pigments of
Chinese traditional painting. The colors present on terracotta warriors, horses
and chariots indicate complex artistic procedures, various procedures and
coloring of all parts of the work. These methods achieved a harmonious
complement between sculpture and painting.

Music
Each culture has its own unique music system. Chinese music
emphasizes changes in sounds, leaves harmony and, through the horizontal
expansion of time, creates a classy monophonic melodic line. The power of
Chinese music comes from its depth. Since ancient times, five basic notes have
been accepted in Chinese music: gung, shang, jiao, ji and yui. They had their
correlations in five world phases, five basic colors. The pitch was determined
by a series of tones of 12 degrees (six referred to jing and six to yang), for
which there is nothing analogous in Western music.

The development of Chinese traditional musical instruments has a long

history. There are many complex types of instruments, among them the main
ones are percussion, wind, string and string instruments. Of all the
instruments, percussion appeared first. In the period of the warring states, the
production of percussion was highly developed, and bells were the most
important bronze musical instrument. The transverse flute is an instrument
that is played from the side and it is often used in Chinese traditional music.
Most of these flutes are made of bamboo, but there are also stone flutes.
Flutes are divided into: southern kung flute and northern bangci flute. Today,
the flute is one of the main musical instruments in China, used in folk music,
traditional opera, as well as in symphonic and pop music.

Chinese sound system

Chinese music moves in a pentatonic frame. Based on mathematical
principles, the ancient Chinese defined a series of twelve frequencies half a
degree apart. Starting with the basic tone of the yellow bell, there are five
basic tones of the pentatonic scale and seven semitones in between. This is
considered to be the oldest known record of the sound system. It is not
possible to find out the exact pitch of the yellow bell because, among other
things, it changed with the change of dynasties, but it is believed that it was
between our Cis and F.

These five Chinese basic tones were included in the whole network of
cosmological meanings as a reflection of the Chinese view of life and the world
and pointed to the importance of music in their lives. According to Chinese
teaching, the whole world is created from five elements (wood, water, earth,
metal and fire), and each element corresponds to one tone. Also, elements and
tones are associated with the sides of the world (north, east, middle, west and
south), planets (Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Mars), seasons (summer,
late summer, autumn, winter and spring) , colors, organs, but also with the
state itself. Confucius associated the ruler with tone C, the minister with tone
D, the people with tone E. The tone G was a symbol of land-related works, and
tone A a symbol of nature. If there is a harmony of tones, then there is
harmony in the state, otherwise there is a discrepancy. When tone C loses its
value, the ruler neglects his duties, and when tone A loses value, one no longer
lives in harmony with nature.

Drama
There are many dramatic forms in China that cover many areas of life
and art. The Chinese drama originated more than 2500 years ago. The oldest
drama involved singing and dancing. In it, actors dressed in costumes of all
kinds of animals and accompanied by rhythmic music show the plot of the
drama. During the reign of the Han dynasty, there was a development of
Chinese society, which was accompanied by the development of various forms
of drama, performed in courtyards and streets. Baixi drama included music,
dance, comedy, acrobatics and magic tricks. After the Han dynasty, during the
reign of the Tang dynasty, importance is given to folk songs and dances, such
as Tajaoniang, Botu, Damian. Chang drama developed from drama with singing
and dancing. During the Sung dynasty, Caju drama and Nanxi drama were
created. A painted brick found in the tomb of the Dong family in Huoma, near
Shanxi Province, shows a small stage with five actors: Sheng, Dan, Ying, Mo and
Chu.
 Dance
Chinese games have a long history. In ancient times, they were the basic
form of culture. Ancient dance scenes can also be seen on the historical
cultural remains of later generations. Musical dances from the Western Chu
dynasty were one of the first known in the history of Chinese dance. Civil and
warrior dances were performed with great enthusiasm, glorifying the
emperors of former dynasties. During the reign of the Tang dynasty, court
dances flourished, including rough and gentle games. After the Sung and Yuang
dynasties, folk dances were very popular, but many classical dances of previous
dynasties were no longer in vogue, they were replaced by dances performed in
traditional Chinese opera. Opera dances gradually matured during the Ming
and Qing dynasties and became a basic element of action and acrobatic
struggle, characteristic of Chinese traditional opera. Currently in China, next to
each other, there are traditional, modern and dances that combine Chinese
and Western styles.
 Conclusion:
In this work we were able to see just surface of the Chinese arts, but we
hope that was enough to underline the importance of Chinese arts and the
value of it not only for people of China but for the whole world. For example
Chinese music was way ahead of Western music which is good example how
much Chinese arts was developed and how through that development music
and art all over the world were influenced which is for us (and we are not the
only one) personally really important fact. Also there is strong connection
between tradition and modernity in all forms of Chinese arts, which is really
interesting thing for further research and at the same time that combination
gives something so much unique to Chinese arts, that most of the people will
recognize it but sight and can tell the difference between Chinese arts and arts
that is not made in China.
References:
The arts of China, Michael Sullivan University of California Press, 1984