The Characteristics

of Arts and Crafts

In Specific
Countries in East
Asia
• The East Asian
countries have distinct
art forms. They have
developed them to
certain heights of
excellence. Their arts
have acquired distinct
characteristics which
would tell at a glance
where they
originated.
Characteristics
• According to Google’s dictionary, it
is a feature or quality belonging
typically to a person, place, or thing
and serving to identify it.
• It is also true for the arts and crafts
in East Asia. You can easily identify
their artworks by their distinct
characteristics.
Important Aspects
in East Asian
Painting
1. Landscape Painting
• It was regarded as the highest form of Chinese painting.
•  They also consider the three concepts of their arts:
Earth, Heaven and Humankind (Yin-Yang). Chinese
society is basically agricultural. It has always laid great
stress on understanding the pattern of nature and living
in accordance with it.
•  Oriental artists often created landscapes rather than
paintings with the human figure as subjects
 • It was often used as the medium to paint upon, but
2. Silk it was quite expensive.
•  When the Han court eunuch, Cai Lun, invented
the paper in the 1st Century AD, it provided not
only a cheap and widespread medium for writing,
but painting also became more economical.
 3. Ideologies
• The ideologies of
Confucianism, Daoism, and
Buddhism played important
roles in East Asian art.
•  Chinese art expresses the
human understanding of the
relationship between nature
and human. It is evident in the
form of painting of
landscapes, bamboo, birds,
and flowers, etc. This is called
the metaphysical– the Daoist
aspect of Chinese painting.
 Xie He
• who was a writer, art historian and critic in 5th
century China established the Six Principles of
Chinese Painting.
• 1. Observe rhythm and movements .
• 2. Leave spaces for the eyes to rest
• 3. Use brush in calligraphy
• 4. Use colors correctly
• 5. Live up to tradition by copying the master’s
artwork.
• 6. Copy the correct proportion of the objects and
nature.
 Korean Paintings’
History.
• It dates to 108 C.E. It has first appeared
as an independent form. It is said that
until the Joseon dynasty, the primary
influence of Korean paintings were
Chinese paintings. However, Korean
paintings have subjects such as
landscapes, facial features, Buddhist
topics. Also, it has an emphasis on
celestial observation in keeping with the
rapid development of Korean
astronomy.
•  Mountain and Water are
important features in Korean
landscape painting. It is a site for
building temples and buildings.
•  Landscape painting represents
both a portrayal of nature itself
and a codified illustration of the
human view of nature and the
world.
What is
Calligraphy?
Calligraphy. It is the art of
beautiful handwriting. The
following are its characteristics.
• 1. It involves the same techniques as in traditional
painting.
• 2. It is done with a brush dipped in black or colored
ink.
• 3. It does not use oils.
• 4. It has a strong linear focus which the features are
conveyed primarily with thin, sharply-defined lines.
• 5. Paper and silk are its popular materials which
paintings are also made of.
• 6. Poets write their calligraphy on their paintings.
Logographs • These (ancient writing symbols)
are engraved on the shoulder
bones of large animals and on
tortoise shells.
Jiaguwen

• It (Chinese:
“bone-and-
shell script”) is
pictographic
script found
on oracle
bones.
Cangjie • He is the legendary inventor of Chinese writing. He got
his ideas from observing animals’ footprints and birds’
claw marks on the sand as well as other natural
phenomena. He then started to work out simple images
from what he conceived as representation of different
objects such as:
 Woodblock Printing.
•  It is a technique for printing text,
images or patterns used widely
throughout East Asia.
•  It originated in China as a method of
printing on textiles but eventually
became a method for printing on paper.
•  It was a method adapted in Japan
during the Edo period (1603-1867) and
became one of their oldest and most
highly developed visual arts.
•  It is most common theme in Japan for
printmaking which describes scenes from
everyday life.
•  It narrates the scene and is often
packed with figures and detail.
Japanese Ukiyo-e
•  It means "pictures of the floating world”.
•  It is best known and a most popular style
of Japanese art, which also It is related to
the style of woodblock print making that
shows scenes of harmony and carefree
everyday living.
•  It was produced in a diversity of different
media, including painting.
•  It became an art domain of the upper
classes and royalty but later was also
produced by the common people.
Asynchronous
Activities:
Learning Task 7: In
your answer sheet,
answer the following
in your answer sheet.
(page 13)