Chan Buddhism and Art

12 June 2017

Ма Юань Снежный пейзаж — Ma Yuan. Snowy landscape

Chan Buddhism and Art
Artistic principles and aesthetic ideals of Zen
Primordial generating matrix of Dzogchen

Chan-Buddhist themes and motifs
in Chinese Art

Chan Buddhist Art in China During The Tang Dynasty (618-907)

Wang Wei (699–759), a universal Chinese genius, was a great poet, painter, calligrapher, musician, innovator, art critic, and also successful courtier and statesman.
Не has been regarded as the founder and patriarch of the Southern School of Chinese landscape art, honoured as the prototype of Wen ren hua (literati painting). It was a unique painting style and ideal form of the Chinese scholar-painter or poet-painter, which was finally codified by the Chan Buddhist poet, painter, and critic Su Shi (1037 -1101) and critic and painter Dong Qichang (1555-1636).
In so doing, Su Shi described his works: “The quality of Wang Wei’s poems can be summed as the poems hold a painting within them. In observing his paintings you can see that within the painting there is poetry.”
Wang Wei’s poetry and painting shone through the basic Chan Buddhist ideas of sudden enlightenment and direct comprehension and experience of beauty and ultimate truth. All his works reflected profound Chan Buddhist meanings of initial Buddhahood of all beings and deep spiritual unity of man and nature and embodied aesthetic ideals of refined simplicity, purity, profound grace and subtlety, artlessness, inner freedom and spontaneity.
Due to his firm commitment to Chan Buddist teaching, Wang has received the title the Poet Buddha.

Visiting Hsiang-Chi Temple
Unknown, Hsiang-chi Temple—
miles and miles into cloud-draped peaks.
Among the old trees, a path no one travels,
a bell deep in the mountains but where from?
A brook gulps among protruding boulders,
and though the sun glows, it’s cool beneath the pines.
At dusk, by a bend in an empty pool,
meditating quietly I rout the deadly dragon.A Song of an Autumn Night
Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew
Has chilled the robe she will not change —
And she touches a silver lute all night,
Afraid to go back to her empty room.

Huazi Ridge
Fly bird go no limit
Join mountain again autumn colour
Up down Huazi Ridge
Melancholy feeling what extreme.

In The Hills
White rocks jutting from Ching stream
The weather’s cold, red leaves few
No rain at all on the paths in the hills
Clothes are wet with the blue air.

Birds Calling in the Ravine
I’m idle, as osmanthus flowers fall,
This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty.
The moon comes out and
startles the birds on the hill,
They don’t stop calling in the spring ravine.

In A Retreat Among Bamboos
Leaning alone in the close bamboos,
I am playing my lute and humming a song
Too softly for anyone to hear —
Except my comrade, the bright moon.

http://hellopoetry.com/wang-wei/

Wang Wei. Snowscapes along Yangtze river (長江積雪圖).
Part of the unrolling scroll

Wang Wei. Snowscapes along Yangtze river (長江積雪圖).
Part of the unrolling scroll

Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907 – 960)

Shi-ke (? -976) – Buddhist monks, artists and painters

Shi Ke. The Second Patriarch in Contemplation (二祖調心圖)

Shi Ke. The Second Patriarch in Contemplation (二祖調心圖)
Two hanging scrolls, ink on paper, 35.3 x 64.4 cm, Tokyo National Museum
chinaonlinemuseum.com

Chan Painting During The Song Dynasty (960 – 1279)

During Song dynasty , divided into periods Northern (960 – 1127) and Southern Song (1127 – 1279), Ch’an painting was finally formed as an independent artistic phenomenon.
Its outstanding representatives were Su Shi (1037 – 1101), Mi Fu (1051-1107), Li Tang (1050 – 1130), Liu Sunnyan (ca.1150 – after 1225), Ma Yuan (ca.1160-1225) and Xia Gui (ca. 1180-1230), and especially Buddhist monks, artists and painters Liang Kai (1140 – 1220), Yin Yu-chien (1127-1219) and Mu Qi (ca. 1210-1270).

Northern Song dynasty (960 – 1127)

In the Northern Song famous poet and artist Su Shi (1037 – 1101) and his friends and disciples Wen Tong (1018 – 1079) and Mi Fu (1052-1107), as well as Li Gonglin (1040 – 1106) and Mi Youren (1086-1165) continued the tradition of the Wang Wei school “literati painting” (文人画, wenrenhua or wen-jen-hua), which was coined and finally codified by the critic and painter Dong Qichang (1555 -1636).

Su Shi (January 8, 1037 – August 24, 1101), also known as Su Tungpo, was a Chinese writer, poet, painter and calligrapher

Su Shi. Ancient Tree with Rock
Fu Xinian, ed., Zhongguo meishu quanji, Huihua bian 3: Liang Song huihua, shang (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), plate 25, p. 51.

Mi Fu (C. 米芾 or 米黻; 1051–1107) was a Chinese painter, poet, and calligrapher

Mi Fu. Mountains and Pines in Spring (Part),
National Palace Museum (Taipei) en.wikipedia.org

Mi Youren (1074 -1151) was a Chinese artist, the son of famous artist Mi Fu (1052–1107)

Mi Youren. Landscape

南宋米友仁雲山圖卷 (Part)

Mi Youren. Cloudy Mountains 南宋米友仁雲山圖卷

Southern Song dynasty (1127 – 1279)

A special contribution to the development of landscape painting during the early Southern Song period made such brilliant members of the artistic association “Four Masters of Southern Song”, as Li Tang (1050 – 1130), Liu Songnian (ca. 1150–after 1225) ), Ma Yuan (ca.1160-1225 ) and Xia Gui (ca. 1180-1230).
Ma Yuan (ca.1160-1225) and Xia Gui (c. 1180-1230), who created their own original individual style of painting “Ma-Xia” that is, “the style of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui.”