Chinese ceramics

Chinese ceramics is a form of fine art developed since the . China has always been richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types were made about 11,000 years ago, during the era. Chinese Ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns to the sophisticated porcelain wares made for the imperial court.

Introduction

Terminology

The Chinese term for porcelain covers a wide range of high-fired ceramics, some of which may not be recognized as porcelain by Western definitions. Porcelain is usually ''green-fired'' or ''once-fired'', which means that the body and the are fired together. After the body of a piece is formed and finished it is dried, coated with a glaze, dried again and fired. In the high temperature of the kiln the body and the glaze are fused together to become a unit. Chinese led wares are also produced in this way, except enamels are added after the first high-temperature firing. The pieces are then fired again in a second round via a smaller, lower-temperature kiln.

Categories

The Chinese tradition recognises only two primary categories of ceramics, high-fired and low-fired . The define porcelain as "fine, compact pottery" . In the West the property of is often regarded as a defining feature of porcelain, but this is not the case in China, where any thick or piece that rings with a reasonably clear note on being struck would be regarded as porcelain .

History

Defining ceramics

In the context of Chinese ceramics the term ''porcelain'' lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made. Claims have been made for the late period , the Three Kingdoms period , the Six Dynasties period , and the Tang Dynasty .

Early wares

Fragments of pottery vessels dating from around the year 9000 BC found at the Xianrendong site, Wannian County, in the province of Jiangxi represent some of the earliest known Chinese ceramics. The wares were hand-made by coiling and fired in bonfires. Decorations include impressed cord marks, and features produced by stamping and by piercing.

The Xianrendong site was occupied from about 9000 BC to about 4000 BC. During this period two types of pottery were made. The first consisted of coarse-bodied wares possibly intended for everyday use. The second being finer, thinner-bodied wares possibly intended for ritual use or special occasions. There is archaeological evidence suggesting that both types of wares were produced at the same time at some point.

Han dynasty

Some experts believe the first true porcelain was made in the of Zhejiang during the Eastern Han period. Chinese experts emphasize the presence of a significant proportion of porcelain-building minerals as an important factor in defining ''porcelain''. recovered from archaeological Eastern Han kiln sites estimated firing temperature ranged from 1260 to 1300. As far back as 1000 BC, the so-called ''"Porcelaneous wares"'' or ''"proto-porcelain wares"'' were made using at least some kaolin fired at high temperatures. The dividing the line between the two and ''true porcelain wares'' is not a clear one.

Sui and Tang dynasty

During the and periods a wide range of ceramics, low-fired and high-fired, were produced. These included the well-known Tang lead-glazed ''sancai'' wares, the high-firing, lime-glazed ''Yue'' celadon wares and low-fired wares from ''Changsha''. In northern China, high-fired, translucent porcelains were made at kilns in the provinces of Henan and Hebei.

One of the first mentions of porcelain by a foreigner was made by an Arabian traveler during the Tang Dynasty who recorded that:

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The Arabs were aware of the materials necessary to create glass ware, and he was certain it was not the usual glass material.

Song and Yuan dynasty

The city of Jingdezhen has been a central place of production since the early Han Dynasty. In 1004 established the city as the main production hub for Imperial porcelain. During the and dynasties, porcelain made in the city and other southern China kiln sites used crushed and refined porcelain stones alone.

Qing dynasty

Two letters written by , a Jesuit missionary and industrial spy who lived and worked in Jingdezhen in the early eighteenth century, described in detail manufacturing of porcelain in the city, see: . In his first letter dating 1712, d'Entrecolles described the way in which porcelain stones were crushed, refined and formed into little white bricks, known in Chinese as ''petuntse''. He then went on to describe the refining of china clay ''kaolin'' along with the developmental stages of glazing and firing. He explained his motives:

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In 1743, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, Tang Ying, the imperial supervisor in the city produced a memoir entitled ''"Twenty illustrations of the manufacture of porcelain."'' Unfortunately, the original illustrations have been lost, but the text of the memoir is still accessible.

Jingdezhen became the main production centre for large-scale starting with the reign of the Wanli emperor from 1572 to 1620.

By this time china clay and porcelain stone were mixed in about equal proportions. China clay produced wares of great strength when added to the body layer. Whiteness became a much sought after property, especially when combined to form blue-and-white wares. Porcelain stone was used with lower temperature of 1250 in the region. Compared to those mixed with china clay, which required 1350°C. The large southern egg-shaped kiln varied greatly in temperature. Near the firebox it was hot. Near the chimney, at the opposite end of the kiln, it was cooler.

Chinese porcelain wares

Tang ''Sancai'' burial wares

''Sancai'' means ''three-colours''. However, the colours of the glazes used to decorate the wares of the Tang dynasty were not limited to three in number. In the West, Tang sancai wares were sometimes referred to as ''egg-and-spinach'' by dealers for the use of green, yellow and white. Though the latter of the two colours might be more properly described as ''amber'' and ''off-white'' / ''cream''.

Sancai wares were northern wares made using white and buff-firing secondary kaolins and fire clays . At kiln sites located at , Neiqui county in Hebei and Gongxian in Henan ) were made at Jingdezhen and at many other southern kilns from the time of the Northern Song Dynasty until they were eclipsed in the 14th century by underglaze-decorated blue and white wares. Qingbai in literally means "clear blue-white". The qingbai glaze is a ''porcelain glaze'', so-called because it was made using porcelain stone. The qingbai glaze is clear, but contains iron in small amounts. When applied over a white porcelain body the glaze produces a greenish-blue colour that gives the glaze its name. Some have incised or moulded decorations.

The Song dynasty qingbai bowl illustrated was likely made at the Jingdezhen village of Hutian, which was also the site of the Imperial kilns established in the year 1004. The bowl has incised decoration, possibly representing clouds or the reflection of clouds in the water. The body is white, translucent and has the texture of very-fine sugar, indicating that it was made using crushed and refined porcelain stone instead of porcelain stone and china clay. The glaze and the body of the bowl would have been fired together, in a , possibly in a large wood-burning dragon-kiln or , typical of southern kilns in the period.

Though many Song and Yuan qingbai bowls were fired upside down in special segmented saggars, a technique first developed at the kilns in Hebei province. The rims of such wares were left unglazed but were often bound with bands of silver, copper or lead.

One remarkable example of ''qingbai'' porcelain is the so-called ''Fonthill Vase'', described in a guide for Fonthill Abbey published in 1823

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The vase was made at Jingdezhen, probably around the year 1300 and was sent as a present to Pope Benedict XII by one of the last of China, in 1338. The mounts referred to in the 1823 description were of enamelled silver-gilt and were added to the vase in Europe in 1381. An 18th century water colour of the vase complete with its mounts exists, but the mounts themselves were removed and lost in the 19th century. The vase is now in the National Museum of Ireland. It is often held that ''qingbai'' wares were not subject to the higher standards and regulations of the other porcelain wares, since they were made for everyday use. They were mass-produced, and received little attention from scholars and antiquarians. The Fonthill Vase, given by a Chinese emperor to a pope, might appear to cast at least some doubt on this view.

Blue and white wares

Blanc de Chine

''Blanc de Chine'' is a type of white porcelain made at Dehua in the Fujian province. It has been produced from the Ming Dynasty to the present day. Large quantities arrived in Europe as Chinese Export Porcelain in the early 18th century and it was copied at Meissen and elsewhere.

The area along the Fujian coast was traditionally one of the main ceramic exporting centers. Over one-hundred and eighty kiln sites have been identified extending in historical range from the Song period to present.

From the Ming period porcelain objects were manufactured that achieved a fusion of glaze and body traditionally referred to as "ivory white" and "milk white." The special characteristic of Dehua porcelain is the very small amount of iron oxide in it, allowing it to be fired in an oxidising atmosphere to a warm white or pale ivory color.

The porcelain body is not very plastic but vessel forms have been made from it. Donnelly, lists the following types of product: figures, boxes, vases and jars, cups and bowls, fishes, lamps, cup-stands, censers and flowerpots, animals, brush holders, wine and teapots, Buddhist and Taoist figures, secular figures and puppets. There was a large output of figures, especially religious figures, e.g. Guanyin, Maitreya, and Ta-mo figures.

The numerous Dehua porcelain factories today make figures and tableware in modern styles. During the Cultural Revolution “Dehua artisans applied their very best skills to produce immaculate statuettes of the Great Leader and the heroes of the revolution. Portraits of the stars of the new proletarian opera in their most famous roles were produced on a truly massive scale.” Mao figures later fell out of favor but have been revived for foreign collectors.

Notable artists in ''blanc de Chine'', such as the late Ming period He Chaozong, signed their creations with their seals. Wares include crisply modeled figures, , bowls and joss stick-holders.

Many of the best examples of ''blanc de Chine'' are found in Japan where the white variety was termed ''hakugorai'' or "Korean white", a term often found in tea ceremony circles. The British Museum in London has a large number of ''blanc de Chine'' pieces, having received as a gift in 1980 the entire collection of P.J.Donnelly.

Fakes and reproductions

Chinese potters have a long tradition of borrowing design and decorative features from earlier wares. Whilst ceramics with features thus borrowed might sometimes pose problems of provenance, they would not generally be regarded as either reproductions or fakes. However, fakes and reproductions have also been made at many times during the long history of Chinese ceramics and continue to be made today in ever-increasing numbers.

* Reproductions of Song dynasty Longquan celadon wares were made at Jingdezhen in the early 18th century, but outright fakes were also made using special clay that were artificially aged by boiling in meat broth, refiring and storage in sewers. Père d'Entrecolles records that by this means the wares could be passed off as being hundreds of years old.

* At Jingdezhen the two remaining wood fired, egg-shaped kilns produce convincing reproductions of earlier wares. At Zhejiang province good reproductions of Song Longquan celedon wares continue to be made in large, side-stoked dragon kilns.

* Before World War II, the English potter Bernard Leach found what he took to be genuine Song dynasty ''cizhou'' rice-bowls being sold for very little money on the dock of a Chinese port and was surprised to learn that they were in fact newly made.

* In modern times the market for Song dynasty ''Jian'' tea-bowls has been severely depressed by the appearance in large numbers of modern fakes good enough to deceive even expert collectors. It is reported that some of these fakes show evidence of having had genuine Song dynasty ''iron-foot'' bases grafted onto newly made bodies.

* In the late 19th century fakes of Kangxi period ''famille noire'' wares were made that were convincing enough to deceive the experts of the day. Many such pieces may still be seen in museums today, as may pieces of genuine Kangxi porcelain decorated in the late nineteenth century with ''famille noire'' enamels. A body of modern expert opinion holds that porcelain decorated with ''famille noire'' enamels was not made at all during the Kangxi period, though this view is disputed .

* A fashion for Kangxi period blue and white wares grew to large proportions in Europe during the later years of the 19th century and triggered the production at Jingdezhen of large quantities of porcelain wares that strike a resemblance to ceramics of earlier periods. Such blue and white wares were not fakes or even convincing reproductions, even though some pieces carried four-character Kangxi reign-marks that continue to cause confusion to this day. Kangxi reign-marks in the form shown in the illustration occur only on wares made towards the end of the 19th century or later, without exception.

Authentication

The most widely-known test is the thermoluminescence test, or TL test, which is used on some types of ceramic to estimate, roughly, the date of last firing. The TL test is carried out on small samples of porcelain drilled or cut from the body of a piece, which can be risky and disfiguring. For this reason, the test is rarely used for dating finely-potted, high-fired ceramics. TL testing cannot be used at all on some types of porcelain items, particularly high-fired porcelain.

Gallery

Early wares

Tang

Song

Yuan

Ming

Qing

Republic and People's Republic

Bibilography

*Ayers, J. and Bingling, Y., ''Blanc de Chine: Divine Images in Porcelain'', China Institute, New York
*Ayers, J and Kerr, R., , ''Blanc de Chine Porcelain from Dehua'', Art Media Resources Ltd.
*Donnelly, P.J. , ''Blanc de Chine'', Faber and Faber, London
*Harrison-Hall, J. , ''Ming Ceramics in the British Museum'', British Museum, London
*Kerr, Rose and Wood, Nigel . ''Science and Civilisation in China,'' Volume 5, Part XII: Ceramic Technology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83833-9.
* Kotz, Suzanne ''Imperial Taste. Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation.'' Chronicle Books, San Francisco. ISBN 0-87701-612-7.
*Moujian, S., ''An Encyclopedia of Chinese Art'', p. 292.
*Wood, N. , ''Chinese Glazes: Their Chemistry, Origins and Re-creation'', A & C Black, London, and University of Pennsylvania Press, USA

Chinese embroidery

Chinese embroidery refers to embroidery created by any of the cultures located in the area that makes up modern China. It is some of the oldest extant needlework. The four major regional styles of Chinese embroidery are Suzhou embroidery , Hunan embroidery , Guangdong embroidery and Sichuan embroidery . All of them are nominated as Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage.

History

Chinese embroidery has a long history since Neolithic age. Because of the quality of silk fibre, most Chinese fine embroideries are made in silk. Some ancient vestiges of silk production have been found in various Neolithic sites dating back 5000~6000 years in China. A piece of silk fabric was found on a 3000 years old mummy in Egypt, which has been testified as old Sichuan embroidery. From the archaeological dicovery at Sanxingdui, we can be sure ancient Shu people had already mastered the silkworm domestication and silk production. Currently the earliest real sample of silk embroidery discovered in China is from a tomb in Mashan in Hubei province identified with the Zhanguo period . After the opening of Silk Route in Han Dynasty, the silk production and trade became flourishing. In 14th century, the Chinese silk embroidery production reached its high peak. Several major silk embroidery styles had been developed, like Song Jin in Suzhou, Yun Jin in Nanjing and Shu Jin in Sichuan.
Today most handwork had been replaced by machinery, but some very sophisticated production are still hand-made. The modern Chinese silk embroidery still prevails in southern China.

Genres

Major styles

* Su Xiu — Suzhou embroidery is crafted in areas around Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. It is famous for its beautiful patterns, elegant colors, variety of stitches, and consummate craftsmanship. Its stitching is meticulously skillful, coloration subtle and refined.

* Xiang Xiu — Hunan embroidery comes from areas around Changsha, Hunan Province. It is distinct for its starkly elegant black, white and gray coloration. Its emphasis is on contrasts of light and shade that highlight the pattern texture to give a three-dimensional effect. Xiang embroidery composition combines void and solid imagery, utilizing empty space in the same way as Chinese ink and wash paintings.

* Yue Xiu/Guang Xiu — Guangdong embroidery is crafted in Chaozhou, Guandong Province. It is composed of intricate but symmetrical patterns, vibrant colors, varied stitches and a defined weave. Its use of primary colors, light and shade are reminiscent of western paintings.

* Shu Xiu — Sichuan embroidery comes from areas around Chengdu, Sichuan Province. It is oldest known embroidery style in Chinese embroidery history. Its raw materials are satin and colored silk, its craftsmanship painstaking and refined. The emphasis is on even stitching, delicate coloration, and local flavor. Sichuan embroidery is used to decorate quilt covers, pillowcases, garments, shoes and painted screens.

Other styles

* Gu Xiu — Gu embroidery is rather a family style than a local style originated from Gu Mingshi's family during the Ming Dynasty in Shanghai. Gu embroidery is also named Lu Xiang Yuan embroidery after the place where the Gu family lived. Gu embroidery ss different from other styles as it specialized in painting and calligraphy. The inventor of Gu embroidery was a concubine of Gu Mingshi's first son, Gu Huihai. Later, Han Ximeng, the wife of the second grandson of Gu Mingshi developed the skill and was reputed as "Needle Saint" . Some of her masterpieces are kept in the Forbidden City. Today Gu embroidery has become a special local product in Shanghai.

Ethnic styles

Other Chinese ethnic groups, like Bai, , and people also have their own style embroidery. Their embroidery usually expresses a certain mysterious or religious topic.

Ming Dynasty painting

During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese painting developed greatly from the achievements in painted art during the earlier Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty. The painting techniques which were invented and developed before the Ming period became classical during this period. More colours were used in painting during the Ming Dynasty. Seal brown became much more widely used, and even over-used during this period. Many new painting skills/techniques were innovated and developed, calligraphy was much more closely and perfectly combined with the art of painting. Chinese painting reached another climax in the mid-, late- Ming Dynasty. The painting was derived in a broad scale, many new schools were born, and many outstanding masters emerged.

Development

Early Ming period

About 1368~1505, from the Hongwu Era to Hongzhi Era .

The painting schools of the Yuan Dynasty still remained in the early Ming period but quickly declined or changed their styles. The painting styles which were developed and matured during the Yuan period, still heavily impacted on the early Ming painting. But new schools of painting were born and grew. ''Zhejiang School'' and the school which was supported by the royal court were the dominant schools during the early Ming period. The scholar-artist style of painting became more popular. Both these two new schools were heavily influenced by the traditions of both the Southern Song painting academy and the Yuan scholar-artist.

Mid Ming period

About 1465~1566, from the Chenghua Era to Jiajing Era .

Classical Zhejiang School and Yuanti School declined. Wumen School became the most dominant school nationwidely. Suzhou, the activity center for Wumen School painters, became the biggest center for the Chinese painting during this period.

The Wumen painters they mainly inherited the tradition of Yuan scholar-artist style of painting and further developed this style into a peak. Wumen School was a large group of people, including teacher-student relationship and family relationship .


Xu Wei from Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, he developed a lot the enjoyable style of Chinese painting , especially the geart enjoyable style . As an outstanding scholar, his accomplishments are mainly in the field of scholar-artist painting, especially in bird-and-flower painting.

Chen Chun , although he followed the teaching from Wumen School of painting during his early years, he set up his own style in Shan-shuin painting ; he formally indroduced the enjoyable style into the Chinese landscape painting, and had his own innovation in ink and wash painting, especially in his long suit -- the landscape painting.

Late Ming period

About 1567~1644, from the Jiajing Era to Chongzhen Era .

Songjiang School and Huating School were born and developed, they formed rudiment of latterly coming Shanghai School.

Schools & Painters

*''Zhejiang School of Painting''
**Jiangxia School
**Wulin School or Post-Zhejiang School

Dai Jin , Wu Wei , Lan Ying

The core place for this school was Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Jiangxia School from Hubei Province was a branch of this school. Dai Jin was the founder of this school, and he also kept a very close relationship with the Yuanti School.

Lan Ying was the last master of this school, along with his family members, they formed a branch of Zhejiang School -- Wulin School, because their family was located in Wulin , a place in Hangzhou near the West Lake.

Most of the painters from this school, they are Zhejiang natives.

*''Yuanti School''

Lin Liang , Lv Ji

This school was organized and supported by the Ming central government, and it served for Ming royal court. The activity center for this school first was in Nanjing and then went to Beijing because of the change of Ming's capital. The

*''Wumen School''
Tang Yin , Wen Zhengming , Shen Zhou , Qiu Ying , Zhou Chen , Wen Jia

The core place for this school was Suzhou, whose literary name was Wumen . Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, Shenzhou and Qiu Ying, these four painters also were regarded as the "Big Four of the Ming Period" in Ming's painting.

*''Xieyi Huaniao''
Xu Wei

*''Xieyi Shangshui''
Chen chun

*''Songjiang School''
Dong Qichang

The core place for this school was in the southern part of Jiangsu Province at that time, but now part of Shanghai.

*''Huating School''
Zhao Zuo

This school is close to Songjiang School.

*''Susong School''

This school is similar to Songjiang School.

Influence

Influence in Japan


The Zen monk painter Sesshū Tōyō travelled to Ming China, and stayed for about 10 years in Ming China learning painting. He was heavily influenced by the ink and wash painting, Zhejiang School of painting and the Yuanti School of painting.

He resided in Tiantong Temple in Mingzhou , and also spent time in Beijing in the royal palace . Before he went to Ming China, he studied Song and Yuan styles of painting in Japan, and wanted to seek for the very origin of the Chinese painting and the real spirit inside of the Chinese art.

After returning Japan, Sesshū Tōyō set up his school and further developed his own style of painting , a style mixed with the Japanese native traditional elements, and became the biggest master of painting in his era in Japan, and healily impacted continuously on the later Japanese history till now.

Influence in Qing Dynasty painting

No doubt, the Ming Dynasty painting provided the basis for the Qing Dynasty painting, from skill to style.

Tang Dynasty painting

During the Tang Dynasty, as Chinese civilization reached its peak, Chinese painting developed dramatically, both in subject matter and technique. During this period, Chinese painting developed to a new stage. Tang Dynasty painting also heavily influenced the art of other countries, especially in East Asia and central Asia.

Early period

During the early Tang period, the painting was mainly inherited from the previous Sui Dynasty. In this period, the "painting of people" developed greatly. Buddhism painting and "court painting" played a major role, including paintings of the Buddha, monks, nobles etc.

Brothers Yan Liben and Yan Lide were two major figures during this period, especially Yan Liben. His works including ''Emperor Tang Taizong Meeting Tibetan Emissaries'' and ''Emperors of Previous Dynasties'' are historically notable. Yan Liben was personal portraitist to the .

Mid & Late period

The landscape painting technique developed quickly in this period and reached its first maturation. Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao were the most famous painters in this domain.

The painting of people also reached a climax. The outstanding master in this field is Wu Daozi , who is referred to as the "Sage of Painting".
Wu's works including ''God Sending a Son'' . Wu created a new technique of drawing named "Drawing of Water Shield" .

The great poet Wang Wei first created the of ''shan-shui'', literally "mountains and waters" . He further combined literature, especially poetry, with painting. The use of line in painting became much more calligraphic than in the early period.

The theory of painting also developed, and Buddhism, Taoism, and traditional literature were absorbed and combined into painting. Paintings on architectural structures, such as murals , ceiling paintings, cave paintings, and tomb paintings, were very popular. An example is the paintings in the Mogao Caves in Xinjiang during this period.

Influence

Tang Dynasty painting has had a major influence on East Asian painting and central Asia painting.

Ink and wash painting

Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting also known as wash painting or by its Japanese name ''sumi-e'' . Ink and wash painting is also known by its Chinese name ''shui-mo hua'' . Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy — is used, in various concentrations.

History

Wash painting developed in China during the Tang Dynasty . is generally credited as the painter who applied color to existing ink and wash paintings. The art was further developed into a more polished style during the Song Dynasty . It was introduced to Korea shortly after China's discovery of the ink. Then, the Korean missionaries in Japan, in helping the Japanese establish a civilized settlement introduced it to Japan in the mid-14th century.

Tools

In wash paintings, as in calligraphy, artists usually grind their own ink using an ink stick and a grinding stone but prepared inks are also available. Most ink sticks are made of densely packed charcoal ash from bamboo or pine soot combined with glue extracted from MulgogiPbur, from Korean for fish bone or ''nikawa'' . An artist puts a few drops of water on an ink stone and grinds the ink stick in a circular motion until a smooth, black ink of the desired concentration is made. Prepared inks are usually of much lower quality. ''Sumi-e'' themselves are sometimes ornately decorated with landscapes or flowers in bas-relief and some are highlighted with gold.

Wash painting brushes are similar to the brushes used for calligraphy and are traditionally made from bamboo with goat, , horse, sheep, rabbit, marten, badger, deer, boar or wolf hair. The brush hairs are tapered to a fine point, a feature vital to the style of wash paintings.

Different brushes have different qualities. A small wolf-hair brush that is tapered to a fine point can deliver an even thin line of ink . A large wool brush can hold a large volume of water and ink. When the big cloud brush rains down upon the paper, it delivers a graded swath of ink encompassing myriad shades of gray to black.

Once a stroke is painted, it cannot be changed or erased. This makes ink and wash painting a technically demanding art-form requiring great skill, concentration, and years of training.

See for more information on the tools used in both calligraphy and wash painting.

Noted artists

China

* Bada Shanren
* Su Shi
* Daqian Jushi
* Qi Baishi
* Xu Beihong
* Mi Youren
* Gao Xingjian

Japan

* Josetsu
* Shubun
*

Shan shui

Shan Shui refers to a style of Chinese painting that involves the painting of scenery or natural s with and ink. Mountains, rivers and often waterfalls are prominent in this art form.

History

Shan shui painting first arose to wide prominence during the 10th and 11th centuries, in the reign of the Song Dynasty. It was characterized by a group of landscape painters, most of them already famous, who produced large-scale landscape paintings. These landscape paintings usually centered on mountains. Mountains had long been seen as sacred places in China, which were viewed as the homes of immortals and thus, close to the heavens. Philosophical interest in nature, or in mystical connotations of , could also have contributed to the rise of landscape painting. The art of "shan shui", like many other styles of Chinese painting has a strong reference to imagery and motifs, as symbolisms of Taoism strongly influenced "Chinese landscape painting". Some authors have suggested that Daoist stress on how minor the human presence is in the vastness of the cosmos, or Neo-Confucian interest in the patterns or principles that underlie all phenomena, natural and social lead to the highly structuralized nature of shan shui.

Concepts

Most dictionaries and definitions of shan shui assume that the term includes all ancient Chinese paintings with mountain and water images. Contemporary , however, feel that only paintings with mountain and water images that follow specific conventions of form, style and function should be called “shan shui painting.” When Chinese painters work on shan shui painting, they do not try to present an image of what they have seen in the nature, but what they have thought about nature. No one cares whether the painted colors and shapes look like the real object or not.

According to Ch'eng Hsi:

Shan shui painting is a kind of painting which goes against the common definition of what a painting is. Shan shui painting refutes color, light and shadow and personal brush work. Shan shui painting is not an open window for the viewer's eye, it is an object for the viewer's mind. Shan shui painting is more like a vehicle of philosophy.

Compositions

Shan shui paintings involve a complicated and rigorous set of almost mystical requirements for balance, composition, and form. All shan shui paintings should have 3 basic components:

''Paths'' - Pathways should never be straight. They should meander like a stream. This helps deepen the landscape by adding layers. The path can be the river, or a path along it, or the tracing of the sun through the sky over the shoulder of the mountain.

''The Threshold'' - The path should lead to a threshold. The threshold is there to embrace you and provide a special welcome. The threshold can be the mountain, or its shadow upon the ground, or its cut into the sky.

''The Heart'' - The heart is the focal point of the painting and all elements should lead to it. The heart defines the meaning of the painting.

Elements and Colors

Shan shui draws upon Chinese elemental theory with representing various parts of the natural world, and thus has specific directions for colorations that should be used in 'directions' of the painting, as to which should dominate.



Positive interactions between the Elements are:

*Wood produces Fire
*Fire produces Earth
*Earth produces Metal
*Metal produces Water
*Water produces Wood.

Elements that react positively should be used together. For example, Water complements both Metal and Wood; therefore, a painter would combine blue and green or blue and white. There is a positive interaction between Earth and Fire, so a painter would mix Yellow and Red.

Negative interactions between the Elements are:

*Wood uproots Earth
*Earth blocks Water
*Water douses Fire
*Fire melts Metal
*Metal chops Wood

Elements that interact negatively should never be used together. For example, Fire will not interact positively with Water or Metal so a painter would not choose to mix red and blue, or red and white.

Influence

Animation

The art form has been popular to the point where a Chinese Animation entitled ''Feeling from Mountain and Water'' uses the same art style and even uses the term for the film's title.

Naming

When combined, the two characters of shan shui form the word "frontier". This is also the name adopted by ''"Shanshui Limited"'' to promote trade, sports, entertainment and culture between the and China.

Construction

The term Shan Shui is sometimes extended to include gardening and landscape design, particularly within the context of feng shui.

Oracle bone script

Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China. The vast majority record the divinations of the royal house of the late at the capital of Yīn ; dating of the Ānyáng examples of oracle bone script varies from ca. 14th -11th centuries BCE to ca. 1200 to ca. 1050 BCE. Very few oracle bone writings date to the beginning of the subsequent Zhou Dynasty, because pyromancy fell from favor and divining with milfoil became more common. The late Shāng oracle bone writings, along with a few contemporary characters in a different style cast in bronzes, constitute the earliest significant corpus of Chinese writing, which is essential for the study of Chinese etymology, as Shāng writing is directly ancestral to the modern Chinese script. It is also the oldest member and ancestor of the Chinese family of scripts.

Name

Because turtle shells as well as bones were used, the oracle bone script is also sometimes called ''shell and bone script''. As the majority of oracle bones bearing writing date to the late Shāng dynasty, ''oracle bone script'' essentially refers to a Shāng script.

Precursors

It is certain that Shāng-lineage writing underwent a period of development before the oracle bone script, because of its mature nature ; however, no significant quantity of clearly identifiable writing from before or during the early to middle Shāng cultural period has been discovered. The few which have been found on pottery, jade or bone at a variety of cultural sites in China are very controversial, and there is no ''consensus'' that any of them are directly related to the Shāng oracle bone script.

Style

The oracle bone script of the late Shāng appears archaic and pictographic in flavor, as does its contemporary, the Shāng . The earliest oracle bone script appears even more so than examples from late in the period . Comparing oracle bone script to both Shāng and early period writing on bronzes, oracle bone script is clearly greatly simplified, and rounded forms are often converted to rectilinear ones; this is thought to be due to the difficulty of engraving the hard, bony surfaces, compared with the ease of writing them in the wet clay of the molds from which the bronzes were cast. The more detailed and more pictorial style of the bronze graphs is thus thought to be more representative of typical Shāng writing than the oracle bone script forms, and it is this typical style which continued to evolve into the and then into the seal script of the in the late Zhōu period.

It is known that the Shāng people also wrote with brush and ink, as brush-written graphs have been found on a small number of pottery, shell and bone, and jade and other stone items, and there is evidence that they also wrote on bamboo books just like those which have been found from the late Zhōu to periods, because the graphs for a writing brush (聿 yù and bamboo book are present in the oracle bone script. Since the ease of writing with a brush is even greater than that of writing with a stylus in wet clay, it is assumed that the style and structure of Shāng graphs on bamboo were similar to those on bronzes, and also that the majority of writing occurred with a brush on such books. Additional support for this notion includes the reorientation of some graphs, by turning them 90 degrees as if to better fit on tall, narrow slats; this style must have developed on bamboo or wood slat books and then carried over to the oracle bone script.
Additionally, the writing of characters in vertical columns, from top to bottom, is for the most part carried over from the bamboo books to oracle bone inscriptions. In some instances lines are written horizontally so as to match the text to divinatory cracks, or columns of text rotate 90 degrees in mid stream, but these are exceptions to the normal pattern of writing, and inscriptions were never read bottom to top. The vertical columns of text in Chinese writing are traditionally ordered from right to left; this pattern is found on bronze inscriptions from the Shāng dynasty onward. Oracle bone inscriptions, however, are often arranged so that the columns begin near the centerline of the shell or bone, and move toward the edge, such that the two sides are ordered in mirror-image fashion.

Structure and Function

Despite the archaic and relatively pictorial appearance of the oracle bone script, it is in fact a fully functional and fairly mature writing system, i.e., able to record language in its entirety and not just isolated kinds of meaning. This level of maturity clearly implies an earlier period of development of at least several hundred years. From their presumed origins as pictographs and signs, by the Shāng dynasty, most graphs were already conventionalized in such a simplified fashion that the meanings of many of the pictographs are not immediately apparent. Compare, for instance, the graphs labelled graph A and graph B to the left and right. Without careful research to compare these to later forms, one would probably not know that these represented 豕 shĭ 'swine' and 犬 quǎn 'dog' respectively. As Boltz notes, most of the oracle bone graphs are not depicted realistically enough for those who do not already know the script to recognized what they stand for; although pictographic ''in origin'' they are no longer pictographs ''in function''. Boltz instead calls them ''zodiographs'' , reminding us that functionally they represent ''words'', and only through the words do they represent concepts, while for similar reasons Qiu labels them ''semantographs''.

By the late Shāng oracle bone script, the graphs had already evolved into a variety of mostly non-pictographic functions, including all the now in use. Phonetic loan graphs, semantic-phonetic compounds, and associative compounds were already common. One structural and functional analysis of the oracle bone characters found that they were 23% pictographs, 2% simple indicatives, 32% associative compounds, 11% phonetic loans, 27% phonetic-semantic compounds, and 6% uncertain..

Despite its status as a fully functional and fairly mature writing system, the oracle bone script is not actually 100% mature -- the form of a very few graphs changes depending on context, and on occasion the order of the graphs does not quite match that of the language. By the early Western Zhou period, these traits had vanished, but in both periods, the script was not highly regular or standardized; variant forms of graphs abound , and the size and orientation of graphs is also irregular. A graph when inverted horizontally generally refers to the same word, and additional components are sometimes present without changing the meaning. Not until the standardization carried out in the seal script did these irregularities end.

Oracle bone script characters may have components which differ in later characters, for instance the character for Autumn 秋 now appears with 禾 as one component and fire 火 as another component. From the oracle bone script, one sees that an ant-like creature is carved instead .

Of the thousands of characters found from all the bone fragments, the majority remain undeciphered. One good example is shown in the fragment shown below, labeled "oracle bone script for Spring". The top left character in this image has no known modern Chinese counterpart. One of the better known characters however is shown directly beneath it looking like an upright isosceles triangle with a line cutting through the upper portion. This is the oracle bone script character for 王 ''wáng'' .

Scholarship

Among the major Chinese scholars making significant contributions to the study of the oracle bone writings, especially early on, were: Wáng Yìróng , who in 1899 recognized the characters as being ancient Chinese writing; Liú È , who collected five thousand oracle bone fragments, published the first volume of examples and rubbings in 1903, and correctly identified thirty-four characters; Sūn Yíràng , the first serious researcher of oracle bones; Luó Zhènyù , who collected over 30,000 oracle bones and published several volumes, identified the names of the Shang kings, and thus positively identified the oracle bones as being artifacts from the Shang reign; Wáng Gúowéi , who demonstrated that the chronology of the Shang kings matched that in Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian; Dǒng Zuòbīn , who identified the diviners and established a chronology for the oracle bones as well as numerous other dating criteria; and Gūo Mòruò .

Zhou Dynasty Oracle Bones

The numbers of oracle bones with inscriptions contemporaneous with the end of Shang and the beginning of Zhou is relatively few in number compared with the entire corpus of Shang inscriptions. Until 1977, only a few inscribed shell and bone artifacts. Zhou related inscriptions have been unearthed since the 1950's, with find fragments having only one or two characters. In August, 1977, a large hoard of several thousand pieces was discovered in an area closely related to the heartland of the ancient Zhou. Of these, only two or three hundred items were inscribed.

The following is an example of a Zhou inscription.

Descendant writing systems

See Chinese family of scripts

Many scripts in East asia were descendants of the Oracle Bone script, such as Seal script, Clerical script, Standard Script, Semi-cursive script, Grass script, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Zhuyin, Kanji, the different Kana, Hanja, Hán t&, Ch&, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script. Many of them are obsolete for writing their own languages like Hanja, Hán t&, Ch&, Khitan script, Jurchen script, and Tangut script, which are Korean, Vietnamese, Khitan, Juchen, and Tangut. Others still in use are Kanji, Kana, Zhuyin, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. Most of them are logographic, though Kana is syllabic, and Zhuyin a semi-syllabary.

Samples

Further reading

*Boltz, William G. . The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System. American Oriental Series, vol. 78. American Oriental Society, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. ISBN 0-940490-18-8
*Chén Zhāoróng 秦系文字研究 ﹕从漢字史的角度考察 Research on the Qín Lineage of Writing: An Examination from the Perspective of the History of Chinese Writing. 中央研究院歷史語言研究所專刊 Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology Monograph. ISBN 957-671-995-X.
*Gao Ming 中国古文字学通论 . 北京大学出版社 Beijing University Press. ISBN 7-301-02285-9
*Keightley, David N. . ''Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China''. University of California Press, Berkeley. Large format hardcover, ISBN 0520029690 ; A 1985 ppbk 2nd edition also printed, ISBN 0-520-05455-5.
*Keightley, David N. . ''The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China ''. China Research Monograph 53, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California – Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-070-9, ppbk.
*Liu Xiang et al. 商周古文字读本 Reader of Shang-Zhou Ancient Characters. 语文出版社 Yuwen Publishers. ISBN 7-80006-238-4
*Qiu Xigui ''Chinese Writing'' . Translation of 文字學概要 by Gilbert L. Mattos and Jerry Norman. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.
*Thorp, Robert L. "The Date of Tomb 5 at Yinxu, Anyang: A Review Article," Artibus Asiae : 239–246.
*Woon, Wee Lee . ''Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution'' , originally published by the University of East Asia, Macau .
*Zhào Chéng 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 jiǎgǔwén jiǎnmíng cídiǎn – bǔcí fēnlèi dúbĕn. 中華書局 Zhōnghúa Shūjú, ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22

Cursive script

Cursive script simplified:草书, erroneously translated as Grass script, is a style of . The name Cǎoshū is actually an abbreviation for , meaning "sloppy script". Cursive script is faster to write than other styles, but also harder to read. It is quite often the case that persons who are capable of reading printed Chinese find themselves completely illiterate when confronted with this particular style of writing.

History

Cursive script originated in China during the Han dynasty through period, in two phases. First, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular and not yet mature clerical script. Faster ways to write characters developed through four mechanisms: omitting part of a graph, merging strokes together, replacing portions with abbreviated forms , or modifying stroke styles. This evolution can best be seen on extant bamboo and wooden slats from the period, on which the use of early cursive and immature clerical forms is intermingled. This early form of cursive script, based on clerical script, is now called zhāngcǎo , and variously also termed ancient cursive, draft cursive or clerical cursive in English, to differentiate it from modern cursive . Modern cursive evolved from this older cursive in the to Jin dynasty with influence from the semi-cursive and standard styles.

Styles

Beside zhāngcǎo and the "modern cursive", there is the "wild cursive" which is even more cursive and illegible. It was developed by and Huai Su in Tang dynasty, they were being called ''Dian Zhang Zui Su'' .

Cursive scripts can be divided into the unconnected style where each character is separate, and the connected style where each character is connected to the succeeding one.

Derived characters

Many of the simplified Chinese characters are modeled on the printed forms of the cursive forms of the corresponding characters .

Cursive script forms of Chinese characters are also the origin of the Japanese hiragana script, which developed from cursive forms of the man'yōgana script. In Japan, cursive script was considered to be suitable for women, and was called , whereas the clerical style was considered to be suitable for men, and was called .

Notable persons

*Wang Xizhi
*Wang Xianzhi
*Zhang Zhi
*, Cao Sheng.
*Huai Su
*Wen Zhengming
*Yu Youren
*Lin Sanzhi

Lianhuanhua

Lianhuanhua is a picture book of sequential drawings found in China in the early 20th Century. It is considered the predecessor of manhua.

Terminology

The name in Chinese essentially translates to "Linked Pictures". The books were called ''"Lianhuanhua"'' or ''"Lianhuan tuhua"''. People omitted the "tu", and simply coined the term ''"Lianhuanhua"'' as the standard. The official term Lianhuanhua was not used until 1927. Prior to this, Lianhuanhua were separated into different name categories depending on the region.

Present

Currently there is a resurgent interest in this format. The Shanghai Museum of Art has inaugurated a permanent exhibition of Lianhuanhua as a popular grassroots fine art form.

Lists

* Lianhuanhua listed by year

Manhua

Manhua are Chinese comics originally produced in China. Possibly due to their greater degree of artistic freedom of expression and closer international ties with Japan, Hong Kong and have been the places of publication of most manhua thus far, often including translations of Japanese manga.

History

The of Chinese drawings are stone reliefs from the 11th century and pottery from 5000 to 3000 B.C. Other examples include symbolic brush drawings from the Ming Dynasty, a satirical drawing titled ''"Peacocks"'' by the early Qing Dynasty artist Zhua Da, and a work called ''"Ghosts' Farce Pictures"'' from around 1771 by Luo Liang-feng. Chinese manhua was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, roughly during the years 1867 to 1927.

The introduction of lithographic printing methods derived from the West was a critical step in expanding the art in the early 20th century. Beginning in the 1870s, satirical drawings appeared in newspapers and periodicals. By the 1920s palm-sized picture books like Lianhuanhua were popular in Shanghai. They are considered the predecessor of modern day manhua.

One of the first magazines of satirical cartoons came from the United Kingdom entitled ''"The China Punch"''. The first piece drawn by a person of Chinese nationality was ''"The Situation in the Far East"'' from Tse Tsan-Tai in 1899, printed in Japan. Sun Yat-Sen established the Republic of China in 1911 using Hong Kong's manhua to circulate anti- propaganda. Some of the manhua that mirrored the early struggles of the transitional political and war periods were ''"The True Record"'' and ''"Renjian Pictorial"''.

Up until the establishment of ''"Manhua Hui"'' in China 1927, all prior works were Lianhuanhua or loose collections of materials. The first Chinese manhua magazine, ''"Shanghai Sketch"'' appeared in 1928. Between 1934 and 1937 about 17 manhua magazines were published in Shanghai. This format would once again be put to propaganda use with the outbeak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. By the time the in 1941, all manhua activities had stopped. With the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, political mayhem between Chinese and took place. One of the critical manhua, ''"This Is a Cartoon Era"'' by Renjian Huahui made note of the political backdrop at the time.

The turmoil in China continued into the 50s and 60s. The rise of Chinese immigration turned Hong Kong into the main manhua-ready market, especially with the baby boom generation of children. The most influential manhua magazine for adults was the 1956 ''"Cartoons World"'', which fueled the best-selling Uncle Choi. The availability of Japanese and Taiwanese comics challenged the local industry, selling at a pirated bargain price of 10 cents. Manhua like Old Master Q were needed to revitalize the local industry.

The arrival of television in the 1970s was a changing point. Bruce Lee's films dominated the era and his popularity launched a new wave of Kung Fu manhua. The explicit violence helped sell comic books, and the Government of Hong Kong intervened with the Indecent Publication Law in 1975. was one of the pieces which absorbed all the social changes.
The materials would also bloom in the 90s with work like McMug and three-part stories like ''"Teddy Boy"'', ''"Portland Street"'' and ''"Red Light District"''.

Since the 1950s, Hong Kong's manhua market has been separate from that of mainland China. Hong Kong's back to China in 1997 may signify a reunification of both markets. Depending on how cultural materials are to be handled, especially via self-censorship, the much larger audience in the mainland can be beneficial to both.

Terminology

In 1925, the political work of Feng Zi-Kai published a collection entitled ''"Zi-Kai Manhua"'' in "''Wenxue Zhoubao"'' . While the term ''"Manhua"'' had existed before when borrowed from Japanese ''"manga"'', this particular publication took precedence over the many other description of cartoon arts that came before it. As a result the term manhua became associated with Chinese comic materials. The Chinese characters for manhua are identical for those used in Japanese manga, Korean manhwa, and Vietnamese ''manhoa''.

Categories

Before the official terminology was established, the art form were known by several names.

Characteristics

Modern Chinese-style manhua characteristics is credited to the breakthrough art work of the 1982 . It had innovative, realistic drawings with details resembling real people. Most manhua work from the 1800s to the 1930s contained characters that appeared serious. The cultural openness in Hong Kong brought the translation of American Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio in the 1950s, demonstrating western influence in local work like ''"Little Angeli"'' in 1954. The influx of translated Japanese manga of the 60s, as well as televised anime in Hong Kong also made a significant impression. Unlike manga, manhua comes in full color with some panels rendered entirely in painting.

Lists

* List of manhua
* List of manhua publishers

Cinema of China

The has three distinct historical threads: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. After 1949 and until recent times, the cinema of mainland China operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China. Some films with political overtones are still censored or banned in China itself. However, most of these films are allowed to be shown abroad in commercially distributed theaters or in film festivals.

The vast majority of the Mainland-produced movies are -based, unlike those from contemporary Hong Kong, which are almost exclusively made in . Mainland films are often dubbed when exported to Hong Kong for theatrical runs, though Taiwan, like the PRC is predominantly Mandarin-speaking, and offers ready alternative commercial outlets for export.

The Beginnings: Shanghai as the centre, 1896-1945

Motion pictures were introduced to China in 1896. The first recorded screening of a motion picture in China occurred in Shanghai on August 11, 1896, as an "act" on a variety bill. The first Chinese film, a recording of the Beijing Opera, ''The Battle of Dingjunshan'', was made in November 1905. For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry did not start in earnest until 1916, centering around Shanghai, a thriving entrepot center and the largest city in the Far East.
During the 1920s film technicians from the United States trained Chinese technicians in Shanghai, and American influence continued to be felt there for the next two decades. It was during this period that some of the more important production companies first came into being, notably Mingxing Film Company and the Shaw Brothers' Tianyi Film Company . Mingxing, founded by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan initially focused on comic shorts, including the oldest surviving Chinese film, ''Laborer's Love'' . This soon shifted, however, to feature length films and family dramas including ''Orphan Rescues Grandfather'' . the older and larger Mingxing and Tianyi. Both Mingxing and Lianhua leaned left , This in turn became which would go on to become one of the most important studios of the era, putting out the classics, ''Myriads of Lights'' , ''The Spring River Flows East'' , and ''Crows and Sparrows'' .
Many of these films showed the disillusionment with the oppressive rule of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party. ''The Spring River Flows East'', a three-hour-long two-parter directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, was a particularly strong success. Its depiction of the struggles of ordinary Chinese during the Sino-Japanese war, replete with biting social and political commentary struck a chord with audiences of the time.

Meanwhile, companies like the Wenhua Film Company , moved away from the leftist tradition and explored the evolution and development of other dramatic genres. Wenhua's romantic drama ''Spring in a Small Town'' , a film by director Fei Mu shortly prior to the revolution, is often regarded by Chinese film critics as one of the most important films in the history of Chinese cinema, with it being named by the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004 as the greatest Chinese-language film ever made. Ironically, it was precisely its artistic quality and apparent lack of "political grounding" that led to its labeling by the as rightist or reactionary, and the film was quickly forgotten by those on the mainland following the in China in 1949. However, with the China Film Archive's re-opening after the Cultural Revolution, a new print was made from the original negative, allowing ''Spring of the Small Town'' to find a new and admiring audience and to influence an entire new generation of filmmakers. Indeed, an acclaimed was made in 2002 by Tian Zhuangzhuang.

The Communist era, 1950s-1960s

With the Communist takeover in 1949, the government saw motion pictures as an important mass production art form and tool for propaganda. Starting from 1951, pre-1949 Chinese films and Hollywood and Hong Kong productions were banned as the Communist Party of China sought to tighten control over mass media, producing instead movies centering around peasants, soldiers and workers such as '''' and '''' . One of the production bases in the middle of all the transition was the Changchun Film Studio.

The number of movie-viewers increased sharply, from 47 million in 1949 to 415 million in 1959. Movie attendance reached an all-time high of 4.17 billion entries in that same year. In the 17 years between the founding of the People's Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution, 603 feature films and 8,342 reels of documentaries and newsreels were produced, sponsored mostly as propaganda by the government. Chinese filmmakers were sent to Moscow to study Soviet filmmaking. In 1956, the Beijing Film Academy was opened. The first wide-screen Chinese film was produced in 1960. using a variety of , such as , , , and , also were very popular for entertaining and educating children. The most famous of these, the classic ''Havoc in Heaven'' , was made by Wan Laiming of the Wan Brothers and won Best Film award at the London International Film Festival.

The thawing of censorship in 1956-7 and the early 1960s led to more indigenous Chinese films being made which were less reliant on their Soviet counterparts. The most prominent filmmaker of this era is Xie Jin, whose two films in particular, '''' and ''Two Stage Sisters'' , exemplify China's increased expertise at filmmaking during this time.

The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, 1960s-1980s

During the Cultural Revolution, the film industry was severely restricted. Almost all previous films were banned, and only a few new ones were produced, the most notable being a ballet version of the revolutionary opera ''The Red Detachment of Women'' . Feature film production came almost to a standstill in the early years from 1967 to 1972. Movie production revived after 1972 under the strict jurisdiction of the Gang of Four until 1976, when they were overthrown.

In the years immediately following the Cultural Revolution, the film industry again flourished as a medium of popular entertainment. Domestically produced films played to large audiences, and tickets for foreign film festivals sold quickly. The industry tried to revive crowds by making more innovative and "exploratory" films like their counterparts in the West.

In the 1980s the film industry fell on hard times, faced with the dual problems of competition from other forms of entertainment and concern on the part of the authorities that many of the popular thriller and martial arts films were socially unacceptable. In January 1986 the film industry was transferred from the to the newly formed to bring it under "stricter control and management" and to "strengthen supervision over production."

The end of the Cultural Revolution brought the release of "scar dramas", which depicted the emotional traumas left by this period. ''Evening Rain'' and ''Legend of Tianyun Mountain'' both won the first Golden Rooster Award in 1981. The best-known of these is probably Xie Jin's ''Hibiscus Town'' , although they could be seen as late as the 1990s with Tian Zhuangzhuang's ''The Blue Kite'' .

The rise of the Fifth Generation, 1980s-1990s

Beginning in the mid-late 1980s, the rise of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers brought increased popularity of Chinese cinema abroad. Most of the filmmakers who constitute the Fifth Generation had graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 and included Zhang Yimou, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige, Zhang Junzhao and others. These graduates constituted the first group of filmmakers to graduate since the Cultural Revolution and they soon jettisoned traditional methods of storytelling and opted for a more free and unorthodox approach. Zhang Junzhao's ''One and Eight'' and Chen Kaige's ''Yellow Earth'' in particular were taken to mark the beginnings of the Fifth Generation. The most famous of the Fifth Generation directors, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, went on to produce celebrated works such as ''King of the Children'' , ''Ju Dou'' , '''' and ''Raise the Red Lantern'' , which were not only acclaimed by Chinese cinema-goers but by the Western audience. Tian Zhuangzhuang's films, though less well-known by Western viewers, were well noted by directors such as Martin Scorsese. It was during this period that Chinese cinema began reaping the rewards of international attention, including the 1988 for ''Red Sorghum'', the 1992 Golden Lion for Zhang Yimou's ''The Story of Qiu Ju'', the 1993 Palme d'Or for '''', and three nominations from the Academy Awards. Many films are joint ventures and projects with international investment. Some important Sixth Generation directors to have emerged are Wang Xiaoshuai , Zhang Yuan , Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye .

Unlike the Fifth Generation, the Sixth Generation brings a more individualistic, anti-romantic life-view and pays more attention to contemporary urban life, especially those affected by disorientation. Many of their films have highlighted the negative attributes of China's entry into the modern capitalist market. 's ''Blind Shaft'' for example, is a chilling account of two murderous con-men in the unregulated and notoriously dangerous mining industry of northern China. While Jia Zhangke's '''' emphasizes the emptiness of globalization in the backdrop of an internationally-themed amusement park.

New Documentary Movement

Two decades of reform and commercialization have brought dramatic social changes in mainland China, reflected not only in fiction film but in a growing documentary movement. Wu Wenguang's ''Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers'' is now seen as one of the first work of this "New Documentary Movement" in China of China's New Documentary. Another internationally acclaimed documentary is 's epic nine hour tale of deindustrialization ''Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks'' . , the first women in the NDM, in ''Out of Phoenix Bridge'' relates the story of four young women, who moving from rural areas to the big cities like millions of other men and women, have come to Beijing to make a living.

New Chinese international cinema

Chinese films have enjoyed box office success abroad. Films such as '''', '''', '''', '''', ''The Road Home'' and ''House of Flying Daggers'' have been critically acclaimed around the world. The Hengdian World Studios can be seen as the "Chinese Hollywood", with a total area of up to 330 ha. and
13 shooting bases, including a 1:1 copy of the Forbidden City.

In 2000, the multi-national production ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' achieved massive success at the Western box office despite being dismissed by some Chinese cinema-goers for pandering to Western tastes. Nevertheless, it provided an introduction to Chinese cinema for many and increased the popularity of many Chinese films which may have otherwise been relatively unknown to Westerners.

In 2002, '''' was made as a second attempt to produce a Chinese film with the international appeal of ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon''. The cast and crew featured many of the most famous Chinese actors who were also known to some extent in the West, including Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, directed by Zhang Yimou. The film was a phenomenal success in most of Asia and topped the U.S. box office for two weeks, making enough in the U.S. alone to cover the production costs.

The successes of ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' and ''Hero'' blur what may be called the boundary between Mainland Chinese cinema and a more international-based "Chinese-language cinema". ''Crouching Tiger'', for example, was directed by a Taiwanese director , but its leads include , Hong Kong, and Taiwan actors and actresses while the film was co-produced by an array of Chinese, American, Hong Kong, Taiwanese film companies. This merging of people, resources, and expertise from three regions seemed to imply big-budgeted Chinese-language cinema is moving toward a more international-based arena looking to compete with the best Hollywood films. Further examples of films in this mould would include ''House of Flying Daggers'' , '''' and '''' . Tighter-financed Chinese-language cinema are still relatively localized in content, as seen in those from Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan, especially in the latter two where many films have not yet found international distributors abroad.

Sources

*''Film History: An Introduction''. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell. Second edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
*''The Oxford History of World Cinema''. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith . Oxford University Press, 1999.

Related cinema

* Cinema of Hong Kong
** Hong Kong action cinema
* Cinema of Taiwan

Lists

* List of Chinese actors
* List of Chinese actresses
* List of Chinese directors
* List of Chinese films
* List of Chinese film production companies

Further reading

*Rey Chow, ''Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema'', Columbia University Pres 1995.
*Shuqin Cui, ''Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema'', University of Hawaii Press 2003.
*Dai Jinhua, ''Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua'', eds. Jing Wang and Tani E. Barlow. London: Verso 2002.
*Laikwan Pang, ''Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937'', Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc 2002.
*Jay Leyda, ''Dianying'', MIT Press, 1972.
*Harry H. Kuoshu, ''Celluloid China: Cinematic Encounters with Culture and Society'', Southern Illinois University Press 2002 - introduction, discusses 15 films at length.
*Gary G. Xu, ''Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
*Yingjin Zhang, ''Chinese National Cinema'' , Routledge 2004 - general introduction.
*Yingjin Zhang , Zhiwei Xiao , ''Encyclopedia of Chinese Film'', Routledge, 1998.
*Cheng, Jim, ''Annotated Bibliography For Chinese Film Studies'', Hong Kong University Press 2004.

Chinese animation

''Chinese animation'' are animations from China, including the regions mainland China, and Hong Kong. Unlike Japanese anime which developed a distinct style early on and multiplied globally, animations have only started to re-emerge to a more modern sense in recent years.

History

The history of animation began in 1918 when an animation piece from the US titled ''Out of the Inkwell'' landed in Shanghai. Cartoon clips were first used in advertisements for domestic products. Though the animation industry would not begin until the arrival of the Wan brothers in 1926. From the first film with sound '''' to the first film of notable length '''', China was relatively on pace with the rest of the world. Though China's golden age of animation would come to a complete halt when the led by Mao Zedong introduced the cultural revolution. Many animators were forced to quit. If not for harsh economic conditions, the mistreatment of the would threaten their work. The surviving animations would lean closer to propaganda. By the 1980s, Japan would emerge as the official animation powerhouse in the far east, leaving China's industry decimated in reputation and productivity. Though two major changes would occur in the 90s, igniting some of the biggest changes since the exploration periods. The first is a political change. The implementation of a socialist market economy would push out traditional . No longer would a single entity limit the industry's output and income. The second is a technological change with the arrival of the Internet. New opportunities would emerge from flash animations and the contents became more open. Today China is drastically reinventing itself in the animation industry with greater influences from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Terminology

Chinese animations today can best be described in two categories. The first type are "Conventional Animations" produced by corporations of well-financed entities. These content falls along the lines of traditional 2D cartoons or modern films distributed via cinemas, DVD or broadcasted on TV. This format can be summarized as a reviving industry coming together with advanced computer technology and low cost labor.

The second type are "Webtoons" produced by corporations or sometimes just individuals. These contents are generally flash animations ranging anywhere from amateurish to high quality, hosted publicly on various websites. While the global community has always gauged industry success by box office sales. This format cannot be denied when measured in among a population of 1.3 billion in just mainland China alone. Most importantly it provides greater freedom of expression on top of potential advertising.

Characteristics

In the 1920s, the pioneering Wan brothers believed that animations should emphasize on a development style that was uniquely Chinese. This rigid philosophy stayed with the industry for decades. And animations were essentially an extension of other facets of , drawing more contents from and manhua. An example of a traditional Chinese animation character would be , a character transitioned from the classic literature Journey to the West to the 1964 animation ''Havoc in Heaven''. Though the concept of Chinese animations have began loosening up in recent years without locking into any particular one style. One of the first revolutionary change was in the 1995 manhua animation adaptation ''Cyber Weapon Z''. The style consist of characters that are practically indistinguishable from any typical anime, yet it is categorized as Chinese animation. It can be said that productions are not necessarily limited to any one technique. That water ink, puppetry, computer CG are all demonstrated in the art.

Newer waves of animations since the 90s, especially flash animations, are trying to break away from the tradition. In 2001 '''' would rate the Taiwanese webtoon character '''' as one of the top 100 new figures in Asia. The appearance of ''A-kuei'' with the large head, would probably lean much closer to kodomo material like Doraemon. So changes like this signify a welcoming transition, since folklore-like characters have always had a hard time gaining international appeal. '''', the first weekly Chinese animation magazine, conducted a survey and proved that only 1 out of 20 favorite characters among children was actually created domestically in China.

Conventional animation market

From the demographics perspective, the Chinese consumer market has identified 11% of the audience are under the age of 13 with 59% between 14 to 17 and 30% over 18 years of age. Potentially 500 million people could be identified as cartoon consumers. China also have 370 million children, one of the world’s largest animation audience.

From the financial perspective, ''Quatech Market Research'' surveyed ages between 14 to 30 in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and found that over 1.3 billion was spent on cartoons every year, but more than 80% of the revenue flows straight out of the country. Further studies show that 60% still prefer Japanese anime, 29% prefer Americans, and just 11 percent favor those made by Chinese mainland, Taiwan or Hong Kong animators.

In 1999 Shanghai Animation Film Studio spent 21 million producing the animation ''Lotus Lantern''. The film earned a box office income of more than RMB 20 million , but failed to capitalize on any related products. The same company shot a cartoon series ''Music Up'' in 2001, and although 66% of its profits came from selling related merchandise, it lagged far behind foreign animations.

One of the most popular manhua in Hong Kong was ''Old Master Q''. The characters were converted into cartoon forms as early as 1981, followed by numerous animation adaptations including a widescreen DVD release in 2003. While the publications remained legendary for decades, the animations have always been considered more of a fan tribute. And this is another sign that newer generations are further disconnected with older styled characters. Newer animations like ''My Life as McDull'' has also been introduced to expand on the modern trend.

In 2005 the first movie from Shenzhen China, ''Thru the Moebius Strip'' was debuted. Running for 80 minutes, it is the first 3D movie fully rendered in mainland China to premiere in the Cannes Film Festival. It was a critical first step for the industry.

In November 2006 an animation summit forum was held to announce China's top 10 most popular domestic cartoons as ''Century Sonny'', ''Tortoise Hanba's Stories'', ''Black Cat Detective'', ''SkyEye'', ''Lao Mountain Taoist'', '''', ''Wanderings of Sanmao'', ''Zhang Ga the Soldier Boy'', ''The Blue Mouse and the Big-Faced Cat'' and ''3000 Whys of Blue Cat''. ''Century Sonny'' is a 3D CG-animated TV series with 104 episodes fully rendered.

Flash animation market

On September 15 1999 became the first community in China to come online. While it began with amateurish contents, it was one of the first time any form of was offered in the mainland. By the beginning of 2000, it averaged 10,000 hits daily with more than 5,000 individual work published. Today it has more than 1 million members.

In 2001, ''Xiao Xiao'', a series of flash animations about kung fu stick figures became an totaling more than 50 million hits, most of which in mainland China. It also became popular overseas with numerous international artists borrowing the ''Xiao Xiao'' character for their own flash work in sites like .

On April 24 2006 was launched, hosting a variety of high quality flash animations from mainland China. The site is designed to be one of the first cross-cultural site allowing English speakers easy access to domestic productions. Though the success of the site has yet to be determined.

In October 2006, paid 3 million to produce '''', the flash version of ''A Chinese Odyssey'' in flash format.

Future

Despite having 90% of the market dominated by Japan and the US, the Chinese animation industry is in a unique position. The industry is growing significantly for the first time since the pre-cultural revolution days. The number of kids in mainland China exceed the US by about 80 million, and the technology gap between home and professional studios is narrowing. An example of a 1-person production with a successful fan base would be the 2002 Japanese anime ''Voices of a Distant Star''. While this has been proven possible in Japan, China needs to figure out better ways to economically equip their youth, especially in a generation that might later be dominated by user-generated contents.

On the contrary, colleges in China are producing animation graduates and postgraduate students, but not in large numbers. China needs 150,000 talented animation experts for film and television and 100,000 for game animations, but there are just 300 animation graduating each year. SARFT have also announced it has opened up domestic cartoon industry to private investors as of late 2004. By 2005 the division has approved 15 animation production centers in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Dalian and other cities. Other trends like cosplay are picking up in animation festivals around mainland.

Criticism

Statistics from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television indicate domestic cartoons aired 1hr 30 minutes each day from 1993 to 2002. And that by the end of 2004, it increased the airing time of domestic cartoons to 2hrs per day. The division requested a total of 2,000 to devote a show time of 60,000 minutes to domestically-produced animations and comic works. But statistics show that domestic animators can only provide enough work for 20,000 minutes, leaving a gap of 40,000 minutes that can only be filled by foreign programs. Though insiders are criticizing domestic cartoons for its emphasis on education over entertainment.

SARFT also have a history of taking unpopular protectionism actions such as banning foreign shows like ''''. While statistics are proving there are not enough domestic materials available, the administration continues to ban foreign materials. On February 15, 2006 another notice is issued to ban cartoons that incorporated live actors. As reported by Xinhua News Agency, the commission did not want CGI and 2D characters alongside human actors. Doing so would jeopardize the broadcast order of homemade animation and mislead their development. Both bans do not make logical sense to the general public.