Posted on 04/09/2019 11:18:02 AM PDT by mairdie
A painting from the Six-Dynasties period of Chinese art - AD 220-589 - depicting the collating of historical texts. Yang Zihua is known for his horses. One strange aspect is the cosmetic use by the women of bright white on foreheads and the bridge of the nose. The music is Flowing Water - Gu Guanren.
PING
Thanks mairdie.
My pleasure, Sunken. Hoping you’re well and having fun.
Still got a pulse, so I'm doin' fine. :^)
Nice. Relaxing.
But, I came here looking for Senator Feinstein’s driver....
I do love you.
That is a wonderful post! Do you know why there are white faces or masks on some of the people? Were they the scholars?
It is a pet peeve of mine that people nowadays randomly “crop” works like this. Why? Artists already crop the work when they create it, and when it becomes a moving image, due to YouTube or whatever, people feel they can crop off the bottom of the works when they zoom in on details. Zoom in, okay, but then zoom out so we can see what is at the bottom of the image.
In any case, a very enjoyable few minutes. Thank you for the post.
A very kind post. My thanks. I think the white faces are a fashion for the women, who are unlikely to be the scholars at that time.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/northern-qi-scholars-collating-classic-texts/zAEEgYzPdibGvw
This painting depicts a story in the seventh year of the Emperor Wenxuan’s reign (556 AD), when the emperor ordered Fan Xun and others to compare and collate historical files. Ancient Chinese rulers placed great importance on the collation of ancient texts, because as these books were passed down, they would often pick up errors due to oversights and intentional alteration. This work was once believed to be created by the influential Tang painter Yan Liben, but the prevailing view now is that it should be attributed to Yang Zuhua of the Northern Qi Period.
Viewing this painting from right to left according to the standard viewing order for horizontal scrolls at the time, Scholars of Northern Qi Collating Texts can be divided into three scenes. In the scene at right, there is a red-robed official scanning a document while sitting on a huchuang (a kind of stool introduced from the minority ethnic groups to the Central Plain during the Three Kingdoms Period). He is the central figure of the first scene. To the left of that, at the scroll’s center, four scholars sit on a dais, attended by a group of female servants. Two of the scholars are collating books while the other two seems to be in an argument. This scene of ten people is the crux of the painting. On the far left of the scroll, two grooms lead horses behind a red-robed official of the Han ethnicity.
The dressing styles of characters as well as the furniture and interior décor depicted in the painting, revealing traces of thriving cultural interactions between the Han people and the minority ethnic groups, are in line with historical records. The looks of characters, the oval-shaped faces in particular, also bear similarities with those on the frescos attributed to the same period recently discovered. Therefore, this painting has been used as a reference to studies on the painting style of the Northern Qi Period, during which art witnessed thriving development although the kingdom only lasted a very short period of time, and even had possibly exerted influence on the aesthetics of the following Tang Dynasty according to recent archeological findings.
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Qi_Scholars.jpg
How dare you assume that person’s gender!
Maybe it identifies as a white picket fence.
Well, I always wanted to be Buckingham Fountain, so I guess I can give her a picket fence.
Thanks, mairdie!
... for expanding my horizons!
I’m so very glad you like it. I loved antique art and remembering my classes thru these videos is simply pleasure. The head of our department was an Ancient Chinese art scholar. Couldn’t resist and listened again to Van Gulik’s Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, one of my mother’s favorite authors and another U of C Chinese scholar. Judge Dee was Tang. Close enough to these artists. I love his writing, as long as I fast forward thru the torture scenes.
OH mairdie! you brought us another litte jewel! Thanks so much!
The bearded horseman appears to be a westerner! I was surprised to see that! Or did I miss the oriental epicanthic fold?
And yes,... the horses are amazing.
I am beginning to realize I like classic Chinese music!
Many, many thanks, tex. That music was so very different from anything else I’d used but it made me immediately think of cowboy movies of my youth. I’ve been enjoying the classical music of other cultures, too. Never even thought about it before I needed it for appropriateness, but have been enjoying it. Picked up 4 or 5 traditional albums and was surprised at how many were enjoyable to use. Typically I’ll buy an album and only be willing to use 1 or 2 songs per, and sometimes none. I always make it a point to buy the albums when I want to use the music.
And my apologies. My discussion of the music was for the newest piece. I actually like the music that you were responding to much better than the newest one. And the horses in BOTH are great. There is one artist I adore whose horses are breathtaking, but he doesn’t do scrolls, so he’s only in the big historical Chinese video. But I’ve been tempted to collect all of his horses into one video. What I really love about the horses is that the artists put so much emotion into the eyes of the horses that they are as much individuals as the people.
>>The bearded horseman appears to be a westerner! I was surprised to see that! Or did I miss the oriental epicanthic fold?
Han.
“In the scene at right, there is a red-robed official scanning a document while sitting on a huchuang (a kind of stool introduced from the minority ethnic groups to the Central Plain during the Three Kingdoms Period). He is the central figure of the first scene. To the left of that, at the scroll’s center, four scholars sit on a dais, attended by a group of female servants. Two of the scholars are collating books while the other two seems to be in an argument. This scene of ten people is the crux of the painting. On the far left of the scroll, two grooms lead horses behind a red-robed official of the Han ethnicity.”
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