Simplicity of Life
Fallen Flowers and Swimming Fish
Oriental design has always been an amazingly simplistic form of life. The arts, the culture, and the lifestyle. The art that came out of the Ming Dynasty proved itself to be simplistic and whole without any distractions in color or abstraction. One thing that really draws me into chinese art such as this one, is the illusion of no boundaries. When I look at the design I don’t see any sort of bounds between gravity or nature. Everything seems to coexist in… harmony.
The simplistic values that correlate nature and the simplicity of life really come out in this ink on paper drawing done by Yun Shouping, Qing Dynasty, who painted aquatic scenes according to the moral. In the picture there is a school of fish who seem to be very attracted to the playful leaves of the peach tree that have descended into their envrionment. The fact that the fish are so simple in design and there is not much detail, a method Shouping used called mogu (boneless), really shows the free form real life movements of the fish. They are free, they move free. Shouping also was not afraid of using bold colors such as red, which were deemed offensive by chinese painters.
The moral of this drawing:
People find enjoyment in things that others may not. Simply said, simply displayed. Something that I think the American culture cannot provide through art and has a hard time finding a sense of comfort in.
“You are not fish, how would you know the happiness of the fish?” ~Chuang Tsu (369-286 BC)
Source:
http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/63Arts1119.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yun_Shouping
Very good blog. I also did a blog on the Ming Dynasty art work. I was amazed with the simple patterns and designs that the artists were able to create with such ordinary brush strokes. I also enjoyed how the artists painted images with morals and lessons, i especially was very fond of the quote you included at the bottom of your blog. It is also astonishing how these artists were unafraid to break from the traditional styles and use colors and methods others found to be offensive. All in all, i found your blog to be very informing and enjoyed reading about another Ming Dynasty artwork.
I really liked you blog. I liked your expression of everything coexisting in harmony, in Ming Dynasty painting, and using a painting of water is a great way of showing harmony. I feel like this painting has more to offer than some of the others paintings from the Ming Dynasty because of its use in color.