Chinese Landscape Paintings – Part 1 of 3: their cultural background and influences

Born of Nature's Poetry: China’s Tang Dynasty of the seventh to ninth centuries produced magnificent poetry that became influential in the development of classical landscape painting in the centuries that followed. Also influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and scholar-travelers and scholar poets, this art-form portrays mankind as a small but appreciative part of earth’s splendor. This historical survey presents the two major styles that evolved - ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ - and the varied cultural contexts of the landscape paintings, as well as the poetry that inspired it. As painter and poet Wang Wei wrote, “to paint a mountain, one must first know its spiritual form.”