CHINESE PAINTING

The Han Dynasty:
•The first of China’s four main dynasties.
•The goal for alliances formed the Silk Road, a trade route to the Roman Empire.
•During the Han Dynasty, the Chinese improved the makings of ceramics and silk-weaving.
•Also, funerary art was a main focus, apparent in decorated tombs.

The Six Dynasties:
•During a unstable time for China, the arts developed greatly.
–Woodblock printing was invented.
–Poetry, painting, and other arts became a personal way to express feelings.
–Calligraphers became more adapted to unique styles.

The Sui Dynasties:
•Potters invented porcelain by taking white clay and molding it and finishing it by applying a clear glaze.

The T'ang Dynasty:
•The Silk Road was booming with imports and exports.
•Second of the four great dynasties.
–Figure Painting, Tri-colored ceramics, and delicate porcelain evolved.
–Cobalt, blue glazes developed in this era.
–Gold and silver ornaments were placed in the burials with royalty.

The Five Dynasty:
•This period had two main artistic advances.
–Ceramists introduced “whiteware”, what we know today as china.
–“Monumental ink landscape” evolved into a typical style of painting.

The Yuan Dynasty:
•Short lived period
–Development of Literature and Painting
–Opened up many trade routes to India and the Middle East.
•Lots of silk trade

The Sung Dynasty
•Known as the third Chinese golden age.
–Crude invaders drove the Chinese from their territories during this time forcing them to start a new life elsewhere.
–The paintings from this time reflect the heartache and stress the Chinese people faced during this era.
–Wooden sculpture became more realistic as well.

The Yuan Dynasty:
•Famous for the blue and white porcelain. It was technically not invented in this dynasty but it achieved popularity during this time because of the trade routes.

Ming Dynasty:
•Constructed the reowned Forbidden City.
–An Imperial Palace of staggering proportions.
–Leaders tried to revive a sense of cultural traditions
•Bronze incense burners, green and gold ceramic funerary.
•Looked back to the Sung Dynasty for their inspiration (11th and 12th centuries)
–Painted large hanging landscapes for the palace.
•Concise revision of mainly pictorial arts
•A period of reowned prosperity especially in the beginning and the middles.
•Here we see a peal of literartist.
•Three schools of paintings emerged:
–The Che
•The Formal Approach
–The Wy
•Appealed to the intellectuals
–The Eccentric
•Spontaneity and freedom of expression

1912 to Present:
•After the Communists came to power in 1949 the graphic arts useful to political propaganda were encouraged, and Western influence in the arts was strictly discouraged. Within the limits of government restrictions two painters, Li K'o-jan and Ch'eng Shih-fa, have produced works of considerable individuality. Chinese artists working outside China, including Tseng Yu-ho in Hawaii, C. C. Wang in New York, and Chao Wu-chi in France, have produced abstract works based on calligraphy that reveal some Western influence.

View examples of the art at:
1. http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?i=7&v=2&op=1209
2. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0857312.html
3. http://www.contemporarychinesefineart.com/ARTISTS1.htm

ANDY WARHOL

Above: Oxidation 1978

Biography:

Andy was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh as the son of Slovak immigrants. His original name was Andrew Warhola. His father was as a construction worker and died in an accident when Andy was 13 years old. Andy showed an early talent in drawing and painting. After high school he studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Warhol graduated in 1949 and went to New York where he worked as an illustrator for magazines like Vogue and Harpar's Bazaar and for commercial advertising. He soon became one of New York's most sought of and successful commercial illustrators.

The 1950s:
During the 1950’s time period Warhol continued as a commercial artist. He gained fame for his whimsical drawings of shoe advertisements.His ads were done in a loose, blotted ink style.
During the 1950’s Warhol was hired by RCA Records to design album covers and promotional materials. This is a album cover for rock and roll artist David Bowie that Warhol designed.
Andy Warhol had his first one-man show exhibition at the Hugo Gallery in New York in 1952.
Featured was his work, 15 Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote.

The Factory:
In 1962, Andy Warhol founded The Factory. It was an art studio where he employed “art workers” to produce a large amount of prints and posters.


The Shooting:
In 1968 Warhol was shot by Valerie Solana, who starred in his film “I, A Man, in his studio. She claimed “he had too much control over my life.” This event was said to have ended the “Factory 60’s.”

The 1970s:
Throughout the 1970s, Warhol frequently socialized with celebrities such as Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Truman Capote, both of whom had been important early subjects in his art. He started to receive dozens-and soon hundreds-of commissions for painted portraits from wealthy socialites, music and film stars, and other clients. He was a regular partygoer at Studio 54, the famous New York disco, along with celebrities such as fashion designer Halston, entertainer Liza Minnelli, and Bianca Jagger. In 1971 Warhol co-designed the cover for The Rolling Stones’ album Sticky Fingers, featuring a close-up photo of the torso of a man wearing blue jeans with a real working zipper. The design was nominated for a Grammy Award.. His commissioned portrait paintings began in 1963, with portraits of the collector Ethel Scull, entertainer Bobby Short, and others. The 1970s was also a period of experimentation for Warhol. He made 3 versions of a sculpture called Rain Machine (Daisy Waterfall) for the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970. These consist of a large shower of water in front of a wall of 3-D lenticular prints of daisies. In the mid-1970s he experimented with an idea for an Invisible Sculpture, made of motion detectors and loud sirens. In 1978, he produced a large series of works called Oxidation paintings, made with human urine on canvases covered with metallic paint.

The 1980s:
In the mid-1980s his television shows, Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes and Andy Warhol’s TV, aired nationally on MTV and on Madison Square Garden cable television in New York. He created work for Saturday Night Live, and appeared in an episode of The Love Boat. In 1984, Warhol collaborated with young artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring on artworks. Warhol returned to painting with a brush in these, briefly abandoning the silkscreen method he had used exclusively since 1962. Nearly all of Warhol’s works in every medium were created with the help of friends (beginning with writer Ralph Ward, and the crowd at Serendipity 3 café in the 1950s), paid assistants (beginning with Vito Giallo and Nathan Gluck in the 1950s), and managers such as Fred Hughes. Warhol died in New York City on February 22, 1987, due to complications following surgery to remove his gall bladder. In 1988, a ten-day auction of his enormous estate of art and antiques raised over 20 million dollars for The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Andy Warhol Museum was announced in 1989, and opened in Pittsburgh in 1994.