The Art of Chinese Painting

:00:09. > :00:15.The art of Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic

:00:16. > :00:21.traditions in history. Its unique evolution is unparalleled in the art

:00:22. > :00:25.world. From highly colourful religious art works, to distinctive

:00:26. > :00:30.monochrome landscapes. The painters of China have strived for centuries

:00:31. > :00:35.to represent and reflect on the environment around them in this vast

:00:36. > :00:43.country. In doing so, they have created an aesthetic which is truly

:00:44. > :00:48.unique to these land Being installed here at the Victoria and Albert

:00:49. > :00:52.Museum are a selection of Chinese paintings that so rare that none of

:00:53. > :00:58.them were ever intended to be hung in a gallery or museum. Masterpieces

:00:59. > :01:02.of Chinese Painting spans some 1200 years and includes over 70 rare

:01:03. > :01:06.of Chinese Painting spans some 1200 years and includes over 70 works of

:01:07. > :01:15.art. This tricks is a comprehensive display of an artistic tradition

:01:16. > :01:18.that was so innovative it was centuries ahead. They are some of

:01:19. > :01:21.the best-known examples of one of the world's greatest artistic

:01:22. > :01:28.traditions. The art of Chinese painting. I will travel to China to

:01:29. > :01:32.learn who the earliest painters were. Why the written word had a

:01:33. > :01:48.huge influence on painting style. And how an artist emperor helped to

:01:49. > :01:55.bring about the country's golden age of painting. I'm in the Gobi Desert,

:01:56. > :01:59.some 1500 miles way of Beijing to see a highly-prized collection of

:02:00. > :02:04.early Chinese painting which was hidden from the world for centuries.

:02:05. > :02:08.These are the Mogao caves, the oldest and largest collection of

:02:09. > :02:14.Buddhist art anywhere in the world. Inside this vast complex of groet

:02:15. > :02:17.owes lie 45,000 square meters of painted murals and thousands of

:02:18. > :02:21.sculptures. Between them they span more than a millennium of culture

:02:22. > :02:26.history. Situated at a crucial crossroads on the ancient Silk Road,

:02:27. > :02:34.this area was once the gate which to the Chinese empire from Central

:02:35. > :02:41.Asia. The earliest caves date back as far as the 4th century AD. The

:02:42. > :02:44.outside influences of passing traders on the silk route are clear

:02:45. > :02:59.from the stunning art work on the walls ever these caves. It's the

:03:00. > :03:05.most extraordinary thing walking in from the Gobi Desert to find a cave

:03:06. > :03:11.this vast. This bud ya is 20 meters tall. Surrounding him are these

:03:12. > :03:22.murals in different colours all vibrant. Even though they have been

:03:23. > :03:30.here in the desert for hundreds of years. The secret to that vibrancy

:03:31. > :03:34.is the earliest use of ultramarine, a pigment sourced from Lapis Lazuli,

:03:35. > :03:38.a substance which would have travelled along the Silk Road from

:03:39. > :03:53.Afghanistan and which wasn't seen in European painting until the Middle

:03:54. > :03:57.Ages. Professor Peng has been resident arguologist here for 25

:03:58. > :04:27.years. -- archaeologist. The entire complex of caves was

:04:28. > :04:31.abandoned in the 14th century and not rediscovered for more than 500

:04:32. > :04:40.years. This, and the unique desert conditions here, helped to preserve

:04:41. > :04:43.the site in its current state. It's the survival of another collection

:04:44. > :04:51.here, against all the odds, which has proved to be the most important

:04:52. > :04:55.discovery of all. This tiny chamber is known as the Library Cave.

:04:56. > :05:06.There's not very much to see today, but when it was discovered in 1900

:05:07. > :05:10.by the TaoistAbbot, Wang Yuan Lu, it was crammed floor to ceiling with

:05:11. > :05:19.tens of thousands of important manuscripts and inKay --

:05:20. > :05:23.incomparablehorde of priceless works of art. Sealed behind a wall in this

:05:24. > :05:30.cave was a treasure trove of art words. The collection is thought to

:05:31. > :05:37.have been concealed during a period of the 11th century, meaning they

:05:38. > :05:48.were hidden from sight for almost a millennium.

:05:49. > :05:55.The discovery of thousands of manuscripts and art works dating

:05:56. > :06:00.back as far as the 5th century was big news in the art world. At the

:06:01. > :06:05.turn of the 20th Century, good news travelled rather quickly along the

:06:06. > :06:11.Silk Road. Before long, western explorers arrived on the scene.

:06:12. > :06:20.First in line in 1907 was one Aurel Stein, a British-Hungarian explorer

:06:21. > :06:25.whose expedition was part-funded by the British Museum. Steyn saw at

:06:26. > :06:28.once the value of what the Abbot had discovered and and set about trying

:06:29. > :06:33.to acquire the collection. He walked away with a huge haul which included

:06:34. > :06:37.hundreds of documents and manual vipts not least the Diamond Sutra,

:06:38. > :06:44.now known as the world's oldest printed book. The it may seem

:06:45. > :06:49.astonishing to us today, Stein convinced the Abbot to part with a

:06:50. > :06:52.huge number of priceless art works, including a beautiful collection of

:06:53. > :06:57.painted silk banners. They were perfectly preserved in these dry

:06:58. > :07:01.conditions, making them the earliest examples of their kind anywhere in

:07:02. > :07:05.the world. Had they not been hidden, these rare silk banners would almost

:07:06. > :07:10.certainly have been destroyed. Such pieces were made for worship and

:07:11. > :07:14.were regularly disposed of. The original banners have been in the

:07:15. > :07:26.possession of major European museums ever since their discovery in 1900.

:07:27. > :07:29.The V exhibition will provide an exceptional opportunity to see this

:07:30. > :07:36.astonishing selection together with 12 of them on display in one room.

:07:37. > :07:43.The sealing of the library cave preserved countless treasures for

:07:44. > :07:47.future generations. These unique banners are over 1,000 years old.

:07:48. > :07:52.That they survived at all is very markable, but they exist in such

:07:53. > :07:58.astonishing condition is truly a wonder of history. We know very

:07:59. > :08:02.little about the mysterious artists who painted these stunning works of

:08:03. > :08:08.art as early works such as these were never signed. Up until around

:08:09. > :08:13.the time that the Library Cave was sealed at Mogao at the turn of the

:08:14. > :08:19.11th cent, painting was considered just another lowly artisan trade

:08:20. > :08:23.comparable to pottery or carpentry. Within two centuries painters would

:08:24. > :08:29.have earned them selfs selves a position among the very elite of

:08:30. > :08:35.society. They would shun colour and, what's more, they would be working

:08:36. > :08:38.in a very different style. Monochrome depictions of landscapes

:08:39. > :08:45.are perhaps the most familiar form of Chinese paintings. What changed?

:08:46. > :08:55.How did we get from this to this? Why was paint superseded by ink? How

:08:56. > :08:59.did colourful Buddhas give way to mountains and streams? And lowly

:09:00. > :09:06.artisan painters go up in the world to become highly educated scholars?

:09:07. > :09:12.For centuries now monochrome depictions of landscape and nature

:09:13. > :09:16.have become considered the apotheosis of Chinese classical

:09:17. > :09:21.Chinese painting. The style, so unique to this region, faced a long

:09:22. > :09:25.road in becoming accepted as a high art form and the reasons for that

:09:26. > :09:28.are due to those age old standards of class and politics. It was an

:09:29. > :09:33.established practice for the Imperial Court to recruit the most

:09:34. > :09:38.talented artisan painters in society to work in the Palace workshops. The

:09:39. > :09:41.best court painters were often highly talented, but they were

:09:42. > :09:47.clearly seen as hired hands with low status. Court painters, we would

:09:48. > :09:52.have to say, they are artists who are drafted, possibly from

:09:53. > :09:57.provincial workshops because they have ex-compelled and they have been

:09:58. > :10:01.drafted into service at court. Essentially, a number of tasks would

:10:02. > :10:06.await them there. Sometimes this would be the making of objects that

:10:07. > :10:12.are clearly art works, such as hangs scrolls or hand scrolls orphans or

:10:13. > :10:17.album leaves.s sometimes their function might be more in the line

:10:18. > :10:21.of interior decorations. Court paintings were colourful and tended

:10:22. > :10:29.to have a message. Very often the aim would be to improve moral

:10:30. > :10:33.standards at court. This painting, the Admonitions scroll is amongst

:10:34. > :10:39.the most famous remaining examples of this early style and attacks the

:10:40. > :10:43.excessive behaviour of an Empress. This graphic style dominated court

:10:44. > :10:49.painting for centuries. A shift was on the horizon that would change

:10:50. > :10:57.Chinese painting forever. The the man responsible was the artist

:10:58. > :11:03.behind this stunning work. This work was painted by one Emperor Huizong

:11:04. > :11:10.of the 12th century Song Dynasty. He was both artist and ruler and used

:11:11. > :11:17.his power to change how art was perceived. Emperor Huizong was very

:11:18. > :11:23.elegant Skolar and accomplished artist himself. He was a great art

:11:24. > :11:29.historian. It's an almost unique moment that you have an artist who

:11:30. > :11:41.was an emperor or an emperor who is at the same time an artist. It's

:11:42. > :11:45.exceptional. This stunning hand scroll will be the start attraction

:11:46. > :11:50.of the V exhibition. It's among the most important early

:11:51. > :12:03.Masterpieces of Chinese Painting in existence. It follows the 8th

:12:04. > :12:08.century tradition with the heavy colouring, the very bright colours

:12:09. > :12:14.and the brushwork itself is elegant and fluent. The talented Emperor

:12:15. > :12:20.left an astonishing artistic legacy far beyond the inheritance of his

:12:21. > :12:23.own masterpieces. In the year 1104, Emperor Huizong made a decision that

:12:24. > :12:28.would help to bring about the end of an era. He opened the National

:12:29. > :12:31.School of Painting and selected 30 students from across the country.

:12:32. > :12:41.Not only did they receive technical fine art training, but the academy

:12:42. > :12:47.also provided a well-rounded general education. The Emperor's decision to

:12:48. > :12:52.educate his proteges all those years ago helped to change the course of

:12:53. > :12:59.Chinese art history. Through him he raised the status of painter from

:13:00. > :13:03.mere artisan to artists. He set up the first... The first person who

:13:04. > :13:10.set up the school in the court. The School of Painting, which, on the

:13:11. > :13:22.same level as the Emperor School for Poetry and for Classics. He regarded

:13:23. > :13:26.the painting as high art. The The Song Dynasty also saw a shift in

:13:27. > :13:38.style and subject matter. It has come down to us as the golden age of

:13:39. > :13:41.Chinese painting. We regard the Song Dynasty paintings as peak of the art

:13:42. > :13:46.of painting because the first is realism. The second is the ideal

:13:47. > :13:56.beauty it conveys and the design as well as the depiction of what the

:13:57. > :14:02.artists see. It's a dream for many later Chinese painters to achieve

:14:03. > :14:05.this ideal beauty. Under Emperor Huizong direction the newly educated

:14:06. > :14:09.court painters of the day began to produce works depicting highly

:14:10. > :14:21.detailed scenes from nature. The The emphasis was now firmly on realism

:14:22. > :14:27.one quintessential work of the time, attributed to the Emperor himsel is

:14:28. > :14:31.a work entitled Auspicious Cranes. It's supposed to be a record of a

:14:32. > :14:40.real happening of 20 cranes suddenly descending to the sky above the

:14:41. > :14:51.Forbidden City. The record says many people in the capital saw that. They

:14:52. > :15:05.all saw this as an auspicious sign. He said he would record this

:15:06. > :15:08.auspicious sight. The artist Emperor's school of painting had

:15:09. > :15:14.changed the status of painters in Chinese society. Painters were now

:15:15. > :15:22.seen as individuals and artists began to sign their names on their

:15:23. > :15:27.paintings. A new type of artist began to emerge. Unlike the artisans

:15:28. > :15:36.of the past, they had power and status. They were known as the

:15:37. > :15:42.scholar painters. Painters. There is this group of Skolars who feel that

:15:43. > :15:49.they want to distinguish themselves from the court painters and what is

:15:50. > :15:54.going on in the court. Often they paint for their own amusement. They

:15:55. > :16:01.consider painting or writing itself is the self cultivation. There was

:16:02. > :16:04.one feature of Skolar painting which was radically different from what

:16:05. > :16:08.had gone before. Their paintings used almost no colour. There's an

:16:09. > :16:18.idea that colour, sort of, fascinates the eye and not the mind.

:16:19. > :16:24.The so they focus on painting with ink only. They very proudly used the

:16:25. > :16:29.tools of the Skolar as if they were sitting down to write. In fact, they

:16:30. > :16:34.sometimes even used the term Xie, to write. To write paintings. To become

:16:35. > :16:39.a member of the Skolar class it was essential to pass a strict exam set

:16:40. > :16:47.by the Emperor. There was one skill which was v ah aunted above all

:16:48. > :16:51.others and had a huge influence on the scholarly painting style, the

:16:52. > :16:55.art of calligraphy. The perfect line, drawn with the perfect brush,

:16:56. > :17:03.held at the perfect angle has been central to the fact of Chinese

:17:04. > :17:08.painting throughout its history. According to the elite, to be a

:17:09. > :17:11.painter, you must first become an accomplished calligrapher. If you

:17:12. > :17:18.had a steady hand and could master the art of calligraphy, it made it

:17:19. > :17:22.possible to join the upper echelons of society, that meant that actually

:17:23. > :17:29.you were influencing the moral and aesthetic standards of the day. The

:17:30. > :17:33.art of the written language was seen as the highest human endeavour and

:17:34. > :17:37.was elevated to a form of high art. To this day, learning calligraphy is

:17:38. > :17:41.a crucial part of a painter's training. Auto I've come to

:17:42. > :17:51.Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Art to join a class of art students

:17:52. > :17:52.practicing calligraphy. Professor Xu is the art school's calligraphy

:17:53. > :18:27.tutor. So what is the key to being a good

:18:28. > :18:37.calligrapher? I thought I'd try my hand. A bit of water?

:18:38. > :18:50.Enough? OK. Copying this one? You made it look so easy. OK.

:18:51. > :19:10.It's a lovely sensation of the ink going on the page.

:19:11. > :19:25.What's more important when you're teaching, getting people to think

:19:26. > :19:52.about it, or getting people to copy? The ink and brush skills the Skolar

:19:53. > :19:59.painters mastered in the practice of calligraphy had a huge influence on

:20:00. > :20:02.their painting style. This independent group of educated

:20:03. > :20:09.painters could choose to paint whatever they pleased. The genre

:20:10. > :20:14.they most commonly chose to express themselves was landscape painting.

:20:15. > :20:20.These are not landscapes that you find when you look out the window.

:20:21. > :20:25.So exact representations. They are landscapes that are created in your

:20:26. > :20:29.mind. You have been wandering in the landscape and you have experienced

:20:30. > :20:38.the landscape within and then you try to transmit that experience. A

:20:39. > :20:43.good Skolar painting is not just a demonstration of exactly the reality

:20:44. > :20:50.or the form likeness, but between the lines actually there's a meaning

:20:51. > :20:59.and became more expressive of the individualism at the same time it

:21:00. > :21:03.became a mind image. This type of landscape paint something known as

:21:04. > :21:08.Shan Shui, which literally translates as Mountain Water.

:21:09. > :21:13.Mountains and water are almost always the key constituents of a

:21:14. > :21:19.classical Chinese landscape painting. The Skolars use the genre

:21:20. > :21:23.to express their world view. In a sense, they take a longer view of

:21:24. > :21:30.history, which is they must speak truth to power. They are not there

:21:31. > :21:35.simply to pander or be sycophants to emperors or powerful figures who

:21:36. > :21:40.want this or that. The influenced by their teachings in classical Chinese

:21:41. > :21:43.philosophy, Skolar painters often removed themselves from society to

:21:44. > :21:59.live in the mountains to reflect the world around them. I've come to the

:22:00. > :22:10.National Museum of China to learn more about this important genre of

:22:11. > :22:35.Chinese painting. Dr Yu is this gallery's curator.

:22:36. > :22:44.This hand scroll painting is attributed by the museum to the 13th

:22:45. > :23:11.century painter, Huang Gongwang, one of the great scholar painters.

:23:12. > :23:15.The four masters of the Un, as they were known, were reveered for

:23:16. > :23:29.generations. Because this is made as a scroll, as

:23:30. > :23:55.you unroll it, a story emerges. How do you read a scroll like this?

:23:56. > :24:00.The way he spread out the landscape as being a metaphor for his

:24:01. > :24:22.feelings, that's really really interesting. The Skolar

:24:23. > :24:26.painters set the standard for centuries. They were masters of

:24:27. > :24:34.their art and held up as examples for others to emulate.

:24:35. > :24:39.To this day the tradition of landscape ink painting has endured

:24:40. > :24:43.and the techniques of those early masters are used to teach the next

:24:44. > :24:48.generation the ways of the classical arts. The way in which this valuable

:24:49. > :24:52.information is imparted may come as a surprise, in China in order to

:24:53. > :24:56.become a great artist, first you have to learn the art of copying.

:24:57. > :25:01.These students are studying classical Chinese painting at the

:25:02. > :25:05.Central Academy of Fine Art. The Professor Chen is overseeing a class

:25:06. > :25:07.of students copying an old master of their choice. A process which could

:25:08. > :25:28.take as much as five weeks. To copy the old masters correctly,

:25:29. > :25:54.the students must learn the strict rules of landscape painting.

:25:55. > :26:01.Each student has chosen a work by one of the great masters of

:26:02. > :26:05.landscape painting. They stretch their canvas over the top of its

:26:06. > :26:07.outline, and using magnets to cling to the original, trace the lines of

:26:08. > :26:29.the masterpiece with their brush. Although they are copying, the

:26:30. > :26:32.students are encouraged to express themselves. In order to earn that

:26:33. > :26:46.right, it's essential for them to know the basics.

:26:47. > :26:57.The tradition of copying has allowed the distinctive techniques of

:26:58. > :27:14.Chinese painting to be handed down. It gives us insight into how

:27:15. > :27:17.painters worked. At the Victoria and Albert Museum the most striking

:27:18. > :27:24.thing is the diversity of style on show. From this, one of the longest

:27:25. > :27:31.paintings in the world, to these precious religious banners which, by

:27:32. > :27:34.rights, should have been destroyed a millennium ago. Some of the best

:27:35. > :27:48.examples of Skolar paintings in existence. For V curator, Hongxing

:27:49. > :27:51.Zhang damage, sdufrp sdufrp -- Hongxing Zhang assembling this

:27:52. > :27:56.collection has been a very long time in the making. This is really

:27:57. > :28:01.exciting for the V for myself Askew rater. It hasn't been really

:28:02. > :28:06.an exhibition of this kind of this scope, 1200 years survey, for many,

:28:07. > :28:13.many decades. The last one we can think of, really of this ambitious

:28:14. > :28:19.scope is the 1935 show at Royal Academy. This, therefore, is very,

:28:20. > :28:33.very ambitious and we're very proud of it. These paintings remain intact

:28:34. > :28:37.against the odds of history is truly remarkable. To have such a

:28:38. > :28:42.collection assembled here provides a rare opportunity to see and

:28:43. > :28:52.experience the extraordinary story of Chinese painting.