明淸代와 江戶시대의 소상팔경도

Abstract

In China, the tradition of depicting eight scenic views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, reached its artistic peak in both quality and quantity during Southern Song period (960-1279), in Korea during the early Joseon period (1392- ca. 1550), and in Japan during the Muromachi period (1392-1573). It is generally believed that after these suggested time periods, the artistic vitality of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers was lost, thus little scholarly attention was given to later development of this pictorial theme. Thus, this research will examine how after its so called artistic apex, the tradition of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers developed differently in China and Japan, and how artists sparked trans-generational and trans-cultural conversations with their audience by interpreting this theme of antiquity in new aesthetics and pictorial vocabularies. Unlike Song period works, which tended to focus on the realistic depiction of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, Wen Zheng-ming (1470-1559), a Ming literati painter wonderfully interpreted this traditional theme in simple literati taste, and these works were formatted in small albums, rather than hanging scrolls. Wen’s approach to this theme is similar to Wu school painters who often found their themes for painting in the lush gardens and environs of Suzhou and rendered it in simple and plain brushworks. During Wen’s time, it was popular that in making one album, four painters collaborated together. Since the number eight is an even number, it was simple for each painter to be in charge of depicting two views. During the Qing period, the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers were painted in style of old masters. In Japan, Kano Tanyu(1602-1648) and Ike no Taiga (1723-1776) invigorated this theme of antiquity. Kano Tanyu rendered the details of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers in an extremely meticulous manner in handscrolls, which often accompany other pictorial images. Ike no Taiga, one of the most celebrated Nanga (Southern School Painting) masters in the Edo period dramatically changed the conventional composition of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. One of the characteristics of Japanese painters’Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers lays in its extreme decorativeness. Round hilly mountains in the work by Seiko of the Muromachi period echoes the decorativeness of Yamato-e painting.