The Social Significance And Artistic Contribution Of The Landscape Paintings By Four Artists Surnamed Wang In The Early Qing Dynasty

Over two hundred years of Qing Dynasty witnessed the dominance of Four Wangs Landscape Paintings known as the orthodoxy painting school of Qing Dynasty, represented by four artists all surnamed Wang, namely Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui and Wang Yuanqi. All being at the early time of Qing Dynasty and related with each other as kin, friends or teacher and student; all regarded highly of by the court and deeply influenced by the painting ideas of Dong Qichang, a calligrapher and painter of the end of Ming Dynasty, they are often considered together in the history of painting. However, no unanimity has ever been reached in the modern history of painting on the artistic goal, painting principle and esthetical ideas of the landscape paintings of the four Wang-surnamed artists. The true eternal art works remain there through times. No matter how far away their time is from ours, we are urged by the sense of responsibility to look frequently back on what our ancestors have left to us.The thesis starts with the political and cultural backgrounds of the four Wang-surnamed artists life time, the characteristics of their paintings, their models to follow, their interrelations, and the significance of their painting ideas in a particular history period. This lays the basis for further analysis how the four artists became the orthodoxy painters of Qing Dynasty. Then the thesis reviews the typical views on the landscape paintings by the four Wang-surnamed artists, which leads to the analysis of their views on modeling after former painters, the difference and similarity between the views in details, the historical significance of their views and their ideas on nature in their paintings. Then the thesis clarifies the long-argued doubt whether the four artists, as the contemporary critics thought, are much condemnable initiators holding to conventional ideas or are masters of arts who brought the former art of painting to a new stage in terms of their aesthetical ideas, painting principles and artistic goal. At last, the thesis analyzes the formalism in the four Wang-surnamed artists' works in the background of painting history with reference of the formalism element in western painting art, trying to answer the question whether the four Wang-surnamed artists are persistent explores who not only wildly drew on the former achievement but also made their own contribution or are the conventionalists addicted to formalism but far away from creation.Through the three aspects the thesis explores the artistic contribution and social significance of the paintings by the four artists and the lessons the artists have left to newcomers.