On Northern Song Dynasty Painter Guo Xi's Naturalistic View Of Humanistic Landscape Paintings

Guo Xi was a representative landscape painter with pragmatic and innovative spirit living in the mid and late period of Northern Song Dynasty, and he was also one of the most important landscape painters after Li Cheng and Fan Kuan living in the beginning period of Song Dynasty. What is worth paying attention is that Guo Xi was not only a landscape painter who was unrivalled in his time, but also a landscape painting theoretician who served as a link between past and future. The essence of Guo's landscape painting theory concentrates in his work "Forest and Mountain Streams Refined Character Collection", in which lies the most typical reflection of his landscape painting theory ---- the scenery naturalistic view. It can be said that Guo Xi's scenery naturalistic view is the theoretical core of his work "Forest and Mountain Streams Refined Character Collection". Guo's artistic creation peak was precisely the time which Neo-Confucianism started in Northern Song Dynasty, thus his theory and paintings would be inevitably influenced by Neo-Confucianism at that time. With such ideological background, Guo Xi's scenery naturalistic view displayed apparent tendency towards Neo-Confucianism. Meanwhile, under this theoretical instruction, his landscape painting creation revealed the indistinct writer mood and the current relevance humane spirit, namely, the human and the nature should maintain real compatible and harmonious relation. Guo Xi's scenery naturalistic view is obviously different from that of the early Song Dynasty or Five Dynasties before his time. In a sense, Guo Xi's scenery naturalistic view is the typical representative of that of middle Northern Song Dynasty. Therefore, discussing Guo's scenery naturalistic view has universal significance and theoretical value. Carefully examining from Guo's scenery naturalistic view, taking the influence of Neo-Confucianism on forming his naturalistic view into account, and discussing the characteristic origin of his naturalistic view as well as its influence will be very helpful for us to study in depth the overall vein and the tendency of landscape painting naturalistic view in middle Northern Song Dynasty from the cultural aspect, and will be also beneficial for promoting our knowledge on regarding and understanding the law of landscape painting art development.