In a standard narrative of Chinese painting, the fifty-three years of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907–960CE) are often considered a transitional phase between the Tang (618–907 CE) and Northern Song (960–1126 CE) dynasties. Based on new archaeological evidence and research approaches, this lecture series suggests that the more than one hundred years from the late ninth to the early eleventh century, a “long tenth century,” witnessed some of the most important changes in Chinese painting. These include a multifaceted development of painting mediums, subject matter, and style; transregional interactions; and court sponsorship—all of which should be studied in an extended chronological and geographical framework.
Several crucial archaeological excavations allow us to reach a fuller and more accurate assessment of the development of landscape painting during this period. With their precise provenance and dating, these finds help establish a new foundation for exploring issues of painting mediums, stylistic inventions, architectural context, and symbolism of landscape images, which were previously beyond the reach of traditional scholarship based on transmitted examples.
More information on the lecture series.
Organized by the Tang Center for East Asian Art and cosponsored by the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Princeton University Art Museum.
