Guo Xi

Guō Xī: Early Spring , 1072

Guō Xī ( Chinese  郭熙 , Pinyin Guō Xī , W.-G. Kuo Hsi ; * 1020 in Wen County ( Henan Province ); † 1090 Kaifeng ) was a Chinese landscape painter of the Northern Song Dynasty .

Life

After training with Li Cheng , Guo worked as a court painter at the Academy of Song Emperor Shenzong , who appreciated Guo's style very much. His successor Zhezong , who came to the throne in 1085 , placed greater emphasis on naturalistic painting that was as true to the object as possible and was therefore less able to begin with Guō Xī's sometimes almost fantastic pictures. As a result, the artist's star fell, his works were removed from the public collections and some of them were destroyed, which is why there are only a comparatively small number of them today.

Picturesque work

In his paintings Guō developed the perspective further by painting more distant parts of the landscape paler and lighter than those closer to the viewer. The then new technology for generating a multiple perspective consisting of “high distance”, “deep distance” and “far distance”, which he called “total perspective”, goes back to him. Typical of his landscapes are the typical tree representations known as "crab claw twigs" . Overall, the techniques mentioned give the Guō Xī images a sometimes quite fantastic character. Among the most famous works of the artist are Autumn in the River Valley and Early Spring from 1072.

Art theory

In addition, Guō was active as an art theorist and wrote in particular the treatise The sublime beauty of forest and river . He was of the opinion that the viewer of a painting must have the impression of being in place, of being able to move in the painted landscape as in reality. To do this, the artist has to capture the spirit and characteristics of the objects. Guō also developed a very detailed system of idiomatic brushstrokes that was to have a great influence on later generations of painters.

literature

• James Cahill : The Chinese Painting . Geneva 1960.
• An essay on landscape painting , Murray, London 1949.

Web links

Commons : 郭熙  - album with pictures, videos and audio files