Ancient Chinese Scroll Painting

Ceremony and anticipation underlie the experience of looking at a handscroll.

Ancient chinese scroll painting. The painting titled along the river during the qingming festival has been copied several times but the original is rarely displayed because it is so fragile. Ink and color on silk 226 6x110 3 cm. Scroll painting art form practiced primarily in east asia. Traditionally scrolls are meant to be displayed for shortish periods of time after which they are rolled and tied up until the next season or occasion and are usually not permanantly displayed.

Small album leaf paintings like this were popular amongst the gentry and scholar officials of the southern song. Chinese scroll painting is an ancient art form and one unique to asia. It is to be distinguished from the handscroll which was narrower and designed to be viewed flat on a table in sections and then stored away again. In china a hanging scroll is a traditional way of displaying and exhibiting chinese art and calligraphy and they have been creating and using scroll paintings as decoration for over two thousand years.

A hanging scroll is one of the many traditional ways to display and exhibit east asian painting and calligraphy. The two dominant types may be illustrated by the chinese landscape scroll which is that culture s greatest contribution to the history of painting and the japanese narrative scroll which developed the storytelling potential of painting. Though there had been many formats used in chinese scroll painting the horizontal hand scroll was very distinct and which can be opened and unrolled from right to left so that the information painted on it will be seen as one fragment at a time. A predominant format of chinese painting is the handscroll a continuous roll of paper or silk of varying length on which an image has been painted and which when not being viewed remains rolled up.

One example of how art was used in ancient china is the hand painted scroll. The hanging scroll was displayed in a room for appreciation. Enjoy a 360 degree view of the collector our sale series showcasing furniture objects and works of art from the 17th to the 19th century. One example of how art was used in ancient china is the hand painted scroll.

Though there had been many formats used in chinese scroll painting the horizontal hand scroll was very distinct and which can be opened and unrolled from right to left so that the information painted on it will be seen as one fragment at a time. The collectorat christie s london. The scrolls made of silk or paper and attached to wooden rollers were meant to be unfurled and enjoyed on special occasions. Loquats and a mountain bird by an anonymous painter of the southern song dynasty 1127 1279.

Hanging scrolls are generally intended to be displayed for short periods of time and are then rolled up to be tied and secured for storage. A hanging scroll painted by ma lin in or before 1246.