chinese art
.... If there were pine trees or cranes these were symbols of longevity and thus conveyed wishes of health for birthdays. Other symbols had the same meaning such as rushing water, thick mists, and southern mountains, which were all elements that lingered or were stable symbols. Other symbols of good fortune included the thick mists or rains because they brought nourishment to the crops farmers and people in general depended on to live and survive. Farewell paintings depicted space and separation of elements to express distance. These were given to officials leaving a district of friends and family departing the area. There is usually a layered effect in these paintings with the element of departure present such as a boat or other form of transportation waiting. And the layers show the clear foreground of the current location and a fuzzy hazy distance in which the person is journeying to. Finally the seclusion painting is presented to someone or commissioned by someone who knows a person in seclusion from society and they are depicted in a tranquil state, or not at all with only a lonely shelter depicted. The semiotics of painting in this case are the symbols used in place of written or spoken translations. One can read the painting and decipher copious amounts of information from the symbols used. These symbols are used in a universal way in order to extract the meaning and sometimes the function from the painting. It is “treating the motifs and compositions as signs that carrying meaning.” It is simply a code for explanation. A certain type of landscape might hold specific meaning, such as the T’ao-hua yuan, which symbolized the people who fled from a tyrant century to find peace in the mountain valleys and the stream which symbolized the fisherman’s passage up the stream from the town. They would use famous temples, and mountains, and characters to symbolize and hint at stories and events. The “ double function” was the way in which the Chinese pastoral paintings offered an imaginary escape from the boredom and frustrations of normal life, and they also depicted these people in a true light as well, by portraying a message of their dedication ...