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Song Dynasty

“Bodhisattva of Compassion Seated in Royal Ease” at the Denver Art Museum — Bodhisattva of Compassion Seated in Royal Ease depicts the bodhisattva Guanyin gazing down as if listening intently to its devotees. Guanyin’s name means “the one who always hears.” Discover what makes this 1,000-year-old sculpture a masterpiece with Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum.

Bodhisattva of Compassion Seated in Royal Ease ...

by Bank of America

kaizhi grid — We can recognize from Gu Kaizhi's painting the emergence of Chinese landscape tradition.

Gu Kaizhi, Nymph of the Luo River

by Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art

Pillow, Northern Song dynasty, 1063, Cizhou-type ware, stoneware with white slip under transparent colorless glaze, China, probably southern Shaanxi province, 19.2 x 39.8 x 10 cm (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Gift of Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer, F1974.2) — Ceramic pillows became a popular domestic item among middle- and upper-class families during the Song dynasty

Ceramic pillow

by Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art

Bowl, Northern Song or Southern Song dynasty, 12th century, Jian ware, Stoneware with iron-pigmented glaze, China, Fujian province, 8.8 x 19.2 cm (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1909.369) — Jian ware tea bowls were highly prized in China but seem to have gone out of fashion there, whereas the Japanese adopted them for use in tea ceremonies.

Bowl with “oil spot” glaze

by Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art

guan grid — Guan ware is probably one of the rarest and most admired types of Chinese ceramics in the present world.

Guan ware long-necked vase

by Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art

buddha dunhuang grid — The central section of the painting is made up of scenes illustrating the Fumu enzhong jing, an apocryphal sutra that was popular at Dunhuang in this later period.

Illustration to the Fumu enzhong jing, Dunhuang

by The British Museum

Stencil for a five-figure Buddha group, painting on paper, c. 926–975 C.E. (Five Dynasties or Northern Song Dynasty), paper, Qian Fo Dong, Mogao grottoes, Dunhuang China (© Trustees of the British Museum) — This stencil (or pounce) is one of very few to survive, and is the largest and most impressive of those found at Mogao.

Stencil for a five-figure Buddha group

by The British Library

Bowl, Northern Song or Southern Song dynasty, 12th century, Jian ware, Stoneware with iron-pigmented glaze, China, Fujian province, 8.8 x 19.2 cm (Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1909.369) — Overall, the Song dynasty was a time of stability and economic, cultural, and artistic prosperity.

Song dynasty (960–1279), an introduction

by Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art

liang kai — A painting of a lonely white egret standing in shallow water, attributed to the famous painter Liang Kai

Liang Kai (attributed), White Egret

by Minneapolis Institute of Art

dazu grid — The monumental sculptural complex at Mt. Baoding, Dazu in China consists of nearly 10,000 painted and gilded images of Buddhist deities and narrative scenes carved out of sandstone.

The art of salvation—Mt. Baoding, Dazu rock ...

The Master of the (Fishing) Nets Garden in Suzhou, China was originally designed by Shi Zhengzhi, a 12th century official during the Southern Song Dynasty. — Every inch of this contemplative space was carefully crafted—there’s bamboo, patterned paving, and scholar’s rocks.

Master of the (Fishing) Nets Garden

by Dr. Kristen Loring Brennan and Dr. Steven Zucker

Liang Kai, Poet Strolling by a Marshy Bank — The subject is conventional, but Liang Kai’s airy composition makes this painting unusual. What’s behind the mist?

Liang Kai, Poet Strolling by a Marshy ...

by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This monumental landscape is the most majestic example of early Song “mountain water” painting.

Neo-Confucianism and Fan Kuan, Travelers by Streams ...
by Dr. Jennifer N. McIntire

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