Cover image for Cloudy mountains :  Kao K'o-Kung (1248-1310) and the Mi tradition.
Cloudy mountains : Kao K'o-Kung (1248-1310) and the Mi tradition.
Title:
Cloudy mountains : Kao K'o-Kung (1248-1310) and the Mi tradition.
Author:
Brizendine, Curtis Hansman.
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 1980
Physical Description:
1 online resource (495 p.)
General Note:
Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 41-07, Section: A.
Publisher info.: Dissertation/Thesis.
Abstract:
The aesthetic concerns of early Yuan (1279-1368) landscape painters embraced both a strong reaction against the styles associated with the Southern Sung (1127-1279) academic tradition and a return to the ideals of a number of earlier manners. Among the traditions revived during this era, those of Tung Yuan (act. mid. 10th c.) and Chu-jan (act. 960-980), Li Ch'eng (act. 960-990) and Kuo Hsi (act. 1060-1075) were preeminent. A third tradition, that of Mi Fu (1051-1107) and his son Mi Yu-jen (1086-1165), played an important if less definitive role in the evolution of later Yuan painting. An understanding of the revival of this third tradition has been frustrated by an imperfect conception of its central figure, the enigmatic Kao K'o-kung (1248-1310). The purpose of this study is twofold: to clarify Kao K'o-kung's oeuvre as extant, thereby allowing an assessment of his personal achievement; and to consider him in the context of the Mi tradition in order to define his position within and impact upon it. The primary material for this study is the body of paintings traditionally and currently ascribed to Kao K'o-kung and anonymous or unsigned works in the Mi tradition. The first two chapters are introductory in nature. Chapter I comprises a biography of the artist while the intellectual, social, and artistic mileau in which Kao developed are discussed in Chapter II. It is proposed that Kao, a Northerner, gained the impetus to paint as a result of a political sojourn in southern China. The complex issues surrounding the definition of Kao K'o-kung's oeuvre are explicated in Chapter III. Two paintings are established as central to the understanding of his art. Chapter IV is devoted to enlarging Kao's oeuvre through formal analysis of attributed works, identifying the sources from which his style developed, and characterizing the nature of the style. Finally his oeuvre is divested of forgeries and misattributions in a reductive process. The final chapters deal with Kao's position within the tradition of Mi Fu and Mi Yu-jen. Chapter V proposes a limited body of paintings which the author feels represent the pre-Yuan Mi style. Kao's style is then analyzed from this perspective. In Chapter VI a number of paintings by purported followers of both Mi and Kao are analyzed to aid in the definition of Kao's impact upon later Chinese painting. A descriptive catalogue of paintings attributed to or known to have been attributed to Kao is appended to the text. The material collected and analyzed in this thesis has served to clarify Kao K'o-kung's personal achievement. Clearly Kao was both a man of his own period and the first figure in a significant revival of tradition. Moreover he was the central figure in the evolution of the Mi tradition. He was able to assimilate and internalize the style to the point at which a transformation of it was possible. Kao's transformation was rooted in both his understanding of other early traditions and his ability to internalize. Whereas it has become conventional for later artists to trace their paintings in this style to the influence of Mi Fu, Kao K'o-kung was actually the model.
Local Note:
School code: 0099.
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Electronic Access:
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Thesis Note:
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, 1980.
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