"Painting as Arts": Re-examine the Painting Activities at Sung Huizong''s Court

Paintings produced at the court of the Song emperor Huizong are not merely finished products in an ultra-refined style, and nor are they just by-products of some political objective. Instead, they should be considered as part of the political culture of the time and court in which they were made. This dissertation does not just search for and bring together the paintings produced by the court of Song Huizong, and it is not intended to be a complete study of painting from his rule. Rather, it deals more specifically with the cultural import of the paintings from Huizong’s court. In effect, it is actually a reassessment of Huizong’s court paintings and thus deals with the issue of the significance behind the meaning of these “paintings.”his dissertation grasps the cultural significance behind these works, not only focusing on surviving paintings as the focus of the research, but also attempting to reveal the content of painting activities at Huizong’s court. This study proceeds through three levels of observation in terms of research, with these three arranged as chapters. The second chapter, for example, discusses Huizong’s Xuanhe Painting Manual and explores the idea of painting. The third chapter deals with the issue of Huizong’s “Painting School,” including an analysis of how the system behind painting was carried out. After clarifying and understanding these two levels, the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters proceed with a discussion of related works so as to further explain their cultural significance.his dissertation uses the Xuanhe Painting Manual to first explain the idea behind painting and find the “leading principle” behind painting activities at court. And then from the actual administration of the “Painting School” at Huizong’s court, the study explains how the principle was administered, finally discussing how it was manifested in related works. This process helps demonstrate the results of the actual process behind painting activities at Huizong’s court so as to allow a fuller understanding of the significance behind these works.he results gained from this dissertation indicate that the Xuanhe Painting Manual is not just a list of works in the collection of Huizong’s court, but that it also preserves the official point of view in terms of painting at court. Huizong’s court used the notion of “painting as art” for the objective in painting activities. Consequently, painting was no longer just an expression of technical skill, but rather it possessed the function of cultivating and educating. The “Painting School” promoted by Huizong’s court was also a systematic effort to put the official court notion of painting into actual practice. Finally, after careful analysis of related works, one finds that the “idea of painting” in these works is intimately related to the official viewpoint mentioned above. From such paintings in the “Figure” category as “Literary Gathering” and “Listening to the Zither” to such works in the “Bird-and-Flower” category as “Auspicious Dragon Rock,” “Five-colored Parakeet” and even “Calico Cat under Noble Peonies,” all of them possess as their objective an implied meaning that is often easy to overlook. In other words, it is directly related to the objective promoted in the cultural politics at Huizong’s court.