One-Year Traditional Chinese Painting Course

1) Course Purpose

China’s traditional culture has spread widely and deeply.  One critical component of China’s accomplishments is the harmonious weaving of paintings, poems, books, philosophy, and culture into an integrated whole.  The basic traditional Chinese painting course is scheduled for a year-long period, primarily relying on our professor’s courses in traditional Chinese painting (which focuses on learning from many of the country’s classics) and understanding the form, composition, skill, writing, creative concepts, etc. of Chinese painting.  At the same time, students will learn the Four Treasures of Study as well as the history of Chinese painting, the carving of calligraphy seals, the mounting of artwork, etc.  The purpose of this course is to educate foreign students who have a strong and deep interest in Chinese traditional painting.  They shall be able to put their art, research, and study skills into practice, resulting in improved technique, art, and philosophy.  They will also have an understanding of Chinese culture and will be able to embrace the basic study methods of traditional Chinese painting.

2) Teaching Experience

1. China Academy of Art’s Chinese painting and calligraphy department has an excellent team, comprising of the highest level of Chinese painters and calligraphers. 
2. China Academy of Art’s International College has thirty years of rich experience with teaching foreign students in the research and study of traditional Chinese painting. 

3) Teaching Staff

There are numerous staff involved with this course:  Wu Gan (Professor), Gao Xin Dan (Assistant Professor), Dai Guang Ying (Instructor), Liu Hai Yong (Instructor), Lu Da Dong (Doctoral Student), Huang Fang (Teaching Assistant), and Li Jie (Teaching Assistant).

4) Teaching Method

The course is for one year, using English as the primary language of instruction.  The course involves lectures, question-and-answer sessions, and skills-building workshops in areas such as poetry, classic literature, paintings, seal stamping, and mounting.  The expectations are that from the practice of Chinese art, students will be able to embrace Chinese culture and cultivate themselves for great accomplishments.  

5) Expectations of Students

The basic course is especially designed for foreign students.  Our expectation is that students will have a strong interest in traditional Chinese painting, be able to communicate in English, and have basic research study skills.

6) Course Schedule and Content

1. The course begins with three weeks of lectures, discussing topics such as: 
1. Materials used for traditional Chinese painting - ink, paper, and ink stone
2. The history of traditional Chinese painting
3. The appreciation of traditional Chinese painting
4. The mounting of traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting
2. After the lectures, there are 35 weeks of workshops, on topics such as:
1. Calligraphy and Seal Stamping:  the study of regular script, semi-cursive script, frequently used seal stamping, and seal carving
2. Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting: the study of basic landscape painting skills, landscape painting works of art, Song Dynasty artistic creations, and various Yuan and Ming Dynasty artistic creations, and the creation of writing and landscape painting works of art
3. Traditional Chinese Painting of Birds and Flowers:  the study of the meaning of flowers, plants, insects, and birds in traditional Chinese paintings, the skills to paint bird and flower paintings, and the paint and pigments used in art
4. Traditional Chinese Paintings with Human Characters:  the study of the meaning of human characters in traditional Chinese paintings and the skills to paint them.

7)      Contact Information

Dai Guang Ying

China Academy of Art’s International College

218 Nanshan Lu

Building 9, Room 329

Hangzhou, China 310002

Telephone:  86-571-87164712

Email:  caaic@163.com

Website:  http://gjxy.caa.edu.cn

Senior Seminar on the Research of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 

Discipline overview

China Academy of Art (CAA) was endowed at birth with her lofty ideal and vigorous style: a sublime sense of cultural mission, an all-embracing spirit highlighting practice and theory and cultural visual field bridging the Chinese and Western cultures. All these elements blend into her historical context and spiritual tradition. CAA’s spiritual tradition embodies artists’ commitment to humanism in an uninterrupted history of art and human culture interweaving with and swashing against each other.

As early as in the National Academy of Art years, scholars represented by Huang Binhong, Pan Tianshou, Zheng Wuchang and Teng Gu realized that art was not simply painter’s skills, but an integral part of the Chinese culture as well. The way of calligraphy and painting not only concerns the creation of Chinese cultural spirit, but also plays a vital role in the conservation and perpetual renovation of cultural legacy. Only through almalgamating with the global art world can we bring out the glamour of Chinese art, and only through understanding world art can we savvy the nature of Chinese art. Therefore, CAA takes it as her timeless tenet to promote a “universal cultural realm”, build an “international visual field” and study Chinese art in the visual field of world art history and macrosystem of Chinese culture.

With the “visual reorientation” in the international academic research field over the past three decades, visual sense has gradually substituted language to become the thinking sample of all humanistic studies, while art is on the way to an intellectual field that can most inspire creative, critical thinking. On the basis of the profound traditional sediments and CAA’s international academic edge, the School of International Education plans to offer a trans-context senior seminar on “Chinese visual culture”, aiming at integrating multiple cultural resources, breaking through the existing research models of sinology and China Studies overseas in the works of Chinese art history, transcending the battle between sinology and Chinese culture in the studies of traditional Chinese culture, classifying the system of Chinese culture centered on calligraphy and painting in interactive cultural context, and exploring the local construction methods of Chinese visual culture through comparative studies of multiple cultures.

Teaching and research resources

1. The Department of Chinese Painting and the Department of Calligraphy boast an excellent creation team and superb studios of Chinese painting and calligraphy.

2. Our studies of art history works have always highlighted the expansion of international visual field and the construction of academic framework as well as the cross-research of Western culture and Chinese Culture, offering fine background for international academic exchange.

3. The School of International Education has accumulated rich experience in the education of international students.

Teaching staff:

Instructors: Ren Daobin (professor), Fan Jingzhong (professor), Lin Haizhong (professor), Wu Gan (professor), Zhang Songren (professor), Gao Shiming (associate professor), Gao Xindan (associate professor), Lou Shenghua (lecturer), Wang Chao (lecturer), Lu Dadong (doctor), Wang Lin (doctor) and Sun Tian (doctor)

Guest Instructors: Ji Weizhai (scholar), Song Dayong (seal carver), Wang Zheng (musician), Ye Fang (painter and landscape designer), Shu Guozhi (writer), Zheng Zaidong (artist) and Eric Wear (professor)

Teaching mode:

The School of International Education is committed to building a research-oriented teaching mode typical of art academies and up to high standards and laying a knowledge science foundation of Chinese culture centered on Chinese visual culture. We have been deepening and improving relevant courses of the School of International Education over the past three years mainly in the following aspects:

1. We have been developing Chinese Cultural Classics, a course aimed at helping appreciate the classic works in the Chinese culture through four classics, i.e. the Analects of Confucius, the Book of Chuang Tzu, the Historical Records and the Selected Works, overcoming the artificial discipline barriers and thereby rendering the international students a deep, systematic understanding of the classics.  

2. We have highlighted the calligraphy and painting-centered visual resources of Chinese culture, and persisted in the integration of research, teaching and practice by capitalizing on CAA’s academic edge. By combining the practice-oriented teaching of the Department of Chinese Painting and the Department of Calligraphy on the basis of the practice and experience in Chinese painting and calligraphy, we have accumulated direct experience of materials, tools, skills, techniques and styles in Chinese art. We have strengthened the dual training of learning and technique to improve international students’ practical ability and enhance their appreciation and experience of Chinese art, promote their accomplishment of Chinese culture, refine their sentiments, lift their assessing capacity of Chinese art and enable them to feel the spiritual glamour of Chinese visual culture.

3. We have reformed the traditional models of Chinese culture and art history research with the theories and methods of visual culture research while making timely introduction of the state-of-the-art achievements in international sinology and China studies to embody the practical significance and build the international clout of traditional Chinese culture, and gradually form the subject consciousness and local spirit of international-oriented teaching of Chinese culture in the process of exploring the international visual field and overseas academic resources. 

The length of the seminar is one year, while the teaching process is bilingual (Chinese and English). We offer lectures and symposiums alternately as well as practice in poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal workshops. Students are required to attain the accomplishment and vista of Chinese culture through practice in Chinese art and culture in the visual field through practice of calligraphy and painting.

Admission criteria:

The seminar features transnational class and bilingual teaching (Chinese and English). Chinese students shall be selected from postgraduates at the School of Arts and Humanities, whose English proficiency shall be up to the CET-6 standard, while international students shall have comparatively high proficiency in English and general proficiency in Chinese as well as basic research capacity. 

Curriculum:

As a fresh research perspective in the studies of Chinese culture, Chinese visual culture involves comprehensive studies and practice of multiple disciplines, including iconography, visual culture studies, comparative aesthetics, Chinese art history, classical literature and Chinese calligraphy and painting practice, etc.

1. Lectures

Survey of Chinese Culture (20 hours)

Chinese Art History (20 hours)

Chinese Literature History (20 hours)

Chinese Folk Art and Folk Culture (20 hours)

2. Symposiums

Visual Field, Questions and Approaches: Research Fundamentals of Visual Culture (20 hours)

Cross-development of Chinese Classics Criticism Glossary in Calligraphy, Painting and Literary Theories (20 hours)

From Epigraphy to Studies of Confucian Classics — Review of Chinese Epigraphic Works and Studies of Thinking History (20 hours)

Modernity of Consultation: Reflections and Judgment of Chinese Thinking History and Art History of the 20^th Century (40 hours)

3. Workshops

Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Practice (80 hours)

Seal Carving and Epigraphy (40 hours)

Appreciation of Calligraphy and Paintings (40 hours)

Age without Exhibitions — Studies of Ancient Chinese Exhibition Culture (40 hours)

Above-ground Archaeology — Studies of Cultural Relics above ground and Historic Sites in Zhejiang Province (40 hours)

Program partners

Within CAA :

Department of Chinese Painting, Department of Calligraphy, Department of Art History and Theories, Department of Visual Art, Department of Archaeology and Museology, Chinese Academy of Art Museum and Center for Contemporary Calligraphy Studies

Outside:

Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum and Long March Space (Beijing)

Contact information:

Gao Xindan, Office of School of International Education, China Academy of Art

Rm.331, Building 9, 218 Nanshan Rd., Hangzhou, Zhejiang

Tel/Fax: 86-571-8716-4711

E-mail：caaic@163.com

Website: http://gjxy.caa.edu.cn