Kitashu painting

This term comes from the debate on the north and south of Chinese painting, which was advocated by Mo Shilong and Dong Qichang in the late Ming dynasty in China. It is said to be similar to the Zen sect's "South to North, Gradually." It is also said to correspond to the geographical north and south. In contrast to the Southern School of paintings, which emphasize the strong colors of literati painting and the inspiration of nature, the Northern School of paintings are considered to be technically skilled paintings by professional artists, and their lineage stretches from the Tang Dynasty's father and son, Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao, through the Song Dynasty's Guo Xi, Zhao Boju, Zhao Boshu, Ma Yuan, and Xia Gui, to the Ming Dynasty's Dai Jin and Zhou Chen, and finally to the so-called Zhejiang School, which included Wu Wei, Zhang Lu, and Zhong Li. Many of them were professional painters, especially those who belonged to the Painting Academy, and they show a variety of styles, such as the gold and blue-green landscape paintings of Li and his son, the "corner scenes" of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui that cut out and emphasize a corner of nature, and the individualistic expressions of nature and people with rough brushwork by Wu Wei and others. In general, while the Southern School of painting makes extensive use of himashun (soft lines like loosened hemp), the Northern School of painting is characterized by fuhekishun (strong lines like the marks left by an axe).

The "Southern School of Paintings Degrading the Northern School of Paintings" theory carried out in the Ming dynasty (which prized Southern School of Paintings and degraded Northern School of Paintings) has led people to mistakenly believe that the so-called Northern School of Paintings made by professional painters are artistically inferior, but this is simply because people have been misled by this theory, and the history of Chinese painting would be completely incomplete without the Northern School of Paintings that they despise. In other words, this theory was an expression of the Ming dynasty literati who were well versed in poetry, calligraphy, and painting, their feeling of superiority in status over professional painters and their dislike of those paintings, and was not a pursuit of pure painting history. Incidentally, "Northern paintings" is a Japanese term, and has a slightly different meaning and meaning from the Chinese term.

[Kondo Hidemi]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国、明(みん)代後期に莫是龍(ばくしりょう)、董其昌(とうきしょう)らが唱道した中国絵画南北両宗論から出たことば。禅宗の南頓北漸(なんとんほくぜん)に比したもの、あるいは地理上の南北に準じたものといわれる。南宗画の自然の感興を重んずる文人画的色彩の強い絵画に対して、技巧的な、職業画家による絵画を北宗画とし、その流れを、唐の李思訓(りしくん)・李昭道(りしょうどう)父子を祖として、宋(そう)の郭煕(かくき)、趙伯駒(ちょうはくく)、趙伯驌(ちょうはくしゅく)、馬遠(ばえん)、夏珪(かけい)を経て、明の戴進(たいしん)、周臣(しゅうしん)らにつながり、呉偉(ごい)・張路(ちょうろ)・鍾礼(しょうれい)らいわゆる浙派(せっぱ)に帰着するものとした。彼らは職業画家、とくに画院に属する画家が多く、李父子の金碧青緑(こんぺきせいりょく)山水画、馬遠・夏珪の自然の一角を切り取り強調する「辺角の景」、呉偉らの荒々しい筆遣いによる自然や人物の個性的表現など、さまざまな姿を示している。一般的には南宗画の披麻皴(ひましゅん)（麻をほぐしたような柔らかい描線）の多用に対し、北宗画は斧劈皴(ふへきしゅん)（斧(おの)で割った跡のような力強い描線）を特徴とする。

　明代に行われた「尚南貶北(しょうなんへんぼく)論」（南宗画を尚(とうと)び、北宗画を貶(しりぞ)ける）により、専門的職業画家の手になるいわゆる北宗画は、芸術的に一段と価値の低いものであると錯覚誤解されてきたのであるが、それは人々がその論に惑わされてきただけで、彼らの貶けるところの北宗画を除いては中国絵画史はまったく成り立たなくなる。いわばこの論は、明代詩書画に通じた文人たちの、職業画家に対する身分的優位とその絵画に対する嫌悪の情を表明したものであり、純粋な絵画史の追求ではなかった。なお「北画(ほくが)」とは日本での呼称で、中国とは意味内容を若干異にする。

［近藤秀実］

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