Traditional Chinese painting is reffered to as “guo hua” Chinese painting is closely linked to the means with which it is produced. The most used materials were ink and glue, that had to be rubbed to the necessary consistency with adding some water. The paint was applied with a brush made of animals’ hair and a stick of bamboo. As a basis of the painting there was used a sheet of silk or paper with spongy surface, due to which paintings were not subjected to correction. Thereby, the artist had to carry out his work with a high level of precision. Chinese acquired two core techniques in painting: "Gong-bi” that is characterized by a high level of accuracy in details and was usually employed in painting portraits; and "xie yi” which was used mostly in landscapes and allowed greater freedom.
In Han (202 BC) to Tang (618-906) Dynasties painting was mostly done in the form of precise portraits of the royal and feudal courts. During Tang Dynasty landscape paintings came into being and was called "Shanshui" (translated as "mountain water”). This type of painting was characterized by a lesser level of precision and allowed more freedom for personal interpretation.
The period between the Five Dynasties period (220-960) and the Northern Song period (960-1127) is called “Golden Age of Chinese Landscape Painting”. Popular themes for paintings were rivers, stones and hills painted in black lines and peaceful sights of nature conducted in a softer manner. At the times of Song Dynasty (960-1279) landscapes attributed mythical character and usually depicted unclear mountains enveloped in mists. In Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) paintings became supplemented by calligraphies and poems.
In Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) printing techniques were developed, due to which there was an uprise in the creation of illustrated manuals and books. Since the nineteenth century, Chinese painting has been influenced by western cultures.
Source: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/painting.htm
Chinese literature
Chinese literature has been developing in different styles and techniques and includes lyric poetry, numerous types of fiction, didactic and historical writing, as well as drama. Chinese literature has rich background and its history counts up to 3000 years, originating to the 14th century BCE.
Chinese literature had significant impact on the literary traditions of other countries, such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Due to its graphic nature, it has also facilitated the development of calligraphy, which was considered a fine art for years, due to such distinctive characteristics as Chinese literature aims at providing aesthetic and aural effect on the reader, thus requiring visual appeal of the work. Due to such particular feature, literature was converged with painting as it was common to hang scrolls of poems and prose works alongside paintings. Although it should be pointed out that such feature posed an impediment to the spread of education and literacy.
Another feature that had influence on Chinese literature was pronunciation of Chinese graphs. Since using solely graphs frequently led to misunderstanding, there were introduced tones or, in other words, pitches. Such feature of Chinese language brought literature in close relation with music; many kinds of Chinese poetry used to be sung to the accompaniment of music.
Chinese literature is also prominent with its precision and conciseness. It is common for the pronouns and conjunctions to be omitted and for a wide range of thoughts and emotions to be conveyed through a single word. Thus, some works can be interpreted in different ways.
The boundaries between the prose and poetry are to large extend blurred in Chinese literature. The literature is composed of three genres: fu, pianwen and baguwen.
The fu represents the elements of both prose and poetry. In this genre there are used metre, rhyme and quite frequently antithetic structure. Pianwen, also known as parallel prose, is characterized by antithetic constructions and measured tonality, but does not use rhythm. Baguwen employs antithetical construction and is expressed by pairs of columns that consists of long paragraphs, each element of which responding to the other.
Chinese prose is divided into two streams with a huge age gap between them. Classical prose (guwen, or wenyan) is influenced by the standards established by ancient writers and is written with the use of official language that falls short from the one used in daily life. Vernacular prose (baihua), on the other hand, is represented by the works written in living language.
Source: http://www.britannica.com/art/Chinese-literature
Chinese tea culture
An important place in Chinese culture takes tea culture. It encompasses the methods of preparing and serving tea, as well as the occasions in which it is drank. Although tea culture is also present at such cultures as Japanese and British, they have not much in common.
Drinking tea has been a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese culture since ancient times. Tea was considered one of the daily essentials and was used not only as a drink, but also was employed in cooking and medicine.
Tea in Chinese culture is frequently used as means of showing respect, for example, youngsters invite older people to a cup of tea in order to express their respect; it is a common practice to invite the elders to the restaurant and pay for their tea. Tea also can serve as a token of regret, in China people tend to apologize by pouring tea. Previously only people of lower rank could serve tea for the ones of a higher rank, with the liberalization of community this tradition is not mandatory on informal occasions, but remains on the formal ones. To thank a person that served tea one should knock on the table with his bent middle and index finger, this custom is traced to the Qing Dynasty.
Tea ceremony is an important part of marriage ceremony: according to the tradition, bride and groom are to kneel before their parents and serve them tea to express gratitude. After drinking some tea, parents give them a red envelope to wish good luck. Tea wedding ceremony is also used to get acquainted with all the family members: the couple is to serve tea to the members of their families, acceptance of it means that the bride or groom is considered a family, while refusal means opposition to this marriage.
There are also such types of tea culture as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Perinneian culture. Although they have many points in common among themselves and with Chinese tea culture in particular, there are numerous discrepancies caused by different historical development, which make each of them unique.
Source: http://www.ibiblio.org/chineseculture/contents/food/p-food-c03s03.html
