The Role of Taoism in the Development of Images of Gardens and Parks in Chinese Art

Abstract

The article reveals the role of Taoism in the development of images of gardens and parks in Chinese art. Taoism is considered as a spiritual component of the traditional culture of China, affecting all spheres of human essence, including its expression in the visual arts. The problem of this study is to show how the Taoist ideas about man and the world around him were expressed in the works of landscape painting of the V–XIV centuries, when both the formation and development of the art of depicting nature and the formation of the fundamental principles of landscape planning took place. Both phenomena of Chinese culture were obviously influenced by Taoism, so the focus is on picturesque images of gardens and parks and the means of their artistic embodiment, which were formed as a result of the influence of philosophical and religious ideas. The purpose of the publication is the stylistic and semantic analysis of Chinese medieval landscapes depicting garden and park ensembles and elements formed under the influence of Taoist aesthetics. Such a perspective should enrich Russian science with new information about the formation and enrichment of the figurative series in the landscapes of Chinese masters over a long period of time, as well as evaluate the originality of their visual interpretation of philosophical and aesthetic ideas. This will allow us to see how the images of gardens and parks conveyed through the symbolism of images the inner world of a person and the authors themselves, how the ideas of the Taoists associated with these images manifested themselves not only in the subject of paintings, but also in an artistic form.