“Formula of Water” in the Iconography of Landscape Painting in Medieval China

The theme of the sea in traditional Chinese painting is associated with the last decades of the development of the country’s artistic life, in particular with painting on the theme of the sea and ocean. The aim of the study is to determine the peculiarities of the embodiment of the image of the sea element in Chinese painting of the Middle Ages as a basis for the development of the marina genre in modern art. In the works of masters of the Song (960—1279), Yuan (1271—1368) and Ming (1368—1644) dynasties one can notice the repetition and interpretation of those “formulas” used by painters in medieval China. Such “formulas” are the established ways of depicting water surfaces with pen and ink, formed during the Song dynasty and developed in the Yuan and Ming eras until the seventeenth century. Particular emphasis is placed on the systematization of schemes for the embodiment of the sea in different states in Ma Yuan’s work, their sources, and how they were embodied and transformed by painters in subsequent periods. The use of schemes for depicting water made it possible to achieve the effect of dynamism. This was conditioned, among other things, by the specificity of artistic tools and materials used by masters, who had in their arsenal scarce artistic means. The artists endeavoured to invent and form their own method of execution for each theme. The article has theoretical and practical value. It supplements the history of the development of landscape painting in ancient China by analysing the origin and formation of the previously little-studied motif, which in the space of Chinese painting of the 20th — 21st centuries has taken a strong position.

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