The Five Dynasties only lasted for a short period of 53 years, but there were five generations in the Central Plains, and there were 10 local separatist regimes in other areas-the Ten Kingdoms and the Khitan. But painting has also seen a new opportunity, with obvious local color and characteristics of the times. Therefore, the Five Dynasties period is a special period in China's painting history, because it not only prepared for the further development of painting in Song Dynasty, but also played a connecting role between Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties. In the creation of figure paintings in the Five Dynasties, the subjects that directly describe aristocratic life occupy a large proportion. After the middle Tang Dynasty, figure painting prevailed in custom ladies' paintings, and it matured in the Five Dynasties, resulting in genre paintings with rural life as the theme, such as Huang Lu's rural figure painting and Zhang Zhi's rural scenery painting. There are also Du Xiao's paintings of swinging and catching butterflies, Zhou Wenju's paintings of arranging temples, dancing, smashing clothes, ironing silks, ladies and nobles' spring outing. In the areas under the jurisdiction of the northern Khitan regime, there appeared the Fanmata, represented by Hu Xuan and Qian Hu, which reflected the living customs and local scenery of the northern border people. Buddhism, Taoism and painting also flourished in the Five Dynasties. The secularization trend of religious painting in the middle Tang Dynasty became more prominent at this time. The solemn images of Buddhists and Bodhisattvas in Buddhist paintings are far less excellent than those of Arhats who are based on ordinary monks. Guan Xiuhe of Western Shu and the king of Southern Tang Dynasty are both famous for being good at arhats. Taoist paintings also tend to be secularized. Portrait is a painting subject that the rulers of the Five Dynasties attached great importance to. Before Shu, Wang Jian, Dao Xing, Zhao Deqi and others all painted aunts, princes and queens. Meng Zhixiang ordered Ruan Zhihui to paint himself in Tang Zhen, the great shrine, and wrote two princesses like the palace. These portraits are all to show the rich status of the protagonist. In the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li ordered Zhou Wenju to take photos of himself and his brothers, and Li Yu ordered Gu to secretly write about the banquet in Han Xizai. Judging from the existing works, both of them can profoundly depict the protagonist's character. In the development of landscape painting, the Five Dynasties made unremitting explorations on the basis of the Tang Dynasty and made more outstanding achievements than figure painting. In terms of artistic conception and aesthetic taste, the five dynasties landscape paintings can show different natural features and create a more profound artistic conception than the Tang Dynasty. During the Five Dynasties, some painters went further into nature and created real and vivid beautiful scenery in the south and north of the Yangtze River. For example, in the works of Hao Jing and Guan Tong, there are typical northern landscapes, such as "the top of the mountain is in the clouds, and it is steep on all sides" and "Guan Gong's potential is rare"; What appears in Dong Yuan's and Ju Ran's works is a typical southern landscape of "Xiqiao Yupu, surrounded by Zhou Zhu, a piece of Jiangnan" and "Lan Qi is clear and moist, and the scenery is naive". Most of the landscapes in Hao Jing are mountains and rivers, while Guan Tong is good at painting autumn mountains, cold forests, village houses, wild crossings and other scenery, and his painting themes have a strong flavor of life; The scenery painted by Dong Yuan is foggy, full of mountains and valleys, and the trees are quiet, while Ju Ran's landscape paintings are more full of pastoral nature. His paintings include pebbles, pines and cypresses, sparse clouds and creeping weeds. Beyond the peaks and valleys, and the bridge is in danger. These two different styles and schools of painting reflect the great achievements of landscape painting in this period. On the basis of the Tang Dynasty, the flower-and-bird paintings of the Five Dynasties also developed greatly, and the painting themes began to diversify. Zhong You and Guo, who are good at drawing eagle storks, Li Baihe, who is famous for painting bamboo, and Shi Qiong, who is good at painting cranes, bamboos and birds, appeared, but Huang Quanhe got the highest score. Huang Quan and Xu Xi represent two schools with different themes, styles and aesthetic tastes. Huang Quan is good at painting flowers and bamboo feathers, as well as Buddhism, Taoism, figures and landscapes. Most of his paintings are rare birds and animals and famous flowers in the palace. His modality is vivid and vivid, and his painting style is rich and beautiful. He was called "Huang Jiafu" by the Song people. Xu Xi often wandered in pastoral poems, observing flowers, bamboos, fruits, vegetables, birds, fish, grass, insects, cicadas and butterflies, but his painting style was vivid and vivid, which broke through the format of using meticulous painting to express exotic flowers and birds to some extent since the Tang Dynasty, and was called "Xu Xiye Yi" by Song people. It can be seen that the painting themes in the Five Dynasties period began to be rich, which played a certain role in the development of painting in the Northern Song Dynasty.
Painting in the Northern Song Dynasty continued to develop on the basis of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. Folk painting, court painting and scholar-bureaucrat painting formed their own systems, and influenced, absorbed and infiltrated each other, forming a colorful face of painting in Song Dynasty. During this period, a large number of scholars entered the imperial examination, and the central government established a large-scale "Hanlin Painting Academy" in the palace. The establishment of the Academy of Painting has played a vital role in promoting the development of painting. There are many painting activities, and excellent works are constantly emerging. Scholar-officials pinned their spirit on poetry and painting, an elegant means of entertainment, which led to the rise of literati painting; The prosperity of the city has caused a large demand for painting in society, and folk painters compete to sell paintings to make a living. Many factors made the painting in Song Dynasty develop in an all-round way. The extensive content of painting themes in Song Dynasty is outstanding in the history of ancient painting. Due to the expansion of subject matter, paintings are divided into different branches, including Buddhism, figures, landscapes, house wood, animals, flowers, feathers, fruits and vegetables, ink bamboo, dragon water and so on. Due to the prosperity of the city and the increasing demand for painting, professional painters are quite active. Some painters in the capital of song dynasty are called "Du" because they are good at drawing babies. Another painter, Liu Zongdao, who is good at painting babies in pots, said that every time he created a manuscript, he had to draw hundreds of copies and then sell them to prevent others from imitating them. Zhao Loutai, which specializes in painting pavilions, is also famous in Bianjing. At this time, painting, as a fixed industry, established a wider contact with society, broke through the fetters of religious themes and aristocratic scope, and secular art developed greatly. And figure painting has made great progress in reflecting real life. From depicting major historical events and aristocratic life in the Tang Dynasty to depicting all aspects of the lives of ordinary people in urban and rural areas, paintings depicting the lives of aristocratic literati are still popular, and figure paintings with plots, such as Li's West Garden and Listening to the Qin, have also achieved high artistic achievements. Of course, the landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty also developed more maturely. Although landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty mainly followed the Northern Painting School represented by Hao Jing and Guan Tong in the Five Dynasties, and made great efforts to shape the landscape image of Guanluo area on both sides of the Yellow River, at the same time, there appeared "Yan Jia Landscape" represented by Yan Wengui's landscape painting, poetic landscape represented by Zhao Linglang, misty and misty landscape represented by Mi Fei and his son, and green landscape represented by Wang Ximeng and Zhao Boju. "The most Miao Yan scenery in painting", due to social concern, landscape painting has gradually jumped to the main position of painting. Many landscape painters go deep into natural mountains and rivers and observe and experience them day and night, so they accurately describe the characteristics of different regions, seasons and climates and pursue beautiful and moving artistic conception. From panoramic mountains, rivers and turquoise to corner scenes with simple brushwork and highly tailored composition, it shows outstanding creations in different periods. The scenery of mountains and rivers is not only the scenery of pavilions, noble gardens and secluded scholar-officials buildings, but also the natural scenery of mountains and rivers in the north and south, interspersed with ordinary life plots such as rollover, grinding water, ferry, shipping, fishing, firewood collection, mule trips, temples and markets, which has a strong flavor of life and reflects a beautiful imagination through real scenery description. Flower-and-bird painting in the Northern Song Dynasty also developed by leaps and bounds, greatly surpassing the Tang Dynasty in art ... Flower-and-bird painters attached great importance to the observation and research of animal and plant images, and used them to raise flowers and birds. Zhao Chang plays around the fence in the morning and colors the flowers. Yi Yuanji went deep into Jinghu Mountain to observe the wild situation of apes; Han Ruozhuo paints feathers. Every time he makes a bird, he is famous from the beak to the tail, and he is familiar with the anatomical structure. The flower-and-bird paintings in the Northern Song Dynasty are exquisite and rich, showing the yellow style of rare birds and trees in the palace. There are also Cui Bai, Wu, etc. The pen and ink are simple, the color is light, and the stray geese are depicted, which is full of Jianghu interest; There are also literati ink plays, which directly express the literati's interest and specialize in writing ink bamboo and ink plum. Literati painting appeared in the Tang Dynasty and formed a huge artistic trend from the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty. Their paintings are all freehand brushwork in ink and wash, and they love painting plum and bamboo. They gradually increased the number of poems inscribed on picture frames, opened up a new world of calligraphy and painting inscriptions, and consciously introduced the expressive forms of calligraphy art into painting, greatly enriching and perfecting the expressive means of painting art. In the Northern Song Dynasty, a series of literati and scholars emerged, such as Mo Mei, bamboo slips, ancient stones of Su Shi, Mi Fei and Yunshan in Mi Youren, which became models for later literati and painters to follow and learn. At the same time, in the paintings of Liao Dynasty and Jin Dynasty in the north, the Khitan and Nuzhen, known as the people on horseback, appeared. They often had nomadic interests in painting and wrote more about their own life themes, such as grazing, riding and shooting, hunting and so on. , which are unrestrained; Flowers, birds, fish and insects are rich in decorative flavor, symmetrical in composition and meticulous in technique.
The Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty were in the late feudal society of China. The division of the Five Dynasties, the relative unity of the Northern Song Dynasty and the confrontation between Song and Jin Dynasties, the political situation and economic development in different periods have had different degrees of influence on fine arts. The development of handicraft industry and commerce and the progress of science and technology have promoted the development and improvement of arts and crafts. With the growth of the demand for fine arts by the royal aristocrats and the interest and attention of the ruling class in fine arts, the appreciation and collection of calligraphy, painting and Wan Wen by literati has become a common practice. With the prosperity of the city and the growth of the citizen class, art and the public have established a broader and closer relationship than the previous generation, expanding the scope of artistic expression, with more diverse themes and styles. In the development of fine arts in Liao-Jin area, there was communication and integration among all ethnic groups, and some aspects such as craft, painting and sculpture had national and local colors, which made the fine arts in this period develop in an all-round way, mature in skills and prosperous in creation on the solid foundation of fine arts in Tang Dynasty. It is precisely because of these specific backgrounds that the painting styles and themes of the Five Dynasties, the Northern Song Dynasty and the Liao and Jin Dynasties tend to be multifaceted and a hundred flowers blossom, leaving many precious works for future generations.