During the Song period of Dynastic Chinese history the major styles are found within the Northern Song paintings, Southern Song paintings, and ceramics.
The Neo-Confusian ideas found visual expression in art, especially in landscape, which became the most highly esteemed subject for painting. Northern Song artists studied nature closely to master its many appearances and this passion for realistic detail was the artists form of self cultivation. Landscape became a vehicle for conveying human emotions. Landscapes display the general Chinese desire to avoid direct depiction of the human condition and to show things instead in a symbolic manner. …
