Turner’s and Shitao’s wild mountains and waters: towards a phenomenology of radical landscape painting

Rao, Qinghong (2022) Turner’s and Shitao’s wild mountains and waters: towards a phenomenology of radical landscape painting. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis establishes a research method for interpreting radical landscape paintings in various cultures. The research was prompted by the challenge caused by cultural differences in interpreting landscape paintings of different cultures and the solution provided by the thesis is the newly established research method, which aims to capture an individual artist’s compositional intention in a particular radical landscape painting, and to reveal the meaning of the particular painting, irrespective of its cultural background. The radical landscape painting in this research is a description of the landscape paintings that are creatively and inventively composed to represent radical features of the wild mountains and waters that exist in reality, for expressing some meanings. The research method is adopted in phenomenology, a philosophy of human perception. This study takes the principles of phenomenology – Epoché and Réduction – as its basic principles, and the essential notion of phenomenology – intentionality – as the theoretical foundation. The method essentially addresses the first-hand experience and the perception of the first-hand experience that of various objects, which particularly refer to the objective radical landscape painting, the corresponding physical landscape, and other related objects. By examining and analysing the various firs-hand experiences, the method helps to grasp the artist’s compositional intention in the painting, thus revealing the meaning of the artwork. In order to assess the effectiveness of the method, the study applies it in two case studies that interpret British painter J. M. W. Turner’s watercolour, Loch Coruisk, Skye, and Chinese painter Shitao’s ink painting, Mount Lu. The outcomes demonstrate that, regard to the radical landscape painting, the phenomenological method is effective in accessing the artists’ compositional intention and revealing the meaning of the paintings, despite cultural differences that exist among the painting, artist, and interpreter. The main contribution of this study to art history studies is it provides a new method for grasping an artist’s compositional intention and discovering the distinguish artistic value of a particular radical landscape painting, from the reciprocal perspective of how the artist composed it and how the viewer can experience it.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Due to copyright restrictions volume 2 (images) is not available for viewing.
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
• Supervisor's Name: Törmä, Dr. Minna and Bonehill, Dr. John
• Date of Award: 2022
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2022-83226
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 25 Oct 2022 15:35
• Last Modified: 10 Nov 2022 09:00
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.83226
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/83226