Discuss the situation of the self-exiled scholar-painters in the Yuan dynasty, and explain the symbolism in their works. Then discuss another example of the “art of resistance” from a different era with which you are familiar

Question

Please provide the best answer for the statement.

Answer 1

1) Calling themselves the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols under Kublai Khan and his descendants controlled the highest posts in the Chinese government, but they depended on Chinese officials to collect taxes and maintain order. The Chinese viewed the Mongols as foreigners occupying their homeland. Not long after Marco Polo’s arrival in China, the scholar-painters of the Chinese court, unwilling to serve under foreign domination, retreated from public life
2) While in exile, they created an art symbolic of their resistance. Paintings of bamboo, for instance, abound, because bamboo is a plant that might bend, like the Chinese themselves, but never break. Painted in 1306, Cheng Sixiao’s Ink Orchids, according to its inscription, is meant to protest the “theft of Chinese soil by the invaders.” Orchids, in fact, can live without soil, in rocks or in trees, sustained by the moisture in the air around them, even as Sixiao the painter thrived.
3) Students’ examples of the art of resistance from other eras will vary.