With your class, locate China on a map or a globe. Together, identify the latitude and longitude of the country’s boundaries. Compare with those of the United States. How much land area does each country take up? How do students imagine Chinese and American ecosystems might compare?

 

Guide students to research and explore the many ecosystems in China, including geography, plants, animals, and climate. Be sure to also discuss the ways that people can change their environments, for better or for worse. Then, discuss the natural features visible in Wild Geese Descending on a Sandbank. What kind of ecosystem might this scene be taking place in? How can students tell?

 

Students can summarize their findings about Chinese ecology in brief reports. For an extension to the lesson, they may compare and contrast the ecologies of one Chinese region with one American region, or summarize change over time in a particular area.

In the discipline of Social Studies, students need to be able to think conceptually and differentiate between which patterns and ideas are common across societies. Students need to be able to recognize those ideas— whether economic, social, or political—that are not bound by time and place, and how a group’s perspective may affect the historical interpretation of those ideas and principles.

• Describe the different parts of this artwork. How is this painting displayed?

• A hanging painting that can be unrolled is called a scroll. The art of Chinese scroll painting dates back over 4,000 years.

• Describe what you see in the painting.

• The artist used subtly contrasting shades of grays to define the bodies of the birds and soft horizontal bands of ink suggest the grass growing on the sandbanks. One bird is flying diagonally in the sky. What do you think about the composition? Is it balanced? How? Is it static or dynamic?

• The artist’s style is naturalistic, and he uses strokes of varying tones to form the birds. How does the artist create depth and perspective? What type of brushstrokes did the artist use?

• How would the work be different if more color had been used?

• The text in the left corner is called calligraphy, and this was very popular at the time. Do you think the text forms part of the composition or is it separate?

• What effect does the calligraphy have on the work?

• What is the definition of landscape painting? Do you think this is a landscape painting?

• Landscape painting reflects a scene more than a narrative, and is often bound to time and place. What is the scene? What time of the year and what time of day is it?

• In Chinese art, the subject of migrating geese evokes the season of autumn. Think of the painting as representing an ecosystem: can you name and describe the plant and animal life?

• There are four geese, reeds, and a sandbank. Why do you think the artist left some areas blank?

• What might the weather have been? The areas of unpainted paper suggest a fog. What does that say about the mood of this work?

• The artist had a profound admiration for nature and built his home near a lake so that he could closely observe the beauty of bird life and nature around him. Discuss whether a landscape should be realistic. Do you think landscape artists should paint from life?

• The artist was part of a group of artists called “The Eight Yangzhou Eccentrics,” who shared a love of calligraphy and an innovative painting style. What do you think the calligraphy says?

• The inscription in the upper left corner of the painting displays a poem: “Just now wild geese came into the sky; As I waved my brush before the master of the qin; Autumn sounds meld with autumn thoughts; As I stand beside I know not who”. Throughout history, the Chinese have regarded calligraphy, and eventually painting as the highest forms of art.  What do you think about the use of text in artworks? Can you give other examples from your own time?

Four geese in a misty landscape form the subject of this elegant painting.  One goose flies in from the upper right, a second perches in the reeds, and two other birds are on a sandbank.  In Chinese art, the subject of geese evokes the season of autumn.  The inscription on the left, which reveals Bian Shoumin’s inspiration for this work, is carefully written in Chinese calligraphy.

 

Five days past the time of White Dew in the year 1730 of the Yongzheng reign-era, while lodging in Yangzhou I heard Cao Qiupu play the song “Geese Descending on the Sandbank.”  My inspiration rising, I did this on the basis of the poem:

 

            Just now wild geese came into the sky,

            as I waved my brush before the master of the qin;

            Autumn sounds meld with autumn thoughts

            as I stand beside I know not who.

 

The artist’s observations of nature here have been reduced to shapes and lines ink.  He used subtly contrasting shades of grays to define the bodies of the plump geese. Soft horizontal bands of ink, suggest the grass growing on the sandbanks. Two geese and the reeds fill the lower part of the scroll, with one flying bird forming a diagonal at the right, balanced by the inscription on the left.

 

Bian Shoumin earned his living as a professional painter.  He often visited the city of Yangzhou, where he sold his works, and he soon became associated with a group of artists called “The Eight Yangzhou Eccentrics,” who shared a love of calligraphy and an innovative painting style.  Bian Shoumin dedicated himself to painting wild geese.  He built a home along their migration route and produced paintings that capture the beauty of these birds in flight and nesting along the river banks.

 

The art of Chinese scroll painting dates back over 4,000 years.  Throughout history, the Chinese have regarded calligraphy, and eventually painting as the highest forms of art.  Many of the great Chinese painters, like Bian Shoumin, began as talented calligraphers.  Scrolls, in either a long vertical format or horizontal format, are often intended to be unrolled slowly, revealing a story, as if the viewer was reading a book.  This hanging scroll painting, mounted on silk and measuring over eight feet long, is meant to be viewed all at once.