Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368)

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Related Timelines (10)

• • Central and North Asia, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • China, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • China, 1400–1600 A.D.
• • Himalayan Region, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • Iran, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • Iraq, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • Japan, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • Japan, 1400–1600 A.D.
• • Korea, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • Southeast Asia, 1000–1400 A.D.

Related Thematic Essays (30)

• • A New Visual Language Transmitted Across Asia
• • The Art of the Ilkhanid Period (1256–1353)
• • Chinese Calligraphy
• • Chinese Cloisonné
• • Chinese Gardens and Collectors' Rocks
• • Chinese Handscrolls
• • Chinese Painting
• • Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.)
• • Lacquerware of East Asia
• • Landscape Painting in Chinese Art
• • The Legacy of Genghis Khan
• • List of Rulers: China
• • List of Rulers: Islamic World
• • Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
• • Mountain and Water: Korean Landscape Painting, 1400–1800
• • Nature in Chinese Culture
• • Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127)
• • Painting Formats in East Asian Art
• • Qin Dynasty (221–206 B.C.)
• • The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911): Loyalists And Individualists
• • The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911): Painting
• • The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911): The Courtiers, Officials, and Professional Artists
• • The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911): The Traditionalists
• • Scholar–Officials of China
• • Shoguns and Art
• • Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)
• • Tang Dynasty (618–906)
• • Tibetan Buddhist Art
• • Yangban: The Cultural Life of the Chosôn Literati
• • Zen Buddhism

Related Maps (2)

• • East Asia Map, 1000–1400 A.D.
• • World Map, 1000–1400 A.D.

Related Index Terms (21)

Artist

• • Ni Zan (Chinese, 1306–1374)
• • Zhao Mengfu (Chinese, 1254–1322)

Geography/Place

• • Asia, China
• • Ceramic, organized by culture, East Asia
• • Ceramic, organized by culture, East Asia, China

Material and Technique

• • Ceramic, Porcelain
• • Ceramic, Porcelain, Asia
• • Sculpture, In the Round, East Asia
• • Tapestry
• • Tapestry, Silk

Object

• • Religious Art, Buddhism, Painting
• • Religious Art, Buddhism, Scroll
• • Religious Art, Buddhism, Sculpture in the Round
• • Religious Art, Buddhism, Textile
• • Scroll

Subject Matter/Theme

• • Landscape
• • Landscape, organized by geography
• • Landscape, organized by geography, East Asia
• • Landscape, organized by geography, East Asia, China
• • Religious Art, Buddhism
• • Scholar

During the Yuan dynasty, China—for the first time in its long history—was completely subjugated by foreign conquerors and became part of a larger political entity, the vast Mongol empire. Ironically, during this century of alien occupation, Chinese culture not only survived but was reinvigorated.

Lacking experience in the administration of a complex empire, the Mongols gradually adopted Chinese political and cultural models. Ruling from their capital in Dadu (also known as Khanbalik; now Beijing), the Mongol Khans increasingly assumed the role of Chinese emperors. During the 1340s and 1350s, however, internal political cohesion disintegrated as growing factionalism at court, rampant corruption, and a succession of natural calamities led to rebellion and, finally, dynastic collapse.

In spite of the gradual assimilation of Yuan monarchs, the Mongol conquest imposed a harsh new political reality upon China. As a group, the literati were largely ignored by the Mongols; those few who did enter government service often received only minor appointments, either as teachers in local schools or as low-level clerks. Southern Chinese, having resisted the Mongol invasion the longest, faced a conscious policy of discrimination, leading many scholars to withdraw from public life to pursue their own personal and artistic cultivation, often under the aegis of the Buddhist or Daoist religions. Drawing on the scholar-official aesthetic of the late Northern Song, Yuan literati painters no longer took truth to nature as their goal but rather used painting as a vehicle for self-expression. In the hands of highly educated scholar-artists, brushwork became calligraphic and assumed an autonomy that transcended its function as a means of creating representational forms.