The Timeline of Art History   The Metropolitan Museum of Art
World MapsTimelines / RegionsThematic EssaysWorks of ArtIndex  



Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368)
Belt slide [China] Mongol passport [China] Qian Xuan: Wang Xizhi Watching Geese Zhao Mengfu: Twin Pines, Level Distance Yamantaka Mandala with imperial portraits [China] Wu Zhen: Fisherman Pair of incense burners [China, Probably from kilns in the vicinity of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province] Seven-lobed platter with scene of children at play [China] Dish with Eight Buddhist Treasures [China]
Plate [China] Wang Meng: The Simple Retreat Ni Zan: Woods and Valleys of Mount Yu Seated bodhisattva [China, Probably from kilns in the vicinity of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province]
Boundary of the Yuan dynasty

Boundary of the Yuan dynasty.
Enlarge for more detail

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.


Asia, China, Religious Art, Buddhism, Landscape, Religious Art, Buddhism, Scroll, Religious Art, Buddhism, Sculpture in the Round, Religious Art, Buddhism, Textile, Religious Art, Buddhism, Painting, Landscape, East Asia, China, Ni Zan (Chinese, 1306-1374), Zhao Mengfu (Chinese, 1254-1322), Porcelain, Porcelain, Asia, Scholar, Tapestry, Tapestry, Silk, Sculpture, In the Round, East Asia

Department of Asian Art

Ilkhanid Period, Ming Dynasty, Abridged List of Rulers: China, The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911): Painting, Scholar-Officials of China, Chinese Gardens and Collectors' Rocks, Lacquerware of East Asia, Nature in Chinese Culture, Chinese Cloisonné, Shoguns and Art, Painting Formats in East Asian Art, Southern Song Dynasty, Abridged List of Rulers: Islamic World,

Central and North Asia, 1000-1400 A.D., China, 1000-1400 A.D., China, 1400-1600 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., Himalayan Region, 1000-1400 A.D.,

East Asia, 1000-1400 A.D.