Ming Dynasty

Examples of Ming Dynasty in the following topics:

• The Decorative Arts under the Ming Dynasty

  • As with many art forms, the Ming Dynasty saw advancement in the realm of decorative arts such as porcelain and lacquerware.
  • As in earlier dynasties, the Ming Dynasty saw a flourishing in the arts, whether it was painting, poetry, music, literature, or dramatic theater.
  • Beginning in the Ming Dynasty, ivory began to be used for small statuettes of the gods and others.
  • A Ming Dynasty red lacquer box with intricate carving of people in the countryside, surrounded by a floral border design
  • A blue and white porcelain vase with cloud and dragon designs, marked with the word "Longevity," Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty

• Painting under the Ming Dynasty

  • During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese painting developed from the achievements of the earlier Song and Yuan Dynasties.
  • During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese painting developed greatly from the achievements of the earlier Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty.
  • The Songjiang School and Huating School were born and developed toward the end of the Ming Dynasty.
  • Landscape in the Style of Yan Wengui by Dai Jin, hanging scroll, ink on paper (Early Ming Dynasty)
  • Identify the time period and innovations of the Zhe, Yuanti, Wu, Wongjang, and Huating Schools of painting during the Ming dynasty

• Rise of the Ming Dynasty

  • The Ming dynasty was founded by the peasant rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang.
  • The Ming dynasty (January 23, 1368–April 25, 1644), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China founded by the peasant rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang (known posthumously as Emperor Taizu).
  • The Ming dynasty is, for many reasons, generally known as a period of stable, effective government.
  • For a brief period during the dynasty northern Vietnam was included in Ming territory.
  • The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty.

• The Economy under the Ming Dynasty

  • The economy of the Ming dynasty was characterized by extreme inflation, the return to silver bullion, and the rise of large agricultural markets.
  • The economy of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) of China was the largest in the world during that period.
  • The early Ming dynasty attempted to use paper currency, with outflows of bullion limited by its ban on private foreign commerce.
  • Although images of autarkic farmers who had no connection to the rest of China may have some merit for the earlier Han and Tang dynasties, this was certainly not the case for the Ming dynasty.
  • Since the beginning of the Ming dynasty in 1357, great care was taken by the Hongwu Emperor to distribute land to peasants.

• Fall of the Ming Dynasty

  • The Qing conquest of the Ming was a period of conflict between the Qing dynasty, established by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro in Manchuria (contemporary Northeastern China), and the ruling Ming dynasty of China.
  • At the same time, the Ming dynasty was fighting for its survival against fiscal turmoil and peasant rebellions.
  • On April 24, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, a former minor Ming official who became the leader of the peasant revolt and then proclaimed the Shun dynasty.
  • In 1662, Zheng Chenggong founded the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, a pro-Ming dynasty state with a goal of reconquering China.
  • The fall of the Ming dynasty was caused by a combination of factors.

• Art under the Ming Dynasty

  • Literature, poetry, and painting flourished during the Ming dynasty, especially in the economically prosperous lower Yangtze valley.
  • Short fiction had been popular in China as far back as the Tang dynasty (618–907), and the works of contemporaneous Ming authors such as Xu Guangqi, Xu Xiake, and Song Yingxing were often technical and encyclopedic, but the most striking literary development during the Ming period was the vernacular novel.
  • Famous painters included Ni Zan and Dong Qichang, as well as the Four Masters of the Ming dynasty, Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, and Qiu Ying.
  • More colors were used in painting during the Ming dynasty; seal brown became much more widely used, and even over-used.
  • Ming dynasty Xuande mark and period (1426–35) imperial blue and white vase.

• Architecture and Urban Planning under the Ming Dynasty

  • Chinese urban planning and architecture under the Ming Dynasty are based on fengshui geomancy and numerology, as seen in the Forbidden City.
  • The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty—the years 1420 to 1912.
  • The yellow roof tiles and red walls in the Forbidden City (Palace Museum) grounds in Beijing, built during the Yongle era (1402–1424) of the Ming Dynasty.
  • The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.
  • Describe how fengshui and numerology influenced the architecture and urban planning of the Ming Dynasty, as seen in the capital of Beijing

• Decline of the Yuan Dynasty

  • After years of internal struggle, famine, and diminishing territorial control, the Yuan dynasty was defeated by the rising Ming dynasty in 1368.
  • By 1387 the remaining Yuan forces in Manchuria under Naghachu had also surrendered to the Ming dynasty.
  • According to Chinese political orthodoxy, there could be only one legitimate dynasty whose rulers were blessed by Heaven to rule as emperors of China, and so the Ming and the Northern Yuan denied each other's legitimacy as emperors of China, although the Ming did consider the previous Yuan it had succeeded to have been a legitimate dynasty.
  • Historians generally regard Ming dynasty rulers as the legitimate emperors of China after the Yuan dynasty.
  • Periods of conflict with the Ming dynasty intermingled with periods of peaceful relations with border trade.

• Joseon Ceramics

  • Korea's Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) is considered the golden age of Korean pottery.
  • The influence of the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in blue and white wares using cobalt blue glazes could be seen in Joseon pottery, but Joseon work tended to lack the phthalo blue range and the three-dimensional glassine color depth of Ming Dynasty Chinese works.
  • Simplified designs emerged early on during the Joseon Dynasty.
  • This era also saw the prolonged fall of the Chinese Ming Dynasty in 1644, after which immigration of some Chinese master potters occurred in southern coastal Korea.
  • Identify the Ming, Confucian, and Buddhist influences on pottery created during Korea's Joseon Dynasty

• The Role of Foreign Trade

  • Trade during the Ming dynasty began slowly, with severe restrictions, especially toward Japan, but later expanded to markets around the world.
  • By the late Ming, the state was losing power to the very merchants Hongwu had wanted to restrict.
  • In the Song dynasty (960–1279), rice had become the major staple crop of the poor; after sweet potatoes were introduced to China around 1560, they gradually became the traditional food of the lower classes.
  • The Ming also imported many European firearms in order to ensure the modernness of their weapons.
  • The Augustinian monk Juan Gonzáles de Mendoza wrote an influential work on China in 1585, remarking that the Ming dynasty was the best-governed kingdom he was aware of in the known world.