Ink and wash painting
History
Wash painting developed in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Wang Wei is generally credited as the painter who applied color to existing ink and wash paintings. The art was further developed into a more polished style during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was introduced to Korea shortly after China’s discovery of the ink. Then, the Korean missionaries in Japan, in helping the Japanese establish a civilized settlement introduced it to Japan in the mid-14th century.[citation needed]
Philosophy
In an old Chinese legend, an artist named Zhang Seng You was asked to paint a mural in a temple. He painted several dragons but left out the pupils from their eyes. The Abbot asked him why. Zhang explained that if he painted the pupils, the dragons would come alive. When the Abbot insisted, Zhang proceeded to paint the dragons eyes. As soon as he finished the pupils on one of the dragons, it roared to life and flew away in a thunderous flash of lightning.
This story embodies the philosophy of Oriental sumi-e. The goal is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its soul. To paint a horse, the sumi-e artist must understand its temperament better than its muscles and bones. To paint a flower, there is no need to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essential to convey its liveliness and fragrance. Oriental sumi-e may be regarded as an earliest form of expressionistic art that captures the unseen.
Indeed, Oriental sumi-e has long inspired modern artists in the West. In his classic book Composition, American artist and educator Arthur Wesley Dow (18571922) wrote this about sumi-e: “The painter …put upon the paper the fewest possible lines and tones; just enough to cause form, texture and effect to be felt. Every brush-touch must be full-charged with meaning, and useless detail eliminated. Put together all the good points in such a method, and you have the qualities of the highest art”. Dow fascination with sumi-e not only shaped his own approach to art but also helped free many American modernists of the era, including his student Georgia Oeeffe, from what he called a ‘story-telling’ approach. Dow strived for harmonic compositions through three elements: line, notan, and color. He advocated practicing with Oriental brushes and ink to develop aesthetic acuity with line and notan.
Notably, the term notan (often translated simplistically as dark-and-light) was derived from two characters originally used in Chinese and Japanese sumi-e: no (dense) and tan (dilute). Together, no-tan refers to the varying ink density produced by grinding an ink stick in water. Sumi-e artists spend years practicing basic brush strokes to refine their brush movement and ink flow. In the hand of a master, a single stroke can produce astonishing variations in tonality, from deep black to silvery gray. Thus, in its original context, notan means more than just dark-light arrangement, it is the basis for the beautiful nuance in tonality unique to Oriental sumi-e and brush-and-ink calligraphy.
Tools
In wash paintings, as in calligraphy, artists usually grind their own inkstick (Japanese: sumi) over an inkstone to obtain ink, but prepared inks are also available. Most inksticks are made of either pine or oil soot combined with animal glue (Japanese: nikawa). An artist puts a few drops of water on an inkstone and grinds the inkstick in a circular motion until a smooth, black ink of the desired concentration is made. Prepared inks are usually of much lower quality. Sumi themselves are sometimes ornately decorated with landscapes or flowers in bas-relief and some are highlighted with gold.
Wash painting brushes are similar to the brushes used for calligraphy and are traditionally made from bamboo with goat, cattle, horse, sheep, rabbit, marten, badger, deer, boar or wolf hair. The brush hairs are tapered to a fine point, a feature vital to the style of wash paintings.
Different brushes have different qualities. A small wolf-hair brush that is tapered to a fine point can deliver an even thin line of ink (much like a pen). A large wool brush (one variation called the big cloud) can hold a large volume of water and ink. When the big cloud brush rains down upon the paper, it delivers a graded swath of ink encompassing myriad shades of gray to black.
Once a stroke is painted, it cannot be changed or erased. This makes ink and wash painting a technically demanding art-form requiring great skill, concentration, and years of training.
See Calligraphy for more information on the tools used in both calligraphy and wash painting.
Noted artists
Autumn Landscape (Shukei-sansui). Sesshu Toyo.
China
Bada Shanren
Mi Youren
Su Shi
Qi Baishi
Xu Beihong
Zhang Daqian
Japan
Josetsu
Sessh Ty
Tensh Shbun
Ike no Taiga
In popular culture
An episode of Nickelodeon’s Wonder Pets, titled “Save the Crane,” has the characters fly into a Sumi-e painting to rescue a baby crane from an erupting volcano.
The video game kami, developed by Capcom for the PS2 and Wii systems, is done almost entirely in this art style.
See also
Bird-and-flower painting
Chinese art
Chinese painting
Four Gentlemen
Japanese painting
Higashiyama Bunka in Muromachi period
Korean painting
Haboku
External links
Chinese Painting and Galleries at China Online Museum
Chinese Sumi-e by Artist Sheng Kuan Chung
Contemporary Sumi-e by Sungsook Hong
Sumi-e Society of America, Inc.
Hasegawa Tohaku Pine Trees at the Tokyo National Museum
Kyu Kyo Do in Tokyo: Since 1663, the finest source for Sumi-e supplies
Master Sumi-e Artist Drue Kataoka
Materials, Instructions and Master Works of Sumi-E Master Jan Zaremba
The Art of Sumi-E by Naomi Okamoto, ISBN 0-8069-0833-5
Japanese calligraphy & painting art by a Martial artist.
References
^ Wang, Yushu Wang. Wu zhou chuan bo chu ban she. Translated by . (2005). Selected poems and pictures of the Tang dynasty ISBN 7508507983
^ Dow, Arthur Wesley (1899). Composition.
Categories: Painting techniques | Chinese art | Chinese painting | Japanese painting | Japanese art | Arts in China | Korean paintingHidden categories: Articles containing traditional Chinese language text | Articles containing simplified Chinese language text | Articles containing Japanese language text | Articles containing Korean language text | Articles containing Vietnamese language text | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from April 2009
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