Beyond Exposure, Understanding

All of us have been exposed to Chinese Brush Painting. So what is Chinese Brush Painting. Does the painting have to look "Chinese"?? Can a "western" motif painting done with Chinese brush be called Chinese Brush Painting?? How do we appreciate Chinese Brush Painting??

Chinese Brush Painting is an art of form and lines. Well that sounds pretty generic. Chinese Brush Painting is all about " Be Fa", the method of the brush. It is closely linked to the practice of calligraphy. Chinese calligraphy is not just a bunch of symbols or characters, but each stroke has characteristics of "press", "turn", "lift","hook" etc. Each line is like a human body, it has a head, a body, bulky at some places, and skinny at the other places. A bad line is like a bad body shape...... that's the only way I can explain it. With these attributes, then you assemble the lines not only in the form of the character that you intend to write, but assemble it in a pleasing manner! There is a belief that if one cannot do good calligraphy, then one can never be a good painter. Perhaps that's why I am having a hard time with my paintings...... I am a disaster when it comes to calligraphy. You rarely see any writings on my work This is in stark contrast to a lot of the current pseudo Asian art, especially in mixed media, collages, where people clip off prints or newspaper with Asian characters ( Chinese, Korean, Japanese) and paste them into their work and pawn it off as "art". As far as I am concerned, this is a huge disrespect and shows complete lack of understanding of Asian calligraphy. Calligraphy on Chinese Brush Paintings usually involves the title of the painting, and perhaps a poem about the painting. There could be narrations on the occasion for which the painting was done.

Chinese Brush Painting in the classical sense involves a lot of "rules" and "formulae". For example in the Flowers and Birds genre, we are taught how to paint bamboo, chrysanthemum, peony, ,orchid, plum, blue birds, etc, etc. There is a certain, dictated method and strokes that one does these themes. Go to the library or bookstore and look up Chinese Brush Painting and you'll find all kinds of prescribed methods of how to arrange rocks, how tree branches should be arranged. In other words, there are "poses" that we subscribe to. None of the teachers that I've ever had showed a real example of the subject matter. Sketching is totalling absent. The down side of this training is that all works look alike, they are all "templates". A lot of the Chinese Brush Paintings in the "tourist" districts fall into this category. It is exotic, yet familiar, easy for the palate. Unfortunately this has led to the wrong impressions about this form of work. Again I would have to equate this to when the uninitiated considers " chop suey" as real Chinese food.

When I say Chinese Brush Painting is an art of lines and forms, then one has to appreciate it from that perspective. I'll use some landscape topics to illustrate my point.

The insert where there is an example of 2 rocks, the top one is done with quite a few different techniques, and compare that with the one on the bottom . Both have shading applied, but the top one is definitely more interesting. These 2 are basically of the same form and line frame, but because the characteristics of the lines are different, hence the effects are different. The bottom image resembles line sketches. Lines that are uniform, uninteresting and lifeless. Yes, there are those of us that considers pixels as an art form, therefore one can argue that an image from newspaper magnified a hundred times to show extreme pixelation as a piece of art, and therefore lines, no matter how mundane, serves the purpose. Well, I beg to differ.

Now look at the other 2 images. One is the image of a rock laden with lines, boring lines. The other one employs the brush to do its thing, giving "life" to the lines. Can you tell which one is which? And which one do you prefer??

These examples are devoid of color on purpose, to emphasize the one most important aspect of Chinese Brush Painting. It is not about color, it is all about the characteristics, the persona of the lines and brush strokes. It is about "Be Fa". It is about painting, not drawing, lines with feeling.

It is about whether the brush stroke is heavy or light, fast or slow. Is the line painted with straight tip, side tip or broad tip and how wet or dry is the brush.
Again, using a stringed instrument as an analogy, many people can enjoy violin music., but it takes knowledge of the techniques of vibrato, fingering, harmonics, double stops, staccato,
playing at the frog or at the tip, whether it is up bow or down bow to truly appreciate the virtuoso.