Confession

I was flipping through channels on my streaming device and noticed quite a few programs on the topic of Leonardo Da Vinci.  Obviously Mona Lisa garnered a lot of headlines.

I was fortunate enough to pay a personal visit to Mona Lisa at Musee du Louvre.  I must confess, I didn't see what all that hoopla was about.  I must be an ignorant smuck for failing to recognize and concur with the iconic status of this painting.  Did the painting derive its fame from tabloid gossips, artistry, or academia? Everybody wanted a selfie with Lisa.  For their Instagram accounts, I presume.

No doubt it is a great piece of artwork by one of the most famous Renaissance man, but what catapulted it to the throne of supreme art?  I was drawn in by the many docuseries on Da Vinci.  I definitely was intrigued. Tugging at me were all the fringe information about Da Vinci's family history, and whether his mother was a slave girl from the Orient.  However, what really interested me was why the Mona Lisa is so enigmatic.  I needed to know what I missed at the Louvre.  I wanted to learn about the painting itself, not so much as in who Mona Lisa was, but why the painting commanded so much attention, disregarding anything Freudian.

Soon I discovered that there were no eyebrows behind that enigmatic smile.  There were no harsh lines; all contour and light transitions on the face were feathered out, as nature intended.  The perfect lip and mouth was documented in the artist's notes, when he dissected bodies to study morphology and anatomy.  The enigmatic smile was further examined by apply a fair amount of Gaussian blur, at which point the smile turned into a big chin to chin grin.  This change is exemplified by placing the painting in our peripheral vision and moving it into focus, in the central point of our vision, hence  altering the quality of our visual acuity.. Thus the intrigue of the painting seems to be related to how it appears from different viewing angles, and that there is a scientific basis to the phenomenon.

One of these documentary segments delved with Da Vinci's brushstrokes and how he painted atmosphere; specifically how color is affected by the atmosphere as a function of physical distance.  The researchers went as far as to develop an algorithm to back date how pigment and color changed over time.  They applied their mask to digitally retrieve how Mona Lisa would have looked like on day 1.  The background of this painting assumed a different hue and feel altogether.  Now the digitally restored background wore a blue sky with mist further delineating the back row peaks from the front.

I for one, prefer the non-restored version.  It exhumes mystique, espoused by the darker tones.

But that's not the point of my dissertation.  I am trying to draw comparison to my own vivid experience with rendition of background.

When I started my painting of the Korean Maidens, I had clear intention of presenting an accurate picture of the culture, both in attire and architecture.  I even researched hanbok and chima, brought on by my search of crinoline and bustle.  Without a doubt my interest was on the two maidens.  They were the protagonists for my painting.

As the painting process continued, my autopilot disengaged itself and sought a new flight route.  I found myself steering away from the girls.  My attention was now placed on the background, the architecture itself;  especially the geometric lines.   The distraction was severe enough for me to halt my painting and re-evaluate my design.

I eventually painted a second version ( a practice I rarely subscribe to) of my Korean Maidens, with the emphasis on the geometric arrays of the building now.

I don't know if it was a conscious decision or a subconscious effort, the girls appeared smaller now in proportion to the background building.  There was no doubt what my focal interest was at.

That was the version I placed at a show.  During the course of the reception I got called out.  "You named your painting Korean Maidens, but I think you were painting the temple", said a viewer.

How astute.  She saw through me.

I proceeded to fumble for my cell phone, opened the Photo app and showed her the 2 different versions of the painting, each hinged on the different interpretations of the background.

I had surrendered my cerebral cortex to my limbic system during the course of my painting.

Unknowingly, of course. I confess.

Exploiting Shadows

My mission all along is not only to paint a rat to celebrate the lunar new year, but also to make the painting interesting.  I try to paint a posture that suggests movement.

I examined my painting at this stage and I was not unhappy with my work.  In fact I was quite pleased.  It thought I had captured the essence that I set out to do.

But something was amiss.

It looked too much like a painting, as if that was a bad thing.

I needed to inject a smidgen of realism into my painting.

I recalled that when I did my Shadows painting, I cut out paper silhouettes of the lady and her dog and casted shadows with them.  That method worked well to integrate their shadows into my painting of tree shadows.  I reached for this scheme again from my bag of tricks.

I fashioned the head of my rat out of aluminum foil, making it the same size as the painted image.  I then placed this impromptu wad onto my rat and casted a shadow with my desk lamp.

I tried a different angle with my lamp

I preferred the orientation of the second try.  I liked the more cohesive and less intrusive shadow from this angle.  So this is going to be the blueprint for my rat's shadow.

Immediately I could see the separation of the rat's head from the paper. I was absolutely elated.  I was this kid in a toy store.  I gleefully wrote in the whiskers.  Now my Rat is complete.

So why not make the entire landscape, the red square and all, three dimensional?

A judicious thin ink brushstroke just outside the bottom margins of the red square created the illusion of the red square being lifted from my Xuan.  Ah man, this is too much!  This was way beyond my imagination.  I personally thought the resulting realism was stunning.

The impulse to showcase this work was so immense that I wasted no time in buying my clear plastic panes and poplar planks and began my mounting and framing process.  I was motivated, to say the least.

Here is the finished product.

So here begs the question by some of my critics.  Chinese brush painting is supposed to be two dimensional and sort of impressionistic.  What I have done is not Chinese brush painting.

So what IS Chinese brush painting?

Painting my Year of the Rat

I started processing my thoughts about this painting around September in 2019.

Year of Rat starts the new cycle for the Chinese Zodiac.  The cycle repeats every 12 years.  By knowing the Chinese zodiac sign and the current age of a person, one can easily deduce the age of others when their zodiac signs are known.  For example if a person of the Rat sign is 48 years old this year, then the possibilities for another Rat person would be: the same age, or multiples of 12 years younger or multiples of 12 years older.  So if another Rat looks older than 48, then he or she could be 60, or 72 etc.  Another example would be, the Pig is the animal immediately preceding the Rat (taking up the last place of the 12 animal court) thus one year older than the Rat.  So a Pig person who is about the same age as the afore mentioned Rat would be 49 this year, and an older Pig would be 61, or 73, or 85 etc.

The order of the Chinese Zodiac is as follows: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.  The story of this order is sort of interesting.  There are many versions and the one I am told is that Buddha called for an assembly of all the animals and 12 of those responded.  It was suppose to be a race of sorts, and the rat got a ride on the back of the Ox and leaped to the checkered flag at the last moment, securing the First Place finish.

It is common practice for traditional Chinese to post pieces of 揮春 (Fai Chun or Hui Chun)  at entrances to invoke, ( or pray for ) fortune and luck.  These are typically red banners or squares with writing of auspice on them.

I wanted to paint a red square with the writing of 福 (bliss) on it; I shall try to incorporate my Rat into this theme.

I thought of my Rat poking its head through a hole of this red square

Or my Rat holding the red square in its mouth

but I don't like its tail hanging out.  Somehow I think the tail takes away from the aesthetics of the setup and might creep people out.  I could always dispense with the tail though.


How about my Rat appears to climb over the red square to do some investigation

I think I like this composition the best.  I shall proceed with this blue print in mind.

When I paint I often seek out everyday objects to facilitate my rendering of my subjects.  I've seen self-taught painting guides instructing us to break down the human body into oblong circles for example.  The head, the torso and the abdomen each assuming the shape of a circle or an oblong shape and that helps the person to construct the body.  It is easier to draw circles and then add features versus starting out with intricate features and try to build the whole.

For my painting I envisioned a Concord pear

The pear will form the body of my rat, the stalk the limb

Then I would superimpose a triangle onto the pear;  the triangle being the head

Voila, I have my basic design

I have used my heavily fibered Xuan  (what I called the fancy butt-wiper paper ) before and I really liked the organic feel and the textured appearance the paper.  I shall thus use that again.

I plotted the position of the red square and my Rat, and I lightly sketched out my critter with pencil.

Of course the Chinese Brush purist would scoff at my practice of sketching.  To them I ask "Why Not".  I am the painter and I do whatever I deem necessary for me to convey my painting.  This is how I float my boat.

At this point, I was keenly aware of my desire that my Rat should be something more than a two dimensional figure.  My Rat should assume a posture that creates movement and tells a story.  I must get the arched body and the attitude of the head correct to convey the narrative that my inquisitive Rat climbed onto this red piece of paper to investigate and found Bliss.

My Rat needs to be inquisitive and salient.

I got the idea of my Rat poking its head through the red paper from watching high school football players bursting onto the field through a huge paper screen.  That impressed me as being energetic and possessing pomp. Such an auspicious theme is critical for the celebration of the arrival of a New Year. However one of the reason that I did not choose that arrangement is my fear of violating the auspicious symbolism.

I am reminded of a snafu a few years back causing a lot of ill will between the local Chinese community and the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC).  The RACC had commissioned a sculpture to be installed in our Chinatown and the non-Chinese artist chose the proverbial Chinese Dragon theme;  the dragon being a noble creature in Chinese culture and not the serpentine creature that St. George slayed.  Chasing The Dragon was the resulting artwork. The metal art piece was installed on two raised platforms occupying the opposite corners of a street in the middle of Chinatown.  The head of the dragon is on one platform and the tail is on the other; the body of the dragon was left to one's imagination.  To support the head and tail of the dragon the artist constructed a tripod with a ring in the center which worked as harness.  The artist also placed an abacus, a wok cleaning brush and a up turned wok as ornaments facing the downward pointing dragon head; he thought these articles represented the Chinese culture.

The Dragon, aside from being a mythological celestial animal in the Chinese zodiac, is also a symbol for the Emperor.  Only the Emperor may don a robe with a Dragon motif.   Thus the Dragon always assumes a fierce posture, with its head raised and claws flexed.  Now this poor misguided artist was construed as to put a dragon (i.e. an Emporer) in shackles ( the metal ring at the center of the tripod used to anchor the dragon head) and committed a crime worthy of capital punishment if the Emperor was still around.  Granted the Emporer, or any Emporer, is no longer a fact, yet the reverence is still valid.

Round mirrors found on buildings, doors, or sewn onto head dresses were used to stop and reflect back bad and evil energy in the Chinese culture.  These mirrors could be flat, concave or convex.  The notion was to distort and reflect bad feng shui.  They are typically placed facing sources of bad energy, such as a street intersection or anything that is pointed or dirty, as in a pitch fork implement , a lightning rod or a broom .

People used to sun dry their laundry on poles of bamboo hoisted outside their apartments.  People who live across the street from these set-ups might perceive that as bad feng shui and therefore place a round mirror outside their window facing these poles, as a means of directing the bad energy back towards the aggressor.

To direct a convex black surface, as in the bottom of a sooty wok towards someone is deemed the ultimate curse and jinx because it radiates bad energy.  When transferring contents from a wok or cooking pan into a dish at an occupied dining table, one is reminded to never turn the bottom of the wok or the pan towards the seated occupants.  It is considered to be very rude and impolite at the very least, and runs afoul of the possibity of bestowing bad luck on the ones who had to face the underside of these utensils.

I am sure the artist had no nefarious intents in his heart but his lack of understanding of the Chinese culture and his stereotypical interpretation caused a huge uproar by invoking two of the worst taboos.  He put the dragon in a headlock shackle and to reinforce the insult by training the dragon head towards the bottom of a sooty wok.  To fuel the divide, the city's Development Commission was proposing  a re-branding of Old Town/Chinatown to "New Chinatown/Japan Town" at the same time.  The local Chinese community vehemently opposed the proposal.   Sometimes I wonder if the stars could really line up in a bad way.  Honestly, this was a perfect storm and someone forgot to read his horoscope.

It is almost impossible for a non-Chinese to perceive the gravity of such violations, yet these are as real as the sun and the moon.  There's nothing petty about it.  The aftermath involved removal of the head and tail of the dragon, so only the abacus etc. with the tripods remained.

Alright, to return from my segue, some Chinese would invert the writing of 福 (Bliss) because the act of inverting (倒 ) sounds the same as 到 (arrive, having arrived).

normal orientation

inverted orientation, symbolizing Bliss has indeed arrived.

Our culture has so many latent rules and taboos that many label as superstition.   Thus when you encounter an upside-down writing of Bliss you know that is done on purpose and not due to illiteracy.  A rat poking its head through a paper that says Bliss could be interpreted as the animal disrupting or vandalizing Bliss.  I might be over-thinking and being too cautious but I definitely do not want to be guilty of such an offense.

I painted in the areas that would show flesh color first.  Thus the ears, the paws and the nose.  I decided to forgo the Rat's right paw.  I believe the composition as it stood looked better, and one could always make the assumption that the head was hiding the right paw.

I loaded my brush with titanium white, and dip the tip in a little bit of rouge, such that each brushstroke started with pink but the main body of the brushstroke was white.

I didn't want to just fill the void with color;  I wanted individual, distinct brushstrokes to lay down the color information.  I suppose a casual audience wouldn't have noticed the difference, but here the brush tip and belly defined the form, and the pencil sketch helped to locate the brushstroke but was not an absolute boundary.  The resulting image hopefully would show more life and soul, and not a rigid two dimensional form languished on a piece of Xuan.

Having taken care of the exposed areas, I started to write in the Rat's hair.  The repeated writing of short lines was very helpful to my obsessive compulsive behavior.

Next came the eyes

 

Now I totally understand why Chinese places such importance on the "Eye Painting" ceremony in Lion/Dragon Dance or in Dragon Boat Races.  The addition of eyes seems to bestow life to the lifeless object.  

Time to add shadows and fluff up the fir on this animal

Painting the red square paper

Write in the Chinese word "Bliss" after everything is dried

What remained to be done was to tidy up my Rat and add in whiskers.