Bane of my existence

FaceTime and WhatsApp are indispensable apps these days, thanks in part to the pandemic.  Regardless, these apps dissolve the physical distance between people and the audio/visual combination makes the virtual visitation experience credible.  Kudos to whoever made it possible for multiple people to connect at the same time. 

My ensemble of siblings is situated on 3 different continents and in 3 different time zones; so we usually meet at a time which would not inconvenience any one of us too much.  During a recent visit, one of my siblings started to recite a verse from some poetry.  That verse was somewhat familiar to the rest of us, yet we couldn't identify the origin readily.  Thus the source of the verse became the conversation for the next half hour.  The sibling who uttered that poem said it was from the collection of the Three Hundred Tang Poems.  

Tang Poems was a subject that each one of us in the group had to study as part of the school curriculum.  That was at least half a century ago. The amazing thing was that we were all able to produce our own copy of the Tang Poems and proudly displayed our book in front of the camera and the conversation quickly turned to a bantering of who owns the most "antique" edition of the publication, as if that really mattered.  Obviously we all considered the collection of Tang Poems a worthy addition to our library.  

Some days later, I was with another clique of overseas friends online and one of them mentioned something about how some of the Chinese hit songs borrowed verses from well known Chinese literature and turned them into part of the lyrics or part of the title.  The topic that day centered around a poetry that dealt with the historic Battle of Red Cliffs.  I won't bore you with the historical facts.  It is easy enough to find it on the internet.  I am not a total stranger to this poetry, since the author was Su Dongpo.  Su was visiting the Red Cliffs, which evoked in him a sentiment of inopportune times and not earning the respect he deserved. 

I decided to do a painting based on Su's writing of  "The Red Cliffs Nostalgia" and I would be putting calligraphy on my painting.  I will be paring down his poetry into a more manageable length, not only to save space, but to save grace.  My grace.

The bane of my existence, and there are two.  I wish I could properly play at least one musical instrument; I wish I have good brush calligraphy.

I had labored over Su Dongpo's calligraphy during my course of learning Chinese Brush.  One that I studied and emulated extensively was his Cold Food Festival writing.  Since it was learning by rote for me, I never internalized the calligraphy.  In other words, I have horrible handwriting, in the absence of the Te.  In order not to "ruin" my painting, I decided to do my calligraphy first.  I won't start my painting process until I deem my calligraphy "presentable".  That is how much I dread my own calligraphy.

I started my practicing routine.

The gist of the pared down writing is:

"The incessant waves urge the river eastward, taking with them all the accomplished people.  Such picturesque landscape, how much history have you witnessed.  Perhaps I am being too sentimental, reminiscing the days gone by.  Life is but a dream; allow me to scatter my wine, ode to the river and the moon."

I finally took a deep breath, threw my hands up and settled on this edition:

I find such resonance in these words, hence the motivation for my new painting.

Lost

I've been avoiding the brush; avoiding most everything for that matter.  I still can't accept the fact that she's gone; the person who gave me life.  Not when it was so sudden.   I am desperately trying to find a way to unclog my head.  There are too many cross talks.  I just don't know how to organize my thoughts.
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I'm not trying to fill a void, it's just like there's less meaning to all the things I do now.  It's difficult to imagine a grown man was still motivated by the thought of the "NEED" to hand in "Home Works".   I suppose the simple act of turning in some piece of work suggested not some sort of  an accomplishment, but it was a way to show the I was doing fine, and nothing in my life had altered my routine.

To help me get back on the horse I decided to go back to calligraphy, to a piece that I had studied in the past.  The beauty of revisiting this study is that it is familiar and I just need to follow and emulate the Te, and the circumstance of this piece of work is meaningful.

I am referring to the work of Han Shi Te by Su Dongbo.

Han Shi ( Cold Food Festival ) is a festival that falls around the time of Qingming Festival ( Tomb Sweeping Day).  Qingming ( April 4th or 5th) is a day to show respect to ancestors, thus tidying up the tomb site  and offerings of food and drinks and incinerating paper money (currency of the underworld ) are traditional practice.

Legend has it that Han Shi (Cold Food Festival) was ordered by an ancient Emperor as a redemption for his horrific mistake.  The Emperor was seeking the service of his friend, who did not aspire to fame nor glory, and avoided the Emperor by vanishing into the woods with his aging mother and entertained a life of simplicity.   In his infinite wisdom the Emperor decided to force his friend to reveal himself by setting fire to the woods,  subsequently causing the death of his friend and his mother.  In his remorse, the Emperor decreed that no fire or burning was allowed for 3 days.  Thus there was no way to cook and food had to be consumed cold, hence the Han Shi Festival .

Su Dongbo (Su Shi)  (1037-1101)  was a famous calligrapher, poet, foodie and a statesman of the Song dynasty.   He somehow angered his Emperor and was banished to a remote place.  During his exile he held a post in name only but received no stipend, thus was living in poverty.  One could only imagine the smorgasbord of emotions that he had to endure.   Shrouded in the shadow of injustice he wrote the Han Shi poem, where he referenced the Han Shi Festival as a means of noting the seasons.  His calligraphy Han Shi Te  hence became one of the gold standard for studying the walking style of brush calligraphy.

He wrote about the incessant cold rain and the dilapidated hut he dwelt in was like a boat in a rising torrent .  He was trying to cook on a broken stove with wet hay and only sensed  it was time of the Han Shi Festival by noticing that birds were carrying incinerated paper in their beaks.  He was far removed from the central administration despite his continued desire to serve and he couldn't even fulfill his duties by observing the Qingming Festival.  He talked about how all the blooms had wilted  and fallen overnight, perhaps drawing a parallel of his own fate.

What made this poem famous was the picture it portrayed of the desolate bleakness of his emotional state.  What made this piece of calligraphy astounding was the air it exuded, of the author's anguish, frustration and longing, by means of the irregular font size and spacing and the different ink tones.  His was not your typical calligraphy piece.  It was a testament to his circumstances.

I reacquainted myself with this piece by performing the usual ritual of shadow writing; following the brushstroke in my head and analyzing how each stroke was shaped and delivered.  My first job was trying to emulate his brushstrokes.  I started to copy his writing.

My next goal was to emulate the whole piece as a complete organism.   I would try to gauge the spacing, the ink tone and the rhythm in the script.  I tried to find the punctuation, the phrasing of written passage.  I needed to sense where the fermata is, which words were pizzicato and which words should be treated like legato; to borrow a few musical terms.  Perhaps I was over-analyzing or was being pedantic, I found myself hesitating with my brush edge and pressure.  I found myself  already arriving at the end of the brushstroke and I still wasn't able to form the correct shape.    This was like a novice horn player having difficulty with finding the correct embouchure, causing  the notes to come in late or drag on for longer than intended.

I devised a method to combat that.  I thought I would write in light ink first and my emphasis would not be on the quality of my brushstrokes, but rather on the placement and the relative size of the words.  I could thus start the emulation with less pressure, by dealing with the more graphic aspect of the project.  My intention was to re-trace my light ink with the proper brushstrokes, done to the specifications of Su Dongpo.  I was eager to see if this plot would work.

To help ease my trepidation with this emulation, I chose an old brush that somehow survived 18 years of abuse and really was not fit for calligraphy.  I figured that would help me to not place too much emphasis on the quality of the brush edge and pressure etc. but to seek out the spacing and the form of the whole piece.  I was treating this work as a painting or sorts.  I spotted the position of the columns of  characters by creasing the paper along those lines.

Somehow I mis-calculated the numbers of columns I needed and the words did not fit into the original places.   I tried another piece, and still managed to omit the last column ( where Su titled his work).   Is there hope for me?!

To be frank, I wasn't disappointed with my efforts, so far.  The brush strokes actually were not that bad.  They were free and energetic.   I think the fact that I was using an old brush and all that gave me an excuse to fail, thus taking off a lot of pressure from me.  Such was my psyche.   I wished perfection right off the bat, and I had to will myself to be not so demanding.  I was my own worst enemy!   I was always so uptight about everything that I just couldn't relax.  I recall that I used to bowl a little bit and my scores were always hovering around 100.  After a couple of beers I could come near 150.  The score would fall back to 100 as alcohol left my system.  My bowling score was an uncanny indicator of how much beer I had to drink!

Anyways my next step would be to use a good brush and attempt to do "real" calligraphy by tracing my light ink.  Hopefully I could now be paying more attention to the brush edges and pressure, and not so much in the form and spacing.  That is my intention anyways.

What is Chinese Brush Painting, learning by rote

Traditional Chinese Brush painting ( Guo Hua)  can be divided into two main styles; Gongbi ( Gong means craft, Bi means writing instrument ), a meticulous and formal brush style and Xieye (Xie means to write, Yi means sentiment, expression), which literally means writing with expression and spontaneity. Within these styles, there are divisions into different genres such as Floral and Birds, Personalities and Landscape.  Landscape paintings are deemed the most difficult.

Guo Hua is typically learnt by rote.  Practice, memorize and practice some more.  Copying is one of the methods employed in the rote system.  Students copy their teachers and other masters.  Anybody who is serious about studying Guo Hua has labored with the Mustard Seed Garden, copying and studying different techniques and styles, honing their Gi Bun Gong.  It is perhaps due to this forced feeding that a lot of the Chinese paintings look similar to each other, especially with regards to subject matter and composition.

Mustard Seed Garden on tree arrangement

Mustard Seed Garden on mixed foliage    

 

Mustard Seed Garden on mountains        

 

Mustard Seed Garden on painting falls   

 

Mustard Seed Garden on painting incidentals

 

 

 

More contemporary examples of "how to" text material:

how to paint peony and koi

 finished painting of peony and koi

 how to paint fish                

Unfortunately we have so-called teachers these days using these as their templates for teaching Chinese Brush painting.  The "come-on" is to lure people to paint a fish with a scant few strokes and thus fulfilling the minimalistic presentation of "Asian art".  What they don't realize is this is just a gimmick and not a lesson.  The emphasis should be on the Bi-Fa..... how to start and finish and what parts of the brush does one need to pay attention to.  The result is a painting with all the lines in the right places, but shows no distinctive characteristics of a controlled brushstroke at all ( remember the calligraphy Te?).  This is fine as a means  to spark a person's desire to learn Chinese brush painting, but not an end. Being able to play "Chopsticks" on the keyboard does not make one a piano player, anymore than the person teaching it a piano teacher.

Qi Baishi (1864 - 1957) is a world renowned Chinese Brush artist.  He was born a peasant, became a carpenter, then taught himself how to paint.  He also worked on a few fish paintings.  In one, he actually wrote the following on the painting,

It is difficult to paint meticulously and be lively at the same time.  The difficulty lies in using  just a few strokes to capture the shape and attitude of the subject matter.  This fish exemplifies the masterful employment of ink tone, the superb brushstrokes, motion and energy.

How is this fish compared with the fish in the "how to" book?


to be continued