My Third Refrain on Yang Pass 西出陽關無故人

For some reason I seem to be fixated on desert and camel whenever I think about stories relating to Song of the City of Wei 渭城曲 ( aka Weicheng Qu) , an iconic poem by the Tang poet Wang Wei.  I believe my obsession has a lot to do with how I perceive this poem.  It is undeniable that the poetry identified the City of Wei (today's Xianyang) along the Wei River, thus not a desert.  However that city is only the location of a farewell between Wang and his friend, and the beginning of a long, grueling journey across an inhospitable desert.  The writing noted a landmark, Yang Pass, as a symbolic end of civilization beyond which lies melancholic forsakenness.  Wang felt helpless that he must bid adieu to his friend.  It is this poetic feeling of resignation and not the actual setting of the City of Wei that evoked my senses.

Having laid the groundwork for my painting in ink, I began the coloring process.  I chose the semi-sized Xuan because I wanted the color to float.  I had a sandstorm in mind.  The semi-sized paper also tend to mute the color a bit, rendering a natural haze to the painting.

I got the right hue for the sky by mixing ink and indigo, leaving places uncovered to reveal clouds.

I wanted to create a more dramatic contrast between the foreground and the distant scenery, so I darkened the stone bricks with ink.  Using side-tip technique and a uneven coverage, the darker ink helped to add more convincing texture to the stones.  I left the voids between the bricks alone, they would become the mortars.  In a way I was using the stones as an impressionistic frame for my desert. 

A much more intense perspective of inside versus outside was achieved.  Now the diminutive desert seemed less like an insert and more convincing as the view outside the sentry window.

Tidied up little details here and there, still not satisfied with my camel.  Then it dawned on me that my idea of the traveler walking with his camel was certainly endearing, or even altruistic in a sense, but the practicality of the camel as a freight hauling vehicle certainly could not be discounted.

Thus I added some provisions onto the sides of the camel.  Now a bactrian camel laden with freight being led by a traveler with walking stick is a more plausible story line.  Together they would brave the distance and any calamity that might come their way.  I mean if I was a producer making a movie about the Song of the City of Wei, this would be the last footage the audience would see as the credits are being superimposed on the silver screen; and the house lights slowly coming back on.

Since I made reference to the refrains of the Yang Pass Song, the Three refrains on the Yang Pass Theme, which by the way is a famous Guqin piece, I would like to present my three refrains from a visual standpoint:

In the top two inserts, I had the Yang Pass in the distance.  My current plot has the traveler passing through Yang Pass, heading to his final destination; a scenario more in tune with the poem. Thus my third refrain hinges on the final verse of the poem.

Safe traveling my friend!

Yang Pass Revisited

Not having a lot of places to visit due to the pandemic, I am relying more on electronic means to keep up with the real world and to let my acquaintances know that I am still kicking and breathing.  I must say that it feels good to re-connect with people whom I've grown distant for some reason.  One thing is for sure, junk mails are still annoying.

The unforeseen current events not only shut down my demonstration sessions but also threw a monkey wrench into my applications for a chance to exhibit my works.  Dates were either canceled or postponed, meaning the adjudication process was put on hold too.  One of the venue would adopt a strictly virtual environment, showcasing accepted works online, with no provision for physical viewing.  Applicants were told to spruce up their websites so that interested parties would have a chance to scrutinize works other than the juried ones.  My in-box finally popped a "Not Chosen" response from a gallery.  In the rejection email, there was the usual generic explanation and thank you for your interest verbiage but also there was something more specific to the effect that due to the prevailing events on the streets, a lot of the accepted works somehow showed people's reaction to the issues of our society, as in their facial expressions.  

What was not expected was a second communication from the gallery, trying to dispel the impression that somehow the accepted works were all portraits.  It went on to say that the call was for works that the artists deem to have left a mark.  Thus works that reflect the current state of affairs were more relevant and congruent with the mission.  

Obviously what I consider as my mark is markedly different from other people's mark.  Since I am not the person marking the mark, who am I to say that so and so missed the mark.  Some will argue that galleries and museums often dictate what is relevant art or not, thus molding and shaping the public at large.  Is this insidious systemic bias?  Who knows, let's not make a mountain out of a mole hill, right?  

Actually this reminds me of my Yang Pass Three Variations blog.  One might say that I detest the literal meaning of the poem by Wang Wei. It should be evident by now that I belong to the camp that says the poem described the parting sorrow and helplessness between friends.  Thus I subscribe to "willow" being a homophone to "stay" in the Chinese language, and dust and misty sprinkle setting the stage for an excursion, a journey that Wang Wei's friend must partake; hence Wang Wei's apprehension.  So if I was the gallery setting out a call for Yang Pass theme paintings, I would have rejected all works that would depict willow trees, travel lodges or misty wet roads.  I would say that these works are all too banal and superficial and fail to capture the essence of the poem.  Am I influencing people's interpretation of the poem or which paintings are relevant?  You bet I am.  It is my prerogative. 

Thus I felt inspired to have another try at painting Yang Pass, based on Wang Wei's poem.  Allow me to repeat my translation of that poem:

The city was shrouded in a light sprinkle, settling the dust of the road.

Willows by the inn sprouting green color.

Bottoms UP, let's finish yet another drink, 

beyond Yang Pass there shall be no old acquaintances to be found.

As I noted in my past blog, Yang Pass is a military outpost on the southern branch of the Silk Road.

I imagined it to be a stone fortress by a desert that goes on forever.  A most inhospitable environment.

I want to elicit the feeling of abandonment and destitute by giving the desert some context.  I chose to frame the desert through an window from the outpost.  Through this opening I hope to instill a feeling of departure, of distance and of an incessant intrepid crossing.

I laid down the blocks of stone with ink, side-tipped fashion.  I chose such archway hoping to reflect an Islamic motif, since the outpost is on the Silk Road and I imagined the architecture could reflect adjacent foreign influences.

The massive stone blocks were easy to paint, and should offer a stark contrast to the proportionally diminutive, yet relentless sandy desert.  

The poem alluded to parting of Wang Wei from his friend, who was traveling by himself now.

I don't know what his friend would choose as transportation, but I think a camel is more likely than a horse, since it involved trekking a desert. 

I chose a bactrian camel.  I had no way of knowing, just thinking that two humps are better than one. Naughty, Naughty!  Don't forget the 17th of August is National Hump Day for the States.

I also thought that walking with the camel would be more endearing than riding it.  The poem implied that the traveler would be hard pressed to find any old acquaintances, thus walking shoulder to shoulder on equal footing with another being, a camel notwithstanding, could be a more likely sentiment.

Oops, my lawn grass is stilling growing despite the upheavals out there.  Time to mow my yard.  Good place for an intermission.  

Pie Jesu - A Song and Dance

I've arrived at a point that I am out of whims.  Something tells me to stop.  I am referring to my dancer painting from the last post.

Now what?

How do I botch this up ?

I am looking for a vehicle to coalesce these figures and give them a theme, a message.  I am looking for a road map to exploit.

Then I chanced up a music score for Pie Jesu.  I am a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his musicals and I am absolutely infatuated with Sarah Brightman.  The score had parts for string instruments like violins, violas and cellos.  When I saw the notations on how to play the music, I thought of the similarities between music and calligraphy.  In this particular case, between music and my dancing figures.

The individual notes in music is akin to the individual strokes in Chinese writing.  The strokes could be horizontal, vertical or dots and occupied a framework in space.  The notes occupied positions designated by the staff, building a tune.  Tempo of the music is similar to the speed at which the various brushstrokes are laid down in calligraphy, whereas a scherzo and largo might be loosely exemplified by the grass script and the seal script.

So in the Pie Jesu score I saw notation for the bow, i.e. up bow or down bow and I made the association to how the brushstrokes starts and ends.  There was legato ( notes slurred together ) for individual, adjacent notes and that is totally similar to how the brushstrokes were treated in Chinese calligraphy.  Some brushstrokes need to be assimilated as one in order to build the structure.  Phrasing and rhythm are not unique to music, but is evident and required in Chinese calligraphy by how the brush is wielded.  I saw notations for tenuto ( holding notes to their full values, sustained ) even when the music is pianissimo.  So a common mistake for someone using the Chinese round brush for calligraphy is that when one comes to a thin line one tends to skim over that and not give it the full energy, resulting in what I would characterize as a wilted beansprout.  There was notation for pizzicato ( plucking the string ) and arco (playing with the bow) instructing how the musician should sound the notes.

Hence the arms of the ballerinas might dictate long and speedy brushstrokes to distill expression extending to the fingers, not unlike employing thee whole bow to play certain notes to give them character.  Whereas the note might be played with only the middle section, or the tip, or the bottom of  the bow for different effects, various parts of the brush result in different results too. Thus a turned ankle is done differently from a turned head, a difference between using center tip or side tip technique.

Let us examine the two inserts from above.  They show the same word 寒 in both instances.  They are from my calligraphy studies of Su Dongpo's Cold Food Festival Te.

The red circled bend on the left insert shows a smooth round turn.  Compare that to the red circled area from the right insert, where the bend is a very distinct, angular shoulder.  So I would characterize the left insert as an example of legato in brush works, whereas the right insert is an example of pizzicato.

Now the blue circled area from the left insert shows a distinct loop joining the left stroke with the right stroke.  An obvious example of a legato, connecting two distinct strokes, heading two different directions, into a single expression.  The blue circled example from the right insert does not show the overt loop, but does give a suggestion of the brush turning backwards, as evidenced by the little hump.  Whereas this is also a legato, I would also add tenuto ( sustain ) to it to make sure the artist does not lift the brush and maintains the energy throughout the brush travel.

It is very typical for Chinese calligraphers doing the walking or grass style calligraphy to write the same word in varied nuances  In other words one never dresses the same words in identical attires.  This is a way for the calligrapher to bring his/her hubris and boasts his/her command of the brush.  Thus the expression "to read a painting", meaning to appreciate the nuances of the brush through close examination.   In a way this is not that different from the variations of a theme in western music, or seeing the theme being employed and developed again and again throughout a musical piece.

Obviously in Chinese calligraphy, or in using the Chinese brush, there are none of these notations.
The knowledge hence rests in a solid Ji Ben Gong (the fundamentals ) and rote learning.  The point is, such notations are just as necessary and vital, only that they are not explicitly written down in the arena of Chinese brush calligraphy or painting.  I suppose that makes the Chinese brush a tad esoteric.  My intent therefore is to demystify the myths and hypes surrounding the Chinese brush art form and relate it to something tangible and equivalent from the western world.

Enough soliloquy, time to roll up my sleeves again.

Once I was tuned in to the resonance between music and calligraphy, I decided to prop my silhouettes of dancers against the  background of music score from Pie Jesu.

Laying down the staff was the first task.  I thought I had pretty good command of the brush but it was a humiliating experience putting the lines down with a fine brush.

I was trying to be fancy by making my own quill out of a bamboo branch.  That too was kind of disastrous.  The extemporaneously made bamboo quill had no means of holding ink in a controlled manner.  Thus it was all or nothing, resulting in deposit of puddles of ink that I had to blot off in a hurry.  I also suspected the abrasive bamboo tip scratched the surface of my Xuan into a more fibrous state, causing the ink to bleed haphazardly upon contact.  Fortunately I used a light ink for the purpose of writing down the music score.  It didn't take my long to pitch my quill and embraced my round brush again.

It is interesting in hindsight to see how my painting is constructed, borrowing from and finding inspiration from different disciplines, and different cultures.  Here my focus isn't so much on the accuracy of anatomical proportions but rather on the expressiveness of the forms.  This is not unlike Chinese calligraphy.

Just like the horse hairs on a bow caressing the strings in a fine mist of rosin, my brush too is able to course through the Xuan, seeping ink into the fibers to manifest forms; in both instances, expressing something deeper than what is superficial.

Dance Movements

I tried painting my hero's journey with dancers but I botched the work with ill placed streams of ribbons.  Conceptually I was trying to narrate a development of the journey but aesthetically it was a miserable display of disingenuous afterthoughts.

But the inclination to paint dancers never left my mind.

Every time I practiced Chinese calligraphy, especially with the walking or grass script, I invariably think of the written characters as dancers.  I pretend that each brushstroke describes a pose or a transition to a pose.  I am leaning on this thought as my inspiration to do the opposite; perhaps I can paint the dancers with the idea that each pose somehow transforms to a Chinese character.  Is it possible to use the dancers as a reflection of written words?

So I decided to paint dancers again.  I decided to paint them like stick figures, to dispense with the banal requirement to paint faces and expressions and costume.  I shall focus on the placement of the bodies and limbs of the dancers and their postures instead.  Just like a well written calligraphy which possesses balanced form and proportion and energy, I am hoping to emulate that with my dancers.  Since Chinese calligraphy is more than just an arrangement of sticks, as some store signs with faux Chinese styled bamboo alphabets would suggest, I shall paint my dancers as silhouettes.  I trust the Chinese round brush for calligraphy is perfect for this task.  With the correct amount of pressure or lift the artist can modulate the shape of the brushstroke.  These brushstrokes should be rather useful in depicting the expressiveness of the forms and the profiles of the performers.

I started to paint various poses, and whatever came to mind.  I didn't have a grand scheme of where to place my dancers or how many dancers would I be painting.  I left everything to the whims of the moment.

The brushstrokes are treated as calligraphy.  The shape of the brushstroke can be altered with judicious nudging or lifting of the brush.

The thought of treating the dancing profiles as part of the brushstrokes in the assembly of a Chinese written character helps to exude the expressiveness of the moment.

With this exercise I hope to extol the virtues of the Chinese round brush, and why the need to master the round brush is so critical, not only in Chinese calligraphy, but in Chinese brush painting.    How the buttock could be written by folding and nudging the brush to initiate the brushstroke, or leaving the brush tip exposed to form the phalanges.  There is a je ne sais quoi difference in forms painted by filling in the spaces vs that written by nothing more than a brushstroke or two.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I would be less than honest by not pointing out all the posers that I encounter in this town.  Typically these people learned a little bit about Chinese painting and then claimed to be experts and started to teach Chinese brush painting.  Whereas they totally lacked the Ji Ben Gong (fundamentals) they drew up something that looked a little exotic and passed that as Chinese painting.   I suppose one can play a lot of songs with just chords but if that's all one knows, then this person shouldn't be teaching music.  The image of Chop Suey was seared in mind.  To me that was and remains the ultimate cultural shock.  

Creating my own cloud nine

I am now ready to fill in the space above my landscape done in lotus leaf chuen.

I want to continue with my observation of contrast, especially with light values.  I am looking for a subject matter that will allow me the greatest freedom.  The logical choice for that vast expanse above the mountains is cloud.

But how do I make clouds pop on a white piece of Xuan?

Paint the clouds in various degree of grey, or black.  Or not?

I am going to be bold and unconventional.  If I can paint snow with the help of alum solution, why can't I do the same with clouds.  Obviously I need a dark sky to reveal the white clouds.  It is worth a try.

Using a clean brush, I paint in the cloud pattern with alum solution on the back of the Xuan.  I want to paint in the cumulus clouds.  Heaps of lumpy white patches.  I am trying to avoid the cirrus clouds, which will be more difficult to describe, especially with my present skill set.

Patiently waiting for the alum solution to dry, I apply a light ink wash to help reveal my alum tracks.

The top side of the painting now looks like this when dry

From this base value, I begin to darken the sky a little more to create a more pronounced contrast with the white clouds

So the darker sky definitely adds more drama to the painting.  I know a black sky is against the common wisdom but I use that to make the clouds pop.  I might have overdid it in the above example and I have obscured some of my alum tracks with the darker ink.  In retrospect I think the initial lighter sky is more interesting, with more clouds evident in the sky.  In fact the clouds look more like cirrus cloud in the lighter version, and perhaps more expressive.

Well it is a little too late to cry over spilled milk, so I double down on it by making the sky even darker, and also the right side of the mountain range a little darker, to be in complement with the darker sky.

The painting looks a little rough around the edges upon close examination.  The ruggedness however seems to have added tension and raw emotion to this work, especially when viewed from a distance, and under the right lighting.

Like any proud, new parent, I only see the good sides of my newborn; even if he/she is ugly.

This painting has contrast, has drama, has the tension of East versus West attributes.  I have tried in earnest to apply what I have learned from my previous snow paintings and stay on my path of experimentation and discovery.  What more can I demand.  I am allowed to be narcissistic and indulge myself a bit.

I am on Cloud Nine!

Application of lotus leaf Chuen

The lotus leaf chuen is one of the methods used to depict a particular feature in traditional Chinese landscape painting.  As the terminology suggests, the chuen describes undulating ridges and gulleys that fan out like the veins of a lotus leaf on the slopes of a mountain.   Here is a page from the venerable Mustard Seed Garden on that topic:

One could see this feature quite prominently from a picture taken of a mountain range from the sky

and my painting highlighting that feature:

So my new plot is to do a black and white painting with a heavy emphasis of the lotus leaf chuen.  For this exercise I am going to continue my experimentation with the alum solution.

I begin to paint on the back side of the Xuan, painting in my highlights with the alum solution.  Obviously the point of doing that is to be painting on the top side of the Xuan eventually, and allowing the alum solution to mark the brightest areas, i.e. the ridges.

The trees might look whimsical to some viewers, but this method of rendering is actually quite common in traditional Chinese brush painting.  The mountains while exemplifying the traditional style of lotus leaf chuen, exhumes little hint of a Chinese brush painting.  So yes, I am toying with the contrast not only of dark and light ( ying and yang), but also of perceived styles of painting.

The top side of the painting shows a subdued black level with mottled look

Working from the reverse side again, the light side is kept light to maintain the contrast with the much darker adjacent land masses.  I use a hair dryer to dry my brushstrokes before the ink has a chance to migrate.  I am trying to keep and preserve the harsh, rigid attributes of the mountain ranges.  I short, I am not looking for a soft, diffused appearance of my landscape.

Flipping my Xuan over, I am now looking at the top side

and now I can pick out the various spots on the painting that requires better definition 

The brushstrokes done with alum solution on the back side help to impart a look of discrete stained patches on a piece of fabric.  They are well defined and not dreamy at all.

Finishing my mountain painting

One of the unforeseen merit of the Covid-19 lockdown is that I have less distractions while confined at home.  I could only watch so many movies or run in place for so long without getting utterly bored.  It has given me a great opportunity to do the post production after the painting is done.  This is all technical and craftsmanship, nothing artistic, so to speak.  Yet the concentration it requires is a great respite from the hounding news I hear everyday.

I decided not to mount this piece on plastic or canvas.  This piece is 4 feet wide and frankly I am running out of room to display and store these larger pieces.  Mounting it the traditional Xuan on Xuan way allows the finished piece to be rolled up for storage, or displayed in a frame if needed.  It offers versatility.

Xuan on Xuan mounting involves starching a backing to the original painting.  The resulting bi-layer is then glued to a flat surface.  The process adds rigidity and provides a white balance to the painting.  The wet, starched bi-layer is allowed to dry slowly at ambient temperature and the drying process shrinks the Xuan fibers.  The backing and the painting thus pull themselves taut during the drying process, returning a perfectly flat and wrinkle free painting. 

If done right, that is.  And this is where technical know how and craftsmanship come into play.

First of all, I needed to find a large enough flat surface for me to hang and glue the 4 feet long wet painting.  I recruited a door for this purpose.

I applied masking tape on my door, around the destined parameter of my painting.  Since the painting and its backing will be glued to the door for drying, I don't want my door to be defaced by the glue, or starch in this case.  The masking tape shall form a removable barrier between the starch and the door .

My painting sat face down on a flat piece of plexiglass, starch solution covering the entire back surface.  A blank piece of Xuan, slightly larger than my painting was used to cover the starched painting.  A stiff palm husk brush was used to brush on the backing and helped to eliminate wrinkles.

The backing Xuan was wet with starch from the painting and turned transparent, revealing the painting it covered.

Layers of newspaper were then placed on the starched layers.  They served to soak up excess water from the starching process, and to protect the layers from the hard pressing and pounding by a beefier palm husk brush.  The pounding was performed to guarantee good adhesion between the painting and the backing and to pound out air bubbles and small wrinkles.

Peeling back the moist newspapers to reveal the totally flattened and well adhered backing and painting

Starch was applied along the border of the backing, and the entire assembly was taken to the prepared door, glued in place along the edges of the backing and allowed to dry.

Notice how saturated the painting looked while wet.

After a day, the backing with the painting was totally dried and appeared totally flat, as if ironing was done on it.  Now it was just a matter of cutting the painting loose and releasing it from the glued edges.

The door was left with the remnants of the backing and the masking tape.  Peeling off the masking tape revealed a totally unmarred door.

At last I have something to show for my weeks of laboring.