Way of the Brush. Fritz van Briessen

a role technique plays in Chinese painting. The complete fusion of technique and expression is something which can no longer be disregarded. Now we have only to trace the path from the elementary form to the general principle, the path along which the simple brush stroke advances to the finished work.

      CHATER

II

THE ELEMENTS OF CHINESE PAINTING

      

I

THE MATERIALS

      

THE BRUSH. During the course of Chinese history, painting brushes have been made from many different substances. The brush most used at present is a blend of the hairs of the weasel and the hare. It is a little softer than the brush used for writing. The hairs are of varying lengths, bound together in a very delicate operation. The Chinese brush has the property of running into a fine point once it has been moistened. Indeed, it becomes bushy and stiff only after the softer hairs have been quite worn away by the long use. And yet, whenever the artist desires, it can also be made to produce strokes of varying degrees of broadness or even to split into two or more points to produce multiple lines with a single stroke. This explains why, in an ink painting, normally only a single brush is used throughout, this being quite sufficient for the painting of everything from the finest hair stroke to the broadest areas of wash. As a matter of fact it has become axiomatic that, excepting the possible addition of color with other brushes, only one brush should be used for an ink painting, thereby preserving a unity of style in the brushwork.

      

THE INK. The ink of the Sung period was made from pine soot mixed together with glue and other ingredients, all being compressed into small inksticks, which were decorated with characters or pictures. This ink was jet black and dull—that is, without luster. Since the Ming period, Chinese painters have preferred ink made from lampblack. This ink is slightly bluish and has an almost metallic gleam. Good inksticks are very light in weight, rather brittle, and, when broken, seem to have a crystalline character.

      Before beginning to paint, the artist always prepares fresh ink. This is done by rubbing an inkstick in water on an inkstone, an action which for the Chinese artist has as much psychological importance in the preparing of the mind for the work at hand as it has practical application and has long been regarded as an almost sacred rite.

      The finer the grain of the inkstone, the smoother the ink and the longer time needed for grinding. The ink is ready for use when it reaches an almost oily consistency, running heavily and sluggishly back down the trails which the inkstick leaves behind on the sloping surface of the stone. By that time the rather sharp noise of the grinding has become muffled and softer. With the gradual evaporation of the water, the mixture becomes still more concentrated.

      Sometimes ink is taken onto the brush directly from the inkstone. But, in order to judge and control the thickness, the more usual practice is to take the ink with the brush from the stone into a small porcelain dish. More water may be added as desired to produce the amazingly rich variety of tones of which India ink is capable, from the deepest black to the most delicate pearl-gray. This richness of tone was perhaps one of the reasons why the Chinese inclined toward ink painting, which produces its pictorial effects not with colors but simply with ink tones and brush technique.

      

THE COLORS. As noted above, ink is the primary medium of Chinese painting. Even when colors are used, with the exception of the boneless painting to be discussed later, they are simply an adjunct to the ink, being superimposed on or filled in between the inked strokes, which usually show through the colors even in the completed picture. For colors, mineral and vegetable pigments are used exclusively. They are available either in the form of color sticks, similar to the inkstick, in which case they already contain glue and are rubbed on an inkstone for colors, or more commonly in powdered form and are made ready by the painter by adding glue and usually hot water just before he wants to use them. Some of the colors, particularly in the more concentrated mixtures, are opaque and do not let the underlying ink strokes show through, thus producing a gouache-like effect, while the thinner colors and mixtures have more of the quality of water colors.

      Chinese painting took over the usual mineral and vegetable colors used in all early painting. The most important mineral colors are azurite blue (shih ch'ing), malachite green (shih lü), umber (chih shih), and white lead (ch'ien fen). The main vegetable colors are indigo (hua ch'ing) and rattan yellow (t'eng huang). Among the mixed colors tsao lü, a mixture of indigo and rattan yellow, and chih mo, a mixture of umber and ink, are the most important.

      Among the vegetable colors, rattan yellow is obtained from the same kind of reed from which in medieval Europe the color known as dragon's blood was obtained, but the dragon's blood, probably because it was more concentrated, was red in color. Rattan yellow (like dragon's blood) is poisonous, and every Chinese painter is careful not to test the brush with his tongue when it is filled with rattan yellow.

      This typically Chinese custom of tongue testing may be briefly mentioned here. Painters control and alter the contents of their brushes with the tongue. They seem to have developed a special aptitude for gauging how much ink or color a brush has by feeling the dampness of it on their tongues. And they use saliva to regulate the ink flow, especially those who paint with a relatively dry brush. It is probably almost impossible to tell whether this method has been used merely by looking at a finished painting. Nevertheless, one Chinese professor of our own time has managed to write a scholarly essay on the control of ink by the tongue in the paintings of Ni Tsan.

      The two most important mineral colors, azurite blue and malachite green, are prepared by the artist shortly before use. They settle in four main layers in the mixing dish, the bottom layer being the thickest. This thickest layer, called t'ou ch'ing or t'ou lü (literally, "top blue" or "top green") is opaque; the second layer is less opaque; and the third and fourth are transparent. The painter reaches the different layers with his brush by shoving aside the upper layers and going down in the paint dish to the layer he wants. This layering effect becomes important when we come to consider such styles as the still to be discussed blue-green style (see page 116).

      Other frequently used colors include vermilion(chu sha), mineral yellow (shih huang), foreign red (yang hung), and French red (mutan hung). But lapis lazuli is almost never used.

      

THE PAINTING SURFACE. The painting surface used is paper or silk, placed flat on a table rather than on an easel in the Western manner. Chinese paper is of many qualities and kinds, often sized and treated with glue. Silk is always sized and glued before use. In earlier times the artists sized and glued their own papers and silks, but nowadays these are also available ready for use.

      As has often been proved, Chinese painters—particularly the modern ones—prefer paper rather than silk as a painting surface. One explanation that is always given is that paper lasts longer and can better withstand the ravages of time.

      

SEALS AND COLOPHON. In Chinese painting, seals and a colophon have become an integral part of the picture. The artist usually impresses two seals on a painting, one carved to produce red characters and the other to leave the character in white against a red background. Both give different versions of the artist's real and professional names. Owners of paintings also often add their own seals in some corner of the picture. Cinnabar is used for making the red color used for seals and, if of high quality, can be quite expensive. A good seal color will not fade for hundreds of years, and a firm and equal pressure on the seal will insure an imprint that will remain legible practically throughout the life of the painting. As in the case of all other materials, the matter of seals and