| Chinese traditional painting
& calligraphy |
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An important part of the country's cultural
heritage, the traditional Chinese painting
is distinguished from Western art in that it
is executed on xuan paper (or silk) with the
Chinese brush, Chinese ink and mineral and
vegetable pigments.
To attain proficiency in this branch of art
calls for assiduous exercise, a good control
of the brush, and a feel and knowledge of
the qualities of xuan paper and Chinese ink.
Before setting a brush to paper, the painter
must conceive a well-composed draft in his
mind, drawing on his imagination and store
of experience, Once he starts to paint, he
will normally have to complete the work at
one go, denied the possibility of any
alteration of wrong strokes. |
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Xuan paper, as discussed in
a previous article, is most suitable for
Chinese painting. It is of the right texture
to allow the writing brush wet with Chinese
ink and held in a trained hand, to move
freely on it, making strokes varying from
dark to light, from solid to hollow. These
soon turn out to be human figures, plants
and flowers, birds, fish and insects, full
of interest and life.
Many a Chinese painter is at the same time a
poet and calligrapher. He will often add a
poem in his own hand on the painting, which
invariably carries an impression of his
seal. The resulting piece of work is usually
an integrated whole of four branches of
Chinese art-- poetry, calligraphy, painting
and seal-cutting. Chinese paintings are
divided into two major categories: free hand
brushwork (xieyi) and detailed brushwork
(gongbi) . The former is characterized by
simple and bold strokes intended to
represent the exaggerated likenesses of the
objects, while the latter by fine brushwork
and close attention to detail. Employing
different techniques, the two schools try
to achieve the same end, the creation of
beauty.
It is difficult to tell how long the art of
painting has existed in China. Pots of
5,000-6,000 years ago were painted in colour
with patterns of plants, fabrics, and
animals, reflecting various aspects of the
life of primitive clan communities. These
may be considered the beginnings of Chinese
painting. China entered the slave society about 2000
B.C. Though no paintings of that period have
ever come to light, that society witnessed
the emergence of a magnificent bronze
culture, and bronzes can only be taken as a
composite art of painting and sculpture.
In 1949 from a tomb of the Warring States
Period (475-221 B. C.) was unearthed a
painting on silk of human figures, dragons
and phoenixes. The earliest work on silk
ever discovered in China, it measures about
30 cm long by 20 cm wide.
From this and other early paintings on silk
it may be easily seen that the ancients were
already familiar with the art of the writing
or painting brush, for the strokes show
vigour or elegance whichever was desired.
Paintings of this period are strongly
religious or mythological in themes. Paintings on paper appeared much later than
those on silk for the simple reason that the
invention of silk preceded that of paper by
a long historical period.
In 1964, when a tomb dating to the Jin
Dynasty (265- 420 A. D) was excavated at
Astana in Turpan, Xinjiang, a coloured
painting on paper was discovered. It shows,
on top, the sun, the moon and the Big Dipper
and, below, the owner of fan in his hand. A
portrayal in vivid lines of the life of a
feudal land-owner, measuring 106.5 cm long
47 cm high, it is the only known painting on
paper of such antiquity in China. |
Traditional Chinese Painting
An important part of the country's cultural
heritage, the traditional Chinese painting
is distinguished from Western art in that it
is executed on xuan paper (or silk) with the
Chinese brush, Chinese ink and mineral and
vegetable pigments.
To attain proficiency in this branch of art
calls for assiduous exercise, a good control
of die brush, and a feel and knowledge of
the qualities of xuan paper and Chinese ink. |
|
Before setting a brush to paper, the painter
must conceive a well-composed draft in his
mind, drawing on his imagination and store
of experience. Once he starts to paint, he
will normally have to complete the work at
one go, denied the possibility of any
alteration of wrong strokes.
Xuan paper, is most suitable for Chinese
painting. It is of the right texture to
allow the writing brush, wet with Chinese
ink and held in a trained hand, to move
freely on it, making strokes varying from
dark to light, from solid to hollow. These
soon turn out to be human figures, plants
and flowers, birds, fish and insects, full
of in-terest and life. Pls let us know if you also want picture frame for traditional painting, picture frame for Chinese traditional painting, picture frame for traditional paintings, picture frame for Chinese traditional paintings, picture frame for calligraphy, picture frame for Chinese calligraphy, picture frame for traditional calligraphy, picture frame for Chinese traditional calligraphy, picture frame for Chinese painting, picture frame for Chinese paintings.
Chinese paintings are divided into two major
categories: free hand brushwork (xieyi) and
detailed brushwork (gongbi). The former is
characterized by simple and bold strokes
intended to represent the exaggerated
likenesses of the objects, while the latter
by fine brushwork and close attention to
detail. Employing different techniques, the
two schools try to achieve the same end, the
creation of beauty
Traditional Chinese Calligraphy
Calligraphy is understood in China as the
art of writing a good hand with the brush or
the study of the rules and techniques of
this art. As such it is peculiar to China
and the few countries influenced by ancient
Chinese culture.
In the history of Chinese art, calligraphy
has always been held in equal importance to
painting. Great attention is also paid today
to its development by holding exhibitions of
ancient and contemporary works and by
organizing competitions among youngsters and
people from various walks of life. Sharing
of experience in this field often makes a
feature in Sino-Japanese cultural exchange.
Chinese calligraphy, like the script itself,
began with the hieroglyphs and, over the
long ages of evolution, has developed
various styles and schools, constituting an
important part of the heritage of national
culture.
Chinese scripts are generally divided into
five categories: the seal character (zhuan),
the official or clerical script (li), the
regular script (kai), the running hand
(xing) and the cursive hand (cao).
1) The Zhuan script or seal character was
the earliest form of writing after the
oracle inscriptions, which must have caused
great inconvenience because they lacked
uniformity and many characters were written
in variant forms. The first effort for the
unification of writing, it is said, took
place during the reign of King Xuan (827-782
B.C.) of the Western Zhou Dynasty, when his
taishi (grand historian) Shi Zhou compiled a
lexicon of 15 chapters, standardizing
Chinese writing under script called zhuan.
It is also known as zhouwen after the name
of the author. This script, often used in
seals, is translated into English as the
seal character, or as the "curly script"
after the shape of its strokes.
2) The lishu (official script) came in the
wake of the xiaozhuan in the same
short-lived Qin Dynasty(221-206B.C.). This
was because the xiaozhuan, though a
simplified form of script, was still too
complicated for the scribers in the various
government offices who had to copy an
increasing amount of documents. Cheng Miao,
a prison warden, made a further
simplification of the xiaozhuan, changing
the curly strokes into straight and angular
ones and thus making writing much easier. A
further step away from the pictographs, it
was named lishu because li in classical
Chinese meant "clerk" or "scriber". Another
version says that Cheng Miao, because of
certain offence, became a prisoner and slave
himself; as the ancients also called bound
slaves "li", so the script was named lishu
or the "script of a slave".
3) The lishu was already very close to, and
led to the adoption of, kaishu, regular
script. The oldest existing example of this
dates from the Wei (220-265), and the script
developed under the Jin (265-420).The
standard writing today is square in form,
non-cursive and architectural in style.The
characters are composed of a number of
strokes out of a total of eight kinds-the
dot, the horizontal, the vertical, the hook,
the rising, the left-falling (short and
long) and the right-falling strokes. Any
aspirant for the status of calligrapher must
start by learning to write a good hand in
kaishu.
4) On the basis of lishu also evolved caoshu
(grass writing or cursive hand), which is
rapid and used for making quick but rough
copies. This style is subdivided into two
schools: zhangcao and jincao. The first of
these emerged at the time the Qin was
replaced by the Han Dynasty between the 3rd
and 2nd centuries B.C. The characters,
though written rapidly, still stand separate
one from another and the dots are not linked
up with other strokes. It's also beautiful for fine traditional painting, fine Chinese traditional painting, fine traditional paintings, fine Chinese traditional paintings, fine calligraphy, fine Chinese calligraphy, fine traditional calligraphy, fine Chinese traditional calligraphy, fine Chinese painting, fine Chinese paintings.
It is the essence of the caoshu, especially
jincao, that the characters are executed
swiftly with the strokes running together.
The characters are often joined up, with the
last stroke of the first merging into the
initial stroke of the next. They also vary
in size in the same piece of writing, all
seemingly dictated by the whims of the
writer. |
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5) The xingshu or running hand is something
between the regular and the cursive scripts.
When carefully written with distinguishable
strokes, the xingshu characters will be very
close to the regular style; when swiftly
executed, they will approach the caoshu or
cursive hand. Chinese masters have always
compared with vivid aptness the three styles
of writing-kaishu, xingshu and caoshu-to
people standing, walking and running.
The best example and model for xingshu, all
Chinese calligraphers will agree, is the
Inscription on Lanting Pavilion in the hand
of Wang Xizhi (321-379) of the Eastern Jin
Dynasty. |
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