Thursday, 17 May 2012

Intro: The Definition of Chinese Painting


Chinese Painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Chinese painting in China is known as "guo hua"(In Chinese Pin yin), which means "national" or "native painting".

We often name it " Chinese Painting", it does not mean that Japanese painting, or  Korean, or anything else is excluded. It does mean going back to the roots, to the original spirit and purpose of painting in the Far East, and this phase of art had its source in China (Cheong, 2001).

The concept of the term Chinese painting only came into use at the time when Western art was flowing in to China. After China was liberated, she began to be more tolerant of other countries' painting, and thus named her painting Chinese painting (Cheong, 2001).

Nowadays, with its open concept in policies, China has no worries about her national treasure being diminished. Water-ink Painting is being reinstated as the general term for Chinese painting in consideration of its medium used as well as a scientific term. More so for the reason that Chinese painting now exists all over the world, no longer an art monopoly of china or Taiwan (Cheong, 2001). Therefore, such painting as an expression when the principal medium is ink and water, even with colour, is commonly called Water-ink Painting.


Loquates and Mountain Bird, Chinese Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) 



Recommendation: 
Here is a video to show how to paint a Bamboo and Bird step by step, which is the basic of Chinese paintings. Paints with Chinese inks and silk dyes on rice paper. There is no pre-sketching and no reworking the brush strokes.



Reference:
 Thye Ming, C. (2001). Cheong Thye-Ming's Online Gallery. Retrieved from http://www.oocities.org/soho/gallery/9679/Chinart1.html

Photo Reference:
Loquats and mountain bird, Chinese Sourthern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), Retrieved from http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/painting/4courbf.htm

Video Reference:
Virginiald, L. (2009). Bamboo and Bird-Chinese Brush Painting by Virginia Lloyd-Davies. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=cr6HEm_kkPM&feature=fvwp

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