Modes of Expression of Chinese Painting

Six Cannons

Not to use ink brush to draw the contours of object, but directly shape the object by dotting and dyeing with color, is the Boneless painting. There was “Boneless Landscape” in the Tang Dynasty, and Huang Quan in the Five Dynasties outlined the flowers with very thin lines, which almost disappeared after coloring, thus is called boneless flowers and branches. Northern Song Dynasty’s Xu Chongsi didn’t even outline with ink lines when painting flowers, but only used color, was called “boneless picture”. Yun Shouping in the early Qing Dynasty drew experiences from both ancient and modern times, used the method in painting flower, bamboo, poultry and worm, and carried forward the mode.

Describes all kinds of outlining methods of the drapes of ancient clothes. The book <Introduction and Initiation of Painting> written by Zou Dezhong in the Ming Dynasty says: “there are 18 methods of outlining at all times”, which are: 1) ancient hairspring outlining (extremely fine lines by stylus); 2) string outlining (a bit thicker); 3) wire outlining (more thicker); 4) floating clouds and flowing water outlining; 5) leech outlining (similar to orchid leaf outlining); 6) nail head and mouse tail; 7) mixed traces; 8) wooden peg head (bald brush outlining); 9) Cao’s outlining (there are two different sayings, one says Cao Zhongda used it, one says Cao Buxing started it); 10) folded reed outlining (slender lines by sharp brush); 11) olive outlining; 12) jujube seed outlining (using sharp but big brush); 13) willow leaf outlining; 14) bamboo leaf outlining; 15) trembling brush watermark outlining (rough bold coarse brush); 16) coarse brush; 17) firewood brush (another kind of rough bold coarse brush); 18) earthworm outlining. The outlining methods above are named according to the shape of brushstrokes used by Figure painters from all times and schools to illustrate the clothes drapes.

A term for brushwork in Chinese Painting. A stroke going along is called “draw”, and going athwart is called “carve”; or a single stroke is “draw”, and back stroke is “carve”; or a stroke from left to right is “draw”, while a stroke from right to left is “carve”. Usually it’s used to sketch the contours of object. Color is added after outline sketching, equivalent to “boneless” and “spotting and clustering” in technique. Since any object’s outline is basically sketched with two strokes join together, one left and one right, or one up and one down, so it’s also called “double draw”. Outline sketching requires powerful strokes, <The Postscript of Dadizi Inscription Poem> written by Yuan Ji in the Qing Dynasty says: “sketching led by enlightened spirit, the brush lines are similar to that of seal character and official script.”

Chinese Painting relies much on the techniques of brushwork. The formal aesthetic requirements for brush strokes are: number one is withered but moist, means the lines should be both vigorous and rich and smooth, withered strokes take the spirit and wet strokes take moisture; number two is to couple toughness with gentleness, means the strokes be able to “linger (left and right) and pitch (up and down), hold the unrestrained spirit, tough as iron lines and gentle as silver curves” (said Ouyang Xun), so to reach the highest formal aesthetic state of brushworks; number three is to have both character and rhyme, to achieve the unity of content and form, the figure of object virtually has the rhyme of line movement.

Which is the “specific coloring of different objects” in the Six Cannons. The coloring of Chinese Painting mostly follow the original colors of the objects, doesn’t care much about the influence and change of the light, can be divided into two schools - rich-color and light-color. Rich-color takes coloring as the main expression instrument, often use outline sketching and color adding method, the coloring technique is very complicated, there is a saying of “three vitrioling and nine dying”. Light-color has two styles - meticulous and freehand, meticulous light-coloring still relies on outlining, coloring only plays a foiling roll, the times of coloring usually ranges from one to three; freehand light-coloring is often used with ink-and-wash, with the method of touch-coloring, to have an effect of blending color and ink.

Shading is used in Chinese Landscape Painting to limn the textures of rocks and trees. Those used for rocks include: hemp-fiber shading, strait-rub shading, raindrop shading, cirrus shading, raveled-rope shading (vertical and horizontal, widely used by different schools of painters, Wang Meng developed it into a shape of gracile and flying curve, and is called “hairspring-in-the-air” shading), ox-hair shading, lotus-leaf shading, long axe-cut shading (also called “rain hitting on the wall shading”), short axe-cut shading, big axe-cut shading, watered axe-cut shading, ghost-face-cut shading, rice-spot shading (first mop up narrowly with water the big and small slopes of mountain, and then spot by brush crosswise with ink dip, also called “dropping eggplant technique”, invented by Mi Fu and

In Chinese Painting, “ink” is not only a color of black, but considered a material of plentiful diversifications, which can be independently used to complete a painting. The so called “five tints” refer to charred black, heavy black, strong black, light black, and pale black, or heavy black, light black, dry black, wet black, and dark black, to describe the abundant meanings of the changes of ink colors, to vividly depict the color of objects by adjust the color of ink with water to heavy or light, dry or wet.

The techniques used in Chinese Ink-and-wash Painting. The commonly used are heavy ink, light ink, break ink, splash ink, amass ink, charred ink, and over-night ink; the so called break ink technique is to use heavy ink to break into light ink, or the vise versa, to make the color of heavy ink and light ink infiltrate and set off one another, to attain a moist, fresh and vivid effect; splash ink is a technique of bold and unconstrained, as if the ink is splashed out; amass ink is a technique of repeatedly adding ink of different tints; over-night ink is to use dried up ink stored over-night, which is very dark.