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Ink and wash painting

 
Ink and Wash Painting

 
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Ink and wash painting
 
 
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Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting
Brush painting

The art of brush painting using brush and ink is of Chinese origin, but has developed extensively throughout the region. This article outlines the basic foundation, history, and techniques of this art, and then directs the reader to national schools: Chinese brush painting, Korean brush painting, Vietnamese brush painting, Japanese brush pain...
 also known as wash painting or by its Japanese name sumi-e. Ink and wash painting is also known by its Chinese name shui-mo hua (???, Japanese
Japanese language

IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
 , Korean
Korean language

Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....
  sumukhwa). Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy
East Asian calligraphy

The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use or used Chinese characters. These include China, Japan, Korea, and to a lesser extent, Vietnam....
 — is used, in various concentrations.

painting developed in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 during the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an Dynasties in Chinese history preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire....
 (618-907).






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Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting
Brush painting

The art of brush painting using brush and ink is of Chinese origin, but has developed extensively throughout the region. This article outlines the basic foundation, history, and techniques of this art, and then directs the reader to national schools: Chinese brush painting, Korean brush painting, Vietnamese brush painting, Japanese brush pain...
 also known as wash painting or by its Japanese name sumi-e. Ink and wash painting is also known by its Chinese name shui-mo hua (???, Japanese
Japanese language

IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....
 , Korean
Korean language

Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....
  sumukhwa). Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy
East Asian calligraphy

The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use or used Chinese characters. These include China, Japan, Korea, and to a lesser extent, Vietnam....
 — is used, in various concentrations.

History

Wash painting developed in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 during the Tang Dynasty
Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an Dynasties in Chinese history preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire....
 (618-907). Wang Wei is generally credited as the painter who applied color to existing ink and wash paintings. The art was further developed into a more polished style during the Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling Chinese dynasty in China between 960–1279 AD; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty....
 (960-1279). It was introduced to Korea shortly after China's discovery of the ink. Then, the Korean missionaries in Japan, in helping the Japanese establish a civilized settlement introduced it to Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
 in the mid-14th century.

Tools

In wash paintings, as in calligraphy, artists usually grind their own ink stick over an ink stone
Ink stone

An inkstone is literally a stone mortar for the grinding and containment of ink. Traditional Chinese ink was usually solidified into sticks for easier transport and preservation....
 to obtain ink
India ink

India ink , or less commonly called Chinese ink since it may have been first developed in either India or China, is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing, and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comics and comic strips....
, but prepared inks are also available. Most ink sticks are made of either pine
Pine

Pines are Pinophyta trees in the genus Pinus, in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species....
 soot
Soot

Soot is a general term that refers to impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolyzed fuel particles such as cenospheres, charred wood, petroleum coke, etc....
 or oil soot combined with animal glue
Animal glue

An animal glue is an adhesive that is created by prolonged boiling of animal connective tissue.These protein colloid glues are formed through hydrolysis of the collagen from skins, bones, tendons, and other tissues, similar to gelatin....
 . An artist puts a few drops of water on an ink stone
Ink stone

An inkstone is literally a stone mortar for the grinding and containment of ink. Traditional Chinese ink was usually solidified into sticks for easier transport and preservation....
 and grinds the ink stick in a circular motion until a smooth, black ink of the desired concentration is made. Prepared inks are usually of much lower quality. Sumi themselves are sometimes ornately decorated with landscapes or flowers in bas-relief and some are highlighted with gold.

Wash painting brushes are similar to the brushes used for calligraphy and are traditionally made from bamboo
Bamboo

The bamboos are a group of woody perennial plant evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae....
 with goat
Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
, ox, horse
Horse

The horse is a hoofed mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolution of the horse over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, odd-toed ungulate animal of today....
, sheep
Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
, rabbit
Rabbit

Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are seven different genus in the family taxonomy as rabbits, including the European rabbit , Cottontail rabbit , and the Amami rabbit ....
, marten
Marten

The Martens constitute the genus Martes within the subfamily Mustelinae, in family Mustelidae. They are slender, agile, animals, adapted to living in taigas, and are found in coniferous and northern deciduous forests across the northern hemisphere....
, badger
Badger

Badger is the common name for a specific group of carnivora mammals, which belong to the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, ferrets, wolverines, and relatives....
, deer
Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae . A number of broadly similar animals from related families within the order even-toed ungulate are often also called deer....
, boar
Boar

The wild boar , or colloquially simply called the boar, is an omnivorous, wikt:gregarious mammal of the family Suidae. It is native across much of Central Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and much of Asia as far south as Indonesia, and has been introduced elsewhere....
 or wolf hair. The brush hairs are tapered to a fine point, a feature vital to the style of wash paintings.

Different brushes have different qualities. A small wolf-hair brush that is tapered to a fine point can deliver an even thin line of ink (much like a pen). A large wool brush (one variation called the big cloud) can hold a large volume of water and ink. When the big cloud brush rains down upon the paper, it delivers a graded swath of ink encompassing myriad shades of gray to black.

See Calligraphy
Calligraphy

Calligraphy is the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" ....
 for more information on the tools used in both calligraphy and wash painting.

Noted artists

Sesshutoyo

China

  • Bada Shanren
  • Su Shi
    Su Shi

    Su Shi was a List of Chinese authors, List of Chinese language poets, artist, East Asian calligraphy, pharmacologist, and statesman of the Song Dynasty, and one of the major poets of the Song era....
  • Daqian Jushi
  • Qi Baishi
    Qi Baishi

    Qi Baishi was a Chinese painter.Born to a peasant from Xiangtan, Hunan, Qi became a carpenter at 14, and learned to paint by himself. After he turned 40, he travelled, visiting famous scenic spots in China....
  • Xu Beihong
    Xu Beihong

    Xu Beihong was primarily known for his shuimohua of horses and birds and one of the first Chinese artists to articulate the need for artistic expressions that reflected a new modern China at the beginning of the 20th century....
  • Mi Youren
  • Gao Xingjian
    Gao Xingjian

    Gao Xingjian , is a France Zhonghua Minzu ?migr? novelist, dramatist and critic, who received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is also a noted translator, particularly of Samuel Beckett and Eug?ne Ionesco, a stage director and a celebrated painter....


Japan

  • Sesshu
  • Josetsu
    Josetsu

    Josetsu fl. was one of the first suiboku style Zen Buddhism Japanese painters in the Muromachi Period . He was probably also a teacher of Shubun at the Shokoku-ji monastery in Kyoto....
  • Shubun
    Shubun

    Tensho Shubun was a Japanese people painter in the Muromachi period and a Zen Buddhist monk, and - for some time - abbot at the Shokoku-ji temple in Kyoto....

See also

  • Chinese art
    Chinese art

    Chinese art is art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese people artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures....
  • Chinese painting
    Chinese painting

    Chinese painting is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures....
  • Japanese painting
    Japanese painting

    is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese arts, encompassing a wide variety of genre and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the history Japanese painting is a long history of synthesis and competition between native Japanese aesthetics and adaptation of imported ideas....
  • Korean painting
    Korean painting

    Korean painting includes paintings made in Korea or by overseas Koreans on all surfaces. It includes art as old as the petroglyphs through post-modern conceptual art using transient forms of light....
  • Four Gentlemen
    Four Gentlemen

    The "Four Gentlemen", also called the Four Noble Ones or Four Friends, in Chinese art refers to four plants: the orchid, the bamboo, the chrysanthemum, and the Prunus mume blossom....
  • Bird-and-flower painting
    Bird-and-flower painting

    Bird-and-flower painting is a kind of Chinese painting named after its subject matter. Normally, most bird-and-flower paintings belong to the scholar-artist style of Chinese painting....


External links