Chinese ink painting is a traditional art that is over three thousand years old. Chinese ink painting stresses the notion of "implicit meaning" in which painters use a minimum amount of strokes to express their deepest feelings. Chinese landscape painting plays a prominent role in Chinese ink painting. In Chinese landscape painting, rocks are major objects owing to their ability to create the mood of paintings. Artists use the Chinese character Ts’un, also meaning wrinkles, to represent texture strokes applied to rock formations. Over the centuries, masters of Chinese landscape painting developed various Ts’un techniques, which form the basis of an artist’s training. Chinese landscape painting with texture strokes is characterized by the following procedure:
1. An artist begins to visualize a land formation with external contours, which define the overall shape. Internal contour, as added to imply folds on the slopes, reveals the position and direction of the ridge and determines its volume.
2. After the internal contours are defined, texture strokes are applied in the area.
3. Texture stroke is used to symbolize the rock formation.
4. Finally, the brush moves along the path of the stroke and deposits ink on the rice paper.
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-Of relevant interest is more thoroughly understand Chinese art by analyzing basic rules of Chinese painting. The application of the ink and brush is an essential element of landscape painting techniques. In the remainder of this chapter, the first introduction is the properties of Chinese ink and the four treasures. Besides, six major rock textures are also described in section 3.2.
3.1 Properties of Chinese Ink
Chinese ink painting uses four tools, commonly called the “four treasures“(文房四寶). Figure 3.1 depicts The Four Treasures - brush, ink stick (墨), ink stone (硯台) and paper. They are all used in calligraphy, writing and painting in China. The bristles of the brush touch the surface of the paper, and the ink in the bristles seeps into the highly absorbent paper, creating a stroke whose edge is fluffy and blurred. These characteristics of diffusion represent complex physical phenomena that cannot be accurately simulated by conventional graphical techniques such as texture mapping or degradation functions, since a purely mathematical method generally results in flatly blurred images that are unlike realistic diffusion images.
Figure 3.1: the four treasures of Chinese ink painting.
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-The ink is a kind of colloidal liquid and diffusion phenomena can be considered as typical instances of the diffusion of a colloidal liquid in a highly absorbent paper. The capillary effect importantly causes ink to diffuse into the structure of the paper. Typical paper consists of fibers in random positions and directions; small holes and spaces among the fibers act as thin capillary tubes that carry water away from the area in which it is initially applied, causing diffusion.
Capillary phenomenon, a physical mechanism, is an important factor that causes the ink diffusion in the paper structure. In Figure 3.2, a thin tube is placed in a container filled with water with one end in the water and the other end in the air. The liquid will rise inside the tube and the liquid surface inside the tube is higher than the surface of the outside water. This phenomenon can also be observed in the ink diffusion in paper. The typical paper is composed of fibers which are positioned in random position and random direction in which small holes and spaces between fibers act as thin capillary tubes for carrying water away from the initial area, and create diffusion, as shown in Figure 3.3.
Figure 3.2 : The capillary phenomenon.
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-Figure 3.3 : The real ink diffusion effect.
Besides the capillarity, the forces that move the ink include interactions among water molecules, water and carbons, and the force due to gravity, among others. The black ink is a dilute mixture of water and colloidal black carbon particles, which diffuse into paper in the absorbed water. Water and carbon are the two main constituents of Chinese ink and the motion of ink in the fibers as simulated as chaotic will be discussed in Chapter 4.
3.2 Rock Texture Strokes (Ts’un)
Rocks are primary objects in Chinese landscape painting because of their power to create the mood. Artists use the Chinese character TSUN, also meaning wrinkles, to represent texture strokes when applied to rock formations. Over the centuries, masters of Chinese landscape painting developed various TSUN techniques. In the Tang dynasty, the range of subjects in painting expanded and landscape became established as a distinct category. Chinese landscape painting provided a more spontaneous style that captured images in abbreviated
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-suggestive forms. Chinese landscape painting has been cultivated by masters through a long evolution, into an exquisite art form.
The Chinese Ts’un depicts texture in Chinese painting. Ts’un represents a rough, cracked surface. Ts’un refers to woven strokes that depict the texture of rocks. According to “The Mustard Seed Garden” (芥子園畫譜), published in 1679, 19 texture strokes were recognized by the time of the Ching Dynasty (清朝). These texture strokes are the most important elements of Chinese landscape painting. Different kinds of texture strokes are used to represent different kinds of mountain. For example, granite mountains which always appear as squares or pyramids, are always painted using axe-cut strokes. Meanwhile, sedimentary mountains, which have a striated or layered texture, can be painted using hemp fiber strokes.
Topographically, old flat lands are always painted using hemp-fiber strokes. When old lands rise up and are cut by rivers, they are treated as new and may be painted using axe-cut strokes.
Moreover, young land that is eroded by rain and rivers and becomes softer can be painted using hemp-fiber strokes and lotus-leaf strokes (荷葉皴). All mature texture strokes may be divided into three groups, as follows.
1. Dot texture strokes, including raindrop strokes (雨點皴), Mi dots and half-bean strokes (豆瓣皴), among others.
2. Line texture strokes, including long hemp fiber strokes, short hemp fiber strokes, lotus leaf strokes and ox-hair strokes (牛毛皴), among others.
3. Plane texture strokes, including big axe-cut strokes and small axe-cut strokes.
Chinese artists use points, lines, planes and brushstrokes to depict nature. A painter of Chinese landscapes must understand both nature and ink brush technique. The proposed
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-method simulates texture strokes, as will be discussed in greater detail in the chapter 6 and chapter 7.
In the development of texture strokes in Chinese landscape painting prior to the tenth century, the Chinese only used outlines to depict rocks and mountains, but they did not yet use texture strokes. Within the outlines, ink shading was applied. Later artists attempted to substitute ink shading for the texture strokes. Generally, texture strokes are applied using six techniques. Figure 3.4 shows these six kinds of texture strokes painted by Liu [24].