Focusing on Chinese brushwork
Dear Friends,
It's now time for me to introduce the technique of Chinese brushwork.
Although there are numerous Chinese writings on the principles and theories of brushwork, there is not much material dealing specifically with its techniques. The best known manual, Mastard Seed Garden which is primarily a manual on paintings by Wang Kai and other artists of the Ch'ing dynasty (17th century), when faced with explaining a difficult technical problem, often evades the issue with the sentence: "It can only be perceived, but cannot be conveyed by words."
In this section I will attempt to clarify some of these puzzling aspects of Chinese brushwork. But, first, an explanation of the tools of the art.
The tools used in Chinese art are neither numerous nor complicated. The principal ones are the so-called "four gems of study", namely, the brush, the paper, the ink and the inkstone.
The major tool is the brush. Its invention dates back several millions of years. Due to its flexibility, in one stroke the form of various objects, such as a bud, a claw, or a feather can be produced. The principal material for the brush head is animal fur. In fact, any animal fur can be used, but the most common are weasel, deer, rabbit and goat. Some are hard furs, and others, soft.
Therefore, brushes are generally classified into two categories: Chian Hao (hard-type furs) and Jou Hao (soft-type furs). The former, such as weasel, have more elasticity; the latter, such as goat, are softer and therefore weaker in their spring. Needless to say, the strong fur brushes offer more support in making a firm line, as a steel pen would. However, many professional artists favor goat-hair brushes, for the mere reason that a softer-fur brush, though harder to control, offers more possibilities in the variations of the strokes.
Manufacturers of brushes can be found everywhere in China. The most famous place is Hu Chow in Che-Kiang province, near the famous Lake Tai Hu, not far from Shanghai. The brushes produced there, called Hu Pi, are noted for their excellent quality.
Only the fur from healthy animals should be used, and the longer the hair, the more desirable. Clusters of fur with hair of equal length are used to make cone-shaped brushes in varying sizes. Grease must be carefully removed from the hair to enable it to hold ink and water. The hair is then blended with plant fibers, usually hemp, to obtain the desired degree of softness. The fibers are also used to hold the bristles together when the brush is saturated with water or ink.
The clusters are combed (with a short-toothed, longhandled comb, about 1" X 10"' made either of wood or buffalo horn), washed thoroughly, and trimmed to eliminate all hair which is not uniform. A suitable number of these clusters are selected and treated with an adhesive to form the rounded brush head, and give it its conical shape. The root ends are cut flat. Each fur cone is encased with a thin layer of pure fur to give it a decorative sheath.
A brush head is thoroughly dried and inserted into a holder, (usually bamboo but, at times, wood, horn, ivory, or even porcelain) in which an indentation about a quarter-of-an-inch has been cut to receive the flat brush end. This is glued in with molten rosin. Too much rosin can cause the bamboo to crack; too little, the brush will not stay in securely. The holder should be stiff, straight, and with little defect in texture. The brush head is finally given a protective glue coating and fitted with a cap.
The most commonly used brushes fall into two major categories -- those used for writing larger characters called Ta-Kai-Pi, and the smaller ones, for letters or documents, known as Hsiao-Kai- Pi.
When using a new brush, its protective glue coating must be thoroughly washed in lukewarm water and the bristles gently loosened. The cover which comes with a new brush will not fit the head once the protective coating is washed, and should be discarded. After each use, the brush should be washed thoroughly and hung to air dry, or wrapped in a bamboo mat.
-- David Kwo