Description

Ink wash painting is an East Asian type ofbrush painting. Only black ink—the same as used in East Asiancalligraphy—is used, in various concentrations.

The goal of ink and wash painting is not simply to reproduce theappearance of the subject, but to capture its soul. To paint ahorse, the ink wash painting artist must understand its temperamentbetter than its muscles and bones. To paint a flower, there is noneed to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essentialto convey its liveliness and fragrance. East Asian ink washpainting may be regarded as an earliest form of expressionistic artthat captures the unseen.

East Asian ink wash painting has long inspired modern artists inthe West. In his classic book Composition, American artist andeducator Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922) wrote this about ink washpainting: "The painter ...put upon the paper the fewest possiblelines and tones; just enough to cause form, texture and effect tobe felt. Every brush-touch must be full-charged with meaning, anduseless detail eliminated. Put together all the good points in sucha method, and you have the qualities of the highest art".[2] Dow'sfascination with ink wash painting not only shaped his own approachto art but also helped free many American modernists of the era,including his student Georgia O'Keeffe, from what he called a'story-telling' approach. Dow strived for harmonic compositionsthrough three elements: line, shading, and color. He advocatedpracticing with East Asian brushes and ink to develop aestheticacuity with line and shading.

Shading in ink wash painting refers to the varying ink densityproduced by grinding an ink stick in water. Ink wash paintingartists spend years practicing basic brush strokes to refine theirbrush movement and ink flow. In the hand of a master, a singlestroke can produce astonishing variations in tonality, from deepblack to silvery gray. Thus, in its original context, shading meansmore than just dark-light arrangement, it is the basis for thebeautiful nuance in tonality unique to East Asian ink wash paintingand brush-and-ink calligraphy.