What do artists think of chinese style ink paintings?

Question

I'm just curious as to what you think of them either artistically or technically.

 

I personally think they're deceptively difficult because of the dynamism of the strokes.

Answer 1

I disagree about difficulty. There are rules about how to make the strokes and with a little wrist, finger, hand and eye training, I found it fairly easy. If you have someone teaching you, not a video, but live, you can accomplish the different strokes easily. It's simply ink lines with the brush actually making the different lines based on brush position, rotation, and variation in brush pressure, you call dynamism.(good description) I think composition is especially important in ink painting and pleasing artistically.

I took several classes in Chinese brush painting and after learning how to do blossoms, limbs and bamboo, the challenge went away. The rules kind of took away creative freedom and didn't leave much room to go.

Answer 2

I love chinese ink paintings, especiall the xieyi kind. I believe one of the main reasons they are difficult is because much space is left blank and thus one mistake is enough to ruin the painting. While I did not yet take any courses in it, I disagree that it is just about learning the different brushstrokes and applying them. Unlike western art, Chinese painting is more about the WHAT than the HOW. The technique for getting a chinese-like aestethic might not take too long to learn, but it is what you do using the technique that matters more. The goal in xieyi is to capture the essence, not the physical likeness, of things, and to convey an idea, such as the bendable yet straigjt bamboo representing virtuous humans, or the scarce human settlements in huge landscapes showing our insignificance. While anyone can learn the basic technique and create preety images in chinese ink, few will achieve paintings that tell of a story, philosophy, thought or emotion like those of masters such as Ni Zan and Shen Zhou.

 

Answer 3

Yes they are deceptively difficult. And brilliant. They've influenced

many western artists and continue to do so. I've given it a go

myself and would like to do more. I really enjoyed the process and 

whole philosophy behind it. It's very zen. The idea of freedom and 

control existing in the line or mark at the same time. It's a mental 

and emotional process of letting go and decision making. Rice paper 

is very absorbent and Chinese brushes very expressive. Less is

definitely more.