Another digression from prints–East Asian ink brush painting: week 6, Tuesday (day 4)

Long before my current fascination with prints began, I was enamored of Japanese ink brush painting (sumi-e), in a sort of desultory kind of way. I didn’t give it the same enthusiasm or intensity with which I have been lately learning about print art. One of the Japanese prints I was looking at over the weekend reminded me about ink brush painting, and I plunged into a frenzy of research, just as I have been doing with prints. Ink brush painting (also known as ink wash painting) seems to have started in China in the 7th century of the common era, and after becoming a major Chinese art form, was brought to Japan in the 14th century by Zen Buddhist monks from China. (It subsequently spread to Korea, though it never achieved the popularity there it had in China and Japan.) In China, this mode of painting was particularly associated with the intellectual upper class from whom government officials were drawn. Among this group, calligraphy and painting were almost an expectation and these artistic skills were part of how their class was distinguished from lower strata. Often, a picture had a large chunk of text calligraphed on it, and this might be a poem based on the picture, or the picture might have been inspired by the poem.

The painting technique was essentially an adaptation of Chinese calligraphy, using the same brushes and water-based ink. It is most often done in monochrome, typically black ink on white paper or on silk scrolls, though color is not unheard of (and is in fact present in today’s example). Shades of gray are created based on the degree of dilution of the ink. Unlike watercolors, once the ink is applied it is permanent and cannot be blended or moved around, which clearly influences the technique.

The commonest subject by far for ink brush paintings was landscapes, which you may have already noticed I love. Today’s painting is by Sesshu Toyo, a 15th century first-generation Japanese ink brush painter (i.e. his teacher was a Chinese artist who taught in Japan). Unlike the prints of Stow Wengenroth, the landscape is more abstract, though still very detailed. These landscapes, similar to the best print landscapes, draw me in and make me feel as if I’m in the pictured place.

As you can see, the scroll is very tall, with a significant amount of calligraphed text at the top, and then a large blank space between the text and the painting. In order to allow you to see the painting portion, I have cropped the picture below and displayed it at a larger size.