A month or so ago, I posted a Japanese ink brush painting by Sesshu, one of the earliest Japanese masters of sumi-e (Ink brush painting). Ink brush painting (also known as ink wash painting) originated in China and was adopted and adapted by the Japanese. The ink is made of particles of soot suspended in water. Colors are used in a pretty restrained manner–many paintings are only shades of gray, produced by diluting the ink to various degrees with water. Chinese ink paintings tend to be more complex, containing more brush strokes, and color is used a bit less. Japanese ink paintings tend to emphasize simplicity of form, with fewer brush strokes. Sometimes, watercolors are used to add color into ink paintings.
Years ago, I stumbled upon the work of a local artist who has studied ink brush painting quite extensively, in Japan and China. She’s an amazingly impressive person, holding a PhD from BU, and continuing to teach, consult and paint. Her scholarly field is interdisciplinary, and my best attempt to describe it would be a crossover between cultural studies, design, and urban planning (If that’s not accurate, it’s on me.) I’ve only seen her paintings online, but they are absolutely spectacular. I urge you to look at her paintings and I hope myself to be able to see some of them in person someday.
I selected one today that hews to the Japanese style of relatively few brush strokes, and is enhanced with simple watercolor. The subject is a cricket, a symbol of success and fertility. The painting conveys a lot of feeling with few brush strokes, white and a narrow range of grays, with a blue wash for the sky.
Linda Ruth Salter, sumi-e, undated
