Ink and wash painting

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Ink and wash painting

Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	水墨畫
Simplified Chinese	水墨画
Pinyin	Shuǐmòhuà
Japanese name
Kanji	水墨画 or 墨絵
Hepburn Romaji	Suibokuga or Sumie
Korean name
Hangul	수묵화
Hanja	水墨畵
Revised Romanization	Sumukhwa
McCune-Reischauer	Sumukhwa
Vietnamese name
Quốc ngữ	Tranh thuỷ mặc

Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting. It is also known as wash painting, or by its Japanese names, suibokuga (水墨画) or sumi-e (墨画). Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy — is used, in various concentrations.

Wash painting developed in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and became an established style during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was introduced to Japan in the mid-14th century by Zen Buddhist monks and grew in popularity until its peak during the Muromachi period (1338-1573).

1 Tools
2 Topics
3 Noted artists
- 3.1 China
- 3.2 Japan
4 External links

[edit] Tools

In wash paintings, as in calligraphy, artists usually grind their own ink using an ink stick (sumi stick) and a grinding stone, suzuri, but prepared inks are also available. Most ink sticks are made of densely packed charcoal ash from bamboo or pine soot combined with glue extracted from fish bones (nikawa). An artist puts a few drops of water on an ink stone (suzuri) and grinds the ink stick in a circular motion until a smooth, black ink of the desired concentration is made. Ink sticks are of higher quality and are preferred for works that are to be displayed. Prepared inks are useful for practice. Sumi ink sticks can be ornately painted with landscapes or flowers in bas-relief and some can be inlaid with gold.

Wash painting brushes are the same as the brushes used for calligraphy and are traditionally made from bamboo and goat, ox, horse, sheep, rabbit, martin, badger, deer, boar or wolf hair. The brush hairs are tapered to a fine point, a feature vital to the style of wash paintings.

Once a stroke is painted, it cannot be changed or erased. This makes sumi-e a technically demanding art form requiring great skill, concentration, and years of training.

See Calligraphy for more information on the tools used in both calligraphy and wash painting.

[edit] Topics

The "Four Gentlemen" are traditional topics in Sumi-e and named for the plants they depict — the ume (梅), the orchid (蘭), the chrysanthemum (菊), and the bamboo (竹).