Artifacts 1. A Brush with Wisdom (13 of 19)

Artifacts

Brush and ink work together to convey the artist's spirit when painting this immortal.
Mountains fading into the distance were rendered by washes of light ink or blue color alone without preliminary outlines and modeling.
The third treasure is paper, which was invented in China some 2,000 years ago.
Before that the Chinese wrote on thin strips of bamboo, which they would roll up into cumbersome scrolls.
The emergence of calligraphy as an art was made possible by the use of paper as a medium, because its absorbency enabled it to catch every nuance of the writer's touch more effectively than the bamboo surface.

The fourth and final treasure is the inkstone, which is used as a surface to grind down the inkstick and mix it with water.
A highly prized item, fine examples are passed from one generation to the next.
We keep a lot of inkstones, like different type of inkstones.
And inkstones you must massage it everyday.
See you hold it and you massage.
And you'll find in the winter, when you rub it, very cold the weather very cold and you'll hopefully sweat.
Why? Because all these acupuncture points in your hand here.
You massage, you touch it and there's a relationship, a friendship, a love for the ink.
So this is my biggest inkstone.
I brought it back from China.
Very heavy...
I don't know how many tons it is.
The unique set of tools used by painters influenced the unique look of Chinese paintings.
Their painting techniques also heavily influenced the look and composition of these paintings.
Many Westerners assume that the Chinese painters had no grasp of western realistic painting techniques, for if they had, they would have used them.