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- Garden Painting Manual printed in 1679 described and illustrated much of his vocabulary of techniques.
Paintings under the succeeding Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) continued along the lines laid down by Dong Qichang. However, the painting tradition split into several divergent trends. In the early part of the Qing period, there is a great richness in the range and quality of painting styles but a rough distinction may be made between orthodox and individualist style. The latter artists valued eccentricity, originality and all sorts of individual freedoms.
The orthodox literati tradition, showing esteem for the great Yuan masters and Dong Qichang, was developed by the Six Great masters of the early Qing: Wang Shimin, Wang Yuanqi, Wang Hui, Wang Jian, Yun Shouping and Wu Li. Soft formations of mountains and round patches of vegetation are characteristic of their paintings. The individualists are much less easy to categorize. Some of the greatest individualist painters are divided into different groups such as: the Eight Masters of Nanjing, the Masters of Xinan, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, and the Monk-painters. Paintings by these people can often be interpreted as being their own private protest against the Court paintings of that time and against the Manchu occupation of China.
For most of the 19th century, Chinese painting tended to look back at what it used to be, and in many ways became nothing more than a nostalgic evocation of a glorious past. During the 20th century there were some eccentric artists, namely Chen Hengke, Chang Dai-chien and C.C. Wong, who tried to revive the painting style and lifestyle of the Chinese literati as well as mingle in fresh ideas and colours.
The Literati�s Desk
All of the appurtenances on the scholar�s desk were for practical use, the most important being the essentials: brush, ink and inkstone, and paper, called the ��Four Treasures.� The Chinese wrote with the brush for as far back as we can trace Chinese writing at least three and a half millennia ago, with some evidence for a considerably earlier beginning. This is different from writing in early Mesopotamia, where writing was done with a stylus on wet clay tablets, followed later in the eastern Mediterranean with the use of a stylus on waxed tablets. Early use of the brush also meant the early development of ink. By two thousand years ago, ink was made in cakes or sticks, which had to be ground and mixed with water before use. At first the ink cakes were ground on specially prepared old bricks and then special stones were used. The Chinese first wrote on wooden or bamboo vertical slips, which were bound together with cords or leather thongs and rolled into a scroll. This is why Chinese writing developed its vertical format. By over twenty-five hundred years ago, other than utilitarian writing was done on a silk roll. Two thousand years ago, this was partially replaced by paper (made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree and other fibres, not rice) as a cheaper substitute for silk and a more practical medium for writing than rolls of wooden slips. The literati found that paper allowed for a more expressive brushstroke than silk, and it slowly became the preferred material.
As the tools for writing are the same as those for painting, the two became virtually synonymous over time. All literati were experts with the brush and could paint competently, if not expertly. Calligraphy, however, remained for the literati artists the most important and expressive mode of visual art.
The brushes were made of different types of animal hair depending on the type of stroke desired, often in combinations, with one type of hair being on the inside and another type
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