Asia Blog: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam

• “Shi” configuration or potential born of configuration

We’re going to talk today all about Chinese painting as a broad topic. The style of Chinese painting we’re all familiar with really has its roots in the Song dynasty, and is done in the rest of Imperial Chinese history. So, it’s a topic that lends itself to a general non-chronological treatment.

This atypical painting of the Emperor tilling the earth is that it’s a straightforward painting of a narrative scene and that it’s been influenced by European art. There are too many people for a traditional Chinese painting, it’s too dense, and only the clouds looks abstract and Chinese. Also, linear point perspective identifies it as Western.

If you look at a typical abstract Chinese painting, they’re basically monochrome with big empty spaces and then detailed space. Typically Chinese landscape paintings give a distinct partition of the white space, in contrast to small sections of dense, dark, intricate detail.

Prominent features include mist, twisted trees, and mountains. The distinct feature is the ability to render in 2 dimensions something lifelike and energetic.

Writing in Chinese calligraphy is said to reveal the moral nature of your soul. Until you are able to produce living words, you teacher will have you write the same character over and over.

“Shi” is a word that has not been well translated into English. This is a kind of potential energy that is inherent in the overall configuration of any given event or scenario. Imagine a crossbow cocked and ready to go—this has huge “shi.” Painters use this to describe how they hang large rocks over the heads over their victims, or rather, the potential energy of the layouts of their paintings.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 5:57 pm and is tagged with chinese landscape paintings, traditional chinese painting, narrative scene, chinese calligraphy, song dynasty, point perspective, distinct feature, moral nature, intricate detail, empty spaces, chinese history, potential energy, european art, white space, painters, partition, layouts, emperor, clouds, rocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

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