An example of the mixed painting of the "Eighteen Strokes" technique of Chinese painting
An example of the ancient gossamer painting of the "Eighteen Strokes" technique of Chinese painting
Fan Meijun
Cultural traditions are a flowing river, and each era has a shining point. In the ancient Chinese painting tradition, especially in the figure painting department, the expressiveness and stylism of the lines have been valued by successive generations of painters, and finally summarized as "eighteen strokes".
The industry generally agrees with Wang Shixiang's statement, believing that the Ming Dynasty Zou Dezhong's book "Painting Things Refer to Meng" first proposed this concept, and the earliest Qiantang Hongnan School engraving was written during the Jiajing period. The fourth episode of the Qing Dynasty's "Mustard Garden Painting Biography", "Character Nest Xun Linben", quotes the text of the late Ming Dynasty Wang Zhenyu's "Coral Net", saying: "Ming Wang Zhenyu on ancient and modern clothing pattern depiction method 18 and so on." "The following lines of depiction are: ancient gossamer drawing, string drawing, iron line drawing, cloud flowing water drawing, horse locust drawing, nail head rat tail drawing, mixed drawing, bridge drawing, Cao Yi drawing, folding reed drawing, olive drawing, jujube core drawing, willow leaf drawing, bamboo leaf drawing, battle pen water pattern drawing, subtractive stroke drawing, earthworm drawing. In addition, he Liangjun, Zhou Lujing, Zhan Jingfeng, etc. of the same era also have corresponding views, and it can be seen that these inductions are somewhat related to the interest of Zhejiang school painting, such as mixed drawing, chai pen drawing, etc. can be associated with the freehand style of Dai Jin, Wu Wei, Zhang Lu and others, rather than completely the brush technique. Subsequently, the scope of use of the concept of "Eighteen Strokes" gradually expanded, and it was fixed in the tide of calligraphy and painting summaries in the Ming and Qing dynasties. "Eighteen" is a folk auspicious number, and there are expressions such as "eighteen martial arts". Therefore, the "eighteen strokes" may be suspected of making up a number, such as willow leaf strokes and bamboo leaf strokes. After the 19th century, the pictorial depiction method began to appear, starting with the Japanese Bunkehō First Year (1861) edition of the "Sea Immortal Painting Spectrum • Sea Immortal Eighteen Depiction Method", and the author Oda Sea Immortal was Wang Ying. The "Eighteen Sketches of the Painting Series" printed by the domestic Shenzhou Guoguang Society is basically the same, and there is an inscription and signature stamp of Wang Yingxing's book in front.
It can be said that today's painters are very unfamiliar with the "Eighteen Strokes", and there are still many misunderstandings about it, so I will give you a few examples.
First, "Eighteen Strokes" is a special name for figure painting. It is even called the folding method of ancient characters' clothes. This statement is not correct, many depiction names such as bamboo leaf painting, folding reed drawing, itself is from the flower and bird painting of the shape of the change, naturally can also be used for flower and bird painting and even landscape painting.
Second, the "Eighteen Strokes" are only for the creation of gongbi paintings. This is also not true, such as subtractive strokes, ant strokes themselves are freehand painting techniques, such as Liang Kai's "Taibai Xing Yin Tu" in the subtraction strokes, Ma Hezhi landscape paintings are also mostly depicted by horse locusts. As far as figure painting is concerned, the fabrics of modern clothing are various, which are very different from the materials of the ancients based on silk and cotton and linen, and the process is complex, such as thick jeans and translucent lace. Therefore, the expression of clothing folds should be explored, especially in the creation of new brush strokes.
Third, "Eighteen Strokes" is a powder book with no artistic value. It is also absurd to view it as a sketch draft, a drawing manuscript rather than a final work. In the tradition of calligraphy and painting, the line can reflect the artist's talent, cultivation and artistic skill, although most of the time it plays the role of powder and manuscript, but it also has artistic value and can be appreciated independently, such as Chen Hongshou's "West Chamber" and other illustrations, the line drawing comic strips of famous artists such as Qian Xiaodao and He Youzhi in recent times, and the line drawing works of Zhang Daqian's Dunhuang murals have independent artistic value.
Fourth, the "Eighteen Strokes" are all drawn in the same ink color. The line drawings that we usually see, whether printed or original, look like a similar ink color. Because of the cost of printing, it is also understandable to print a color. However, if you look closely at the original work, even if only one ink color is used when sketching, it will have different effects of dryness and wetness due to the priority of starting, closing, and moving the pen. When painting or creating, painters today will use different ink colors according to the color texture of the object, such as light ink for the skin of the characters, thick ink for hair, clear ink for light clothes, and medium ink for dark clothes. Even, the stone, water surface and other parts are deliberately painted flat to break the form of line drawings made entirely of lines.
Shen Zongqian of the Qing Dynasty, "Compilation of Paintings of Mustard Boats", Volume IV, "Trivia of Characters", lamented the loss of tradition: "Now those who go to the ancient clouds, the tiger's head probes the traces, and it is impossible to see it." Occasionally, the relics since the Song and Yuan dynasties have been passed down in the same vein. "In my opinion, most of today's Chinese paintings, especially Gongbi paintings, pay special attention to color rendering and artistic creation, and the lines are only the outlines of simple objects, thin and weak, neither the beauty of calligraphic brushes, nor the diverse expressiveness of traditional line drawing, which can be described as its weakness." Therefore, it is timely to strengthen the study of the traditional "Eighteen Strokes".