Manuals for Lively Inspiration By Sandie Osborne
practice, the student of painting or any practice may need to rely on manuals. Painting manuals became popular in the late Ming Part 3: Previously, we discussed dynasty, a particularly significant the tools and the energy of the practice of Chinese painting. Here period of art reference standards, and when the practice began to we present sources, principles of be a pastime for people of leisure composition, techniques, and (an upscaling class of travelers perception so you can make a and literati, as well as simple painting, a first step toward your Daoists, who might be disposed album, a record of cultivation. to calligraphy, the marriage of painting and poetry, the grandparent of those landscapes The best way to learn a painting practice, as with taijiquan, is with with inscriptions). In prosperous times, painting was no longer a teacher whose skill is credible and is transmitted to you through just an endeavor of elite scholars and poets, but an indulgence demonstration and sincerity. of the more or less idle, quite But this may not be in your possibly wives and concubines. fortune, or you may only have Hence the popularity of manuals. brief direct experience with a Not the first, but one of the master. To enhance or develop a The Empty Vessel — Page 8
most famous, the Mustard Seed Garden Manual, from 1679, is still readily available on its own, and is excerpted in a popular book in English by Mai-Mai Sze, “The Way of Chinese Painting — Its Ideas and Techniques,” first published in 1956. Literati (scholars) wrote about painting much earlier, but not in such a practical way. While the early art critics extolled virtues of styles, and critiqued the insights of the classic painters and calligraphers, the newer manuals illustrated the motifs and techniques for an audience who already knew how to hold and move a brush in accordance with established and accepted cosmic principles. The Chinese generally learned how to write
