Manual of Painting: First Volume

Biographies 4

Those sections that were not expanded remained at half their original size. However, in the categories of Plants, Flowers, Birds, and Insects, there are over two hundred and thirty leaves. Seven-tenths of these were expanded and imitated by Micao The art name of Wang Gai, the primary artist of the manual.. Before each volume was completed, the delicate tasks of outlining, tracing, and transferring the various colors onto the jujube and pear wood blocks were managed by his younger brother, Sizhi Wang Nie, the youngest of the three Wang brothers.. As each volume neared its final form, it was refined, evaluated, and edited by Anjie Wang Gai’s style name; he oversaw the artistic standards of the entire project..

Our friends involved in this project did not shy away from the biting cold or the sweltering heat. Every flower, every blade of grass, every single word and phrase—even when sweat poured like rain or fingers were frozen as stiff as hammers—had to be brought to Micao to compare the modern techniques with ancient standards. Only after the most careful deliberation and reaching a state of perfect excellence was the work finally committed to the jijue original: 剞劂; a term for the professional cutting of woodblocks for printing.. Long ago, during the Yixi era 405–418 CE., the artist Gu Hutou Gu Kaizhi, one of the most famous painters in Chinese history. was praised by the world for his "Three Perfections." Now that this book is released, everyone says it represents the "Three Perfections of the Wang family" Referring to the three brothers: Wang Gai, Wang Nie, and Wang Wang, who combined painting, engraving, and editorial skill..

• One: From the birth of painting until the Wei and Jin Dynasties, although calligraphy and painting each reached their peaks of beauty, paintings did not yet include poetic inscriptions. It was the people of the Tang Dynasty who first began to mark their names, sometimes adding the year and month. By the Song and Yuan Dynasties, those who excelled in both calligraphy and painting began to write full compositions on the paper, letting the ink flow across the page in a way that surpassed the ancients. In this edition, we have selected inscriptions from ancient to modern times, ranging from the Jin and Tang down to the Yuan and Ming. Whether they are poems, lyrics, rhapsodies, or eulogies, all were chosen because they perfectly match the spirit of the painting. In some cases, original excellent lines were preserved from authentic sources; in others, where a painting lacked an inscription, we requested famous calligraphers to write on their behalf. Some entries feature only a four-character title, while others emulate the calligraphy of previous masters. Every style of script is fully represented, and the engraving has not lost even a hair's breadth of detail, aiming for both the calligraphy and the painting to reach perfection together.

• One: Ancient painters mostly did not sign their names. Some would hide a signature or seal within the roots of trees or the crevices of rocks. Others would write their names in tiny "regular script" characters so that, from a distance, they looked like the cunwen original: 皴紋; "texture strokes" used to depict the surface of rocks or tree bark. of the landscape...