| A brilliant painter, Gong Xian is destined to be rejected by the painting circles in Ming and Qing Dynasties. From the simple and plain White-Gong (Light Gong) to the complicated and dense Black-Gong (Dark Gong), there is transition from the"style of stroke"to"ink technique"; Gong Xian betrays the tradition by putting more emphasis on painting image rather than freehand brushwork, and finally he builds up a unique artistic conception of"piles of ink revealing a broad world"by his typical use of the ink (i.e., ink-piling way), the principle of which can be described as"to achieve distinction in ambiguity; and to achieve ambiguity in distinction".More significantly, the"four points"of Gong Xian's (i.e., QiuHe (literally valleys, a way of traditional Chinese water and Wash Painting to show different grades of ink density), BiFa (ways of wielding strokes), MoQi(ink breathing), QiYun (breathing aura conveyed by ink), together with his unidentified point"ShuiFa"(ways of using water), all goes against the"psychological space"of emphasizing freehand brushwork in Ming and Qing Dynasties'painting circles. His pioneering exploration of simplifying"the style of stroke"and highlighting"ink technique"contributes to perfecting the technique of traditional Chinese Painting and"rectifying"the conventional emphasis on freehand brushworkCutting in from the elements that constitute the form of Gong Xian's paintings, with reference of the vertical and horizontal contrast between works as well as today's explanations of painting theory, this paper elaborates mainly on the following six aspects: the unique composition principles, the overall arrangement of black and white, the repeated use of texturing method, the conscious efforts in systematizing and symbolizing brushwork, the plain BiFa, dense MoFa, and ShuiFa. By putting under close scrutiny and detailed examination these separated elements, the author attempts to delve into the whole formal structure of Gong Xian's paintings. |
PDF Full Text Request