About the Student-led Exhibition Project
Brushwork is at the heart of ink art from East Asia due to the main tool used by painters and calligraphers alike—the soft brush with fine tip known as Chinese calligraphy brush or Japanese sumi brush. This exhibition represents works of ink art in the collection of the Stanley Museum of Art, from seventeenth-century landscape painting, calligraphy and rubbing, Zen (or Chan) painting, and modern ink painting from the twentieth century. Members of ARTH:3250 Brushwork in Chinese Art (Fall 2024) created interpretive texts, artistic responses, and an exhibition catalogue. Given the course’s focus on Chinese Art, the exhibition is anchored in works by Chinese artists but also includes a work from Japan that demonstrates the strong cultural ties between the two areas in art and religion.
This exhibition also explores the legacy of ink art at the University of Iowa. Many of the artworks on view were donated by individuals associated with the university. Nancy Seiberling donated Huang Xiangjian’s Scenery on the San-tu Pass in honor of Frank Seiberling, Lester Longman’s successor as the head of Iowa’s School of Art and Art History. Virginia Myers, a retired Iowa printmaking professor, donated the calligraphy rubbing, while Hu Hung-shu, a professor emeritus and former Head of Design of the SAAH (now SAAHD) had two of his own artworks donated to the Stanley by Judy Hu. Ramon Lim, a professor emeritus of neurology donated a group of his own calligraphic artworks to the Stanley collection as well. All of the mentioned donations are on view in this exhibition.
To emphasize Iowa’s active community of ink artists, the exhibition includes student artworks that respond to the traditions and practices of Chinese ink art. In this way, the exhibition highlights the local living legacy of Chinese ink art.
This exhibition is made possible by the Stanley Museum of Art and co-sponsored by the School of Art, Art History, and Design and the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies. Our gratitude goes to Kimberly Datchuk, Sayuri Hemann, and the team at the SMA.
Amy S. Huang and Hannah Lang
The tradition and transformation of ink art in China
Ink art makes up a vital part of the cultural identity of China. Traditional artists, often members of elite society, contributed to centuries of art-making and art-theorizing. This work culminates in various traditions through time that praised different brushwork techniques, styles, features, and qualities upon which a person could evaluate art as admirable. Artists participated in copying the works of masters and then evolved their own distinct styles, a tradition that created centuries of legacies built on the techniques and aesthetic qualities of those who came before.[1] Done with brush and ink, Chinese ink art involves everything from breathtaking landscape and intricate bird-and-flower painting to meticulous and effervescent calligraphy.
What can be read in the brushwork of Chinese ink art? The speed of the artist’s hand, the dryness and wetness of the brush, and even the weight or lightness of the artist’s hand reveal the artwork’s journey. In landscape and other paintings, artists aimed to capture the essential character or an inner animation of both the object being painted (qiyun or “spirit consonance”) and of the artist’s own inspiration and essence.[2] The artist’s confidence, personality, style, legacy, and schooling are infused in every contour, thickness, and bleed of the ink. This value system carries into calligraphy as well. Students practiced copying from the great calligraphers using manuscripts preserved in copy books and rubbings from carvings. In this way, different scripts or styles were carried on through history.[3] With every reiteration, the artist evolved their own personal style and the copied style was distilled, reinterpreted, and even changed over the centuries.
The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 marks a turning point in Chinese history and had a major impact on its cultural evolution.[4] This ushering into modernity and onto the global stage prompted artists to reconcile what it meant to infuse their artwork with Western influence and adopt its techniques. It also prompted artists to keep drawing on the traditional influence of past artists, saturating their paintings with references to the past and doing so with a modern flair, all in an attempt to create a Chinese modern art.
From the earliest paintings to ink artwork today, all artists have amalgamized or synthesized references and styles from past artists.[5] Chinese brushwork is a great lineage of artistic practice and canon in which everything from the tastes of the time to valued styles are preserved, rearranged, transformed, and adapted.[6]
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Allana Lopez
[1] James Cahill, Painter’s Practice: How Artists Lived And Worked in Traditional China (New York: Columbia University Press), 10.
[2] Guo Ruoxu (ca. 1080), “An Account of My Experiences in Painting (Tuhua jianwen zhi),” adapted from Early Chinese Texts on Painting, ed. Susan Bush and Hsio-yen Shih (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 95-6.
[3] Maxwell Hearn, “Chinese Painting,” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chin/hd_chin.htm
[4] Bai Qianshen, “Wu Dacheng to Mao Zedong: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Twentieth Century” in Chinese Art: Modern Expressions, ed. Maxwell K. Hearn and Judith G. Smith (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art), 247.
[5] Ibid, 246-283.
[6] Richard Vinograd, “Classification, Canon, and Genre” in A Companion to Chinese Art, ed. Martin J. Powers and Katherine R. Tsiang (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 254-277.