Abstract Paintings

Abstract etymologically (abs + tract) means "drawn away" so it is neither 'attract' nor 'distract'. Aesthetically beautiful things attract people and make them feel pleasant while ugly or grotesque things distract people and make them feel unpleasant. Then how about 'abstract'? Do abstract things 'abstract' (draw away) people ? Yes they do. Abstract things (like mathematics and abstract paintings) are often difficult to understand and grasp. Abstract things are going away when people try to catch them.

Paintings are visual media so no invisible paintings exist - like ' there exists no structure without a construction (Jean Piaget) ' or ' there exists no art critic without art. ' Visual things generally knock intuition, emotion, feeling, soul or spirit not reason no matter how they are abstract while mathematics, logic, philosophy generally strike reason. Paintings are appreciated usually intuitively not logically especially in Asia (China, Japan, etc) . This is especially true for real, figurative, non-abstract paintings. Abstract paintings differ as they are often difficult to understand or appreciate intuitively. They are often not so beautiful and attractive from a normal aesthetic point of view. They do not attract attention with beauty but they 'abstract' (are drawn away) . Still abstract paintings are not purely logical things as they are visual media. They are recognized visually through eyes.

Meanwhile explanations on paintings, whether abstract or non-abstract, are more intuitive in East (China, Japan, etc) than in West where explanations on paintings are more logical.


abstract

late 14c., from L. abstractus "drawn away," pp. of abstrahere, from ab(s)- "away" + trahere "draw" (see tract (1)). Meaning "withdrawn or separated from material objects or practical matters" is from 1550s; specifically in ref. to the fine arts, it dates from 1915; abstract expressionism from 1952. The general noun sense of "a smaller quantity containing the virtue or power of a greater" [Johnson] is recorded from 1560s; meaning "summary of a document" is from 1520s. The verb is first recorded 1540s. - Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper


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Beauty of Hua Niao Hua (花鸟画)

Hua Niao Hua (花鸟画) or Flowers and Birds Paintings are one of the three big categories of Chinese Paintings. The other two are Shan Sui Hua (山水画) or Landscape Paintings and Ren Wu Hua (人物画) or Figure Paintings. The objects of Chinese Flowers and Birds Paintings are usually flowers and quite often with birds as well as many other things, usually together with flowers but sometimes independently, including small trees or a part of tree - branches and leaves, small four-leg animals, insects, fish, fruits, vegetables, even not living things like small rocks and stones (which are quite often used) and artificial things like flower bases, dishes, tea cups, tea pots, baskets, candles, lanterns, toys, etc, etc, etc. Flowers and Birds Paintings show a relatively small and almost 2D (two dimension) world while Landscape Paintings handle a large world and 3D (three dimension) space. You do not have to think much about perspective technique in Flowers and Birds Paintings so they are in a way simpler and easier than Landscape Paintings. Landscape Paintings require some spiritual elevation created by a whole atmosphere of a painting besides beauty or beauty may not be the prime thing. Flowers and Birds Paintings, on the other hand, beauty is very important. Chinese people have set up many rules and techniques in Flowers and Birds Paintings how to make your painting look beautiful as well as how to avoid failure to make your paintings look ugly. Although there are many rules and techniques the key to be successful in making a beautiful painting is Contrast. Many contrasts you can use or you must use:

Shapes of objects
small - big
short - long
straight - curved lines
cut - continuous line
thick - thin,
bold - fine
square - triangle - round
open - closed

Locations of objects
side - center - corner
right - left
upper - middle - lower
gathered together - scattered around
horizontal - vertical

Indicting a movement
small change - big change (derivative or changing-ratio difference)
up - down - diagonal (in direction)

Colors
red- green-yellow-blue, etc etc. etc
bright - dark
etc, etc, etc.

If you are successful in handing these contrasts, your painting looks beautiful, elegant and attractive. If failed, you want to throw your painting away. Not a easy job as you must consider and actually make many contrasts at every moment you draw a line and apply a color ink.


Notes

1) Because of the above requirement of many Contrasts for beauty you can find no symmetrical beauty and little rhythmic beauty in Chinese Flowers and Birds Paintings.

2) What is the source of beauty created by many Contrasts in one painting? The answer will be harmony. Harmony cannot be attained by a collection of the same things and only can be created by combination of different things - arranged carefully with some effort. Harmony is not a simple addition of different things. If one thing contrasts well to the other thing the two things create more than 1 + 1 or a different thing than the original two things simply combined. This different thing or some kind of beauty created by the two well contrasted things may differ from one person to another and often subtle. This is like you can have different and better taste when you eat meat and vegetable together than you eat meat only or vegetable only.


Gradation technique

Most Chinese brushes are good for making gradation in one stroke, which renders nice effect with relative ease even for beginners.


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Beauty in Destruction

Art is usually considered as creation not destruction. However we can find some beauty in destruction and decay - different types of beauty from those found in creation and growth. Destruction is sometimes required for new creation. Decay is often followed by growth like a wave. This is one of the reasons why we can find some beauty in destruction and decay - Rebirth, Renaissance, Restoration. Nevertheless we can still find beauty in destruction and decay themselves even without expectation of new creation and growth. Destruction and decay may leads to nothing or death. Still we can find some beauty in destruction and decay. Dangerous thinking?



Philosophically,

Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism often talks about Nothingness or Void in contrast to Reality or Existence or Real Existence. But their philosophy is not negative but rather positive. We can find some kind of beauty derived from their positive way of thinking on Nothingness or Void.

Physically,

Destruction and decay mechanisms show some physical laws or orders in which we can find some beauty. These mechanisms may not be so orderly and sometimes rather chaotic. Still we can find some beauty in these unexpected happenings in especially destruction mechanism.


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Beauty of Ugliness

Beauty of Ugliness

This is definitely a contradiction. The effect of Ugliness is mostly just opposite to the effect of Beauty. But Ugliness and Beauty have some similarities.

Beauty - generally pleasant, comfortable, easy, harmonious, balanced, symmetrical, attractive, figuratively usually good, right, appropriate

Ugliness - generally unpleasant, uncomfortable, uneasy, non-harmonious, unbalanced, asymmetrical, repulsive, figuratively usually bad, wrong, inappropriate

However, there are some similarities - impressive, provocative, even creative not destructive. These features are in contrast to neutral, general, uncharacteristic, mediocre.

Ugliness has a force though often repulsive but not necessarily always negative. Ugliness has reality, therefore powerful, usually more powerful than beauty.

Beauty of Ugliness exists but usually hidden.


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Wang Wei (王维) as a painter

Wang Wei ( 王维) is a famous multi-talented artist in Tang Dynasty. Another famous artist in the later Song Dynasty Su-shi (苏轼) 's comment on Wang Wei's poems and paintings " in reading Wang's poems one sees pictures, upon seeing Wang's pictures one senses poetry." (“味摩诘之诗，诗中有画，观摩诘之画，画中有诗” ) is very famous as well - almost all writings about Wang Wei start with this Shu-shi's comment. Because of the frequent encounters of this comment people tend to think that this is true like the effect of frequent encounters of Coca-Cola and McDonald's CMs. We must check whether this is true or not. One of the best ways is to check with the Wang Wei's original works - poems and paintings. "in reading Wang's poems one sees pictures" is highly likely true and most poem readers may admit this. How about his paintings? Unfortunately his original paintings reportedly do not exist. But fortunately his original writings on Chinese Landscape paintings exist - 《山水论》 or Theory on Landscape Paintings and 《山水决》 or Key to successful Landscape Paintings. But unfortunately again I cannot find the English versions of these.

Generally his writings on Chinese Landscape paintings are mostly about techniques, probably new techniques at his time so he called them Key (or Secret) to successful Landscape Paintings.

Major points are as follows (limited as my understanding of the Chinese original is limited):

1) Proportion of the sizes of the objects or Scaling

To reflect the actual size differences
For instance
Mountains - several hundred meters
Trees - several ten meters
Horses - several meters
Human beings - 1-2 meters

2) Size difference at different distances - a kind of perspective, things far away seem small and things near seem large.

For instance
Trees far away, leaves cannot be seen.
Mountains far away, rocks and stones cannot be seen.
Rivers far away, waves cannot be seen.
Trees far away are low while tress near are high.

3) 3D expression

For instance
Rocks must show the 3 faces.

4) Atmospheric features

a) Weather features
Different weathers show different features. Things look different in windy and raining weathers.

b) Morning and evening features
Different times in a day show different features.

c) Seasonal features
Scenes in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter show each season's typical features.

For instance
Spring - fog, Winter - snow

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Theory on Landscape Paintings - Original Chinese 《山水论》

Key (or Secret) to successful Landscape Paintings - Original Chinese 《山水决》　 　　


Refer to: http://baike.baidu.com/view/1582453.htm


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Gong-bi (工筆) and Xie-yi (写意)

Chinese paintings are often divided roughly into two styles - Gong-bi (工笔) or Meticulous Style and Xie-yi (写意) or Freehand Style. The English words "Meticulous" and "Freehand" translate only a part of the original meanings in Chinese of Gong-bi (工笔) Style and Xie-yi (写意) Style (historically very old like other cultural things as always). More appropriate words shall replace these English words in future when Chinese paintings become more popular worldwide.

I find more quietness or stillness in Gong-bi (工笔) paintings while I find more movement or activeness in Xie-yi (写意) paintings. I need to become a bit active to see Gong-bi (工笔) paintings to appreciate quietness or stillness while I can appreciate movement or activeness even when if I am passive when I see Xie-yi (写意) paintings.

Still Life painting (nature morte in French is more like dead life in English) is one style in Western paintings. Most people, either Western or Oriental, find stillness or quietness in Still Life paintings. This is partly because the objects depicted are usually dead living things or non-living things which do not move by themselves. And usually there is no painter's intention involved to make a still life painting active. Furthermore paintings are 2D expression, in which time and movement are excluded.


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Inner Beauty （内在美） and Hidden Beauty

Inner beauty（内在美）contrasts to outer beauty and usually describing a person and quite often describing a woman. Inner beauty is inside, invisible, spiritual or characteristic beauty found but not visually found in a person while outer beauty is outside, visible, physical beauty visually found in a person.

Paintings may have some inner beauty（内在美) like spiritual beauty but differ from person's inner beauty as paintings are visual arts. You can find spiritual beauty or some kind of spiritually or psychologically pleasant feeling in paintings but through its static appearance - how they look to you. You find inner beauty in a person through her/his way of talking, movement, reaction, etc not related with the appearance.

Meanwhile paintings have hidden beauty as well. People see painting in many different ways, quite a freedom. Some people see more beauty in the color and shade (some Chinese paintings are black/gray on white paper) in a painting while some other people see more beauty in the composition in the same painting. Compositional beauty is relatively hidden as compared with color and shade beauty. Lines - straight and curves - in a painting bring you some feeling like strength, force, direction, movement, gradual and sudden changes, deepness - 3D, smoothness, elegance. Beauty of lines is somewhat hidden, too. So experienced viewers tend to find beauty in composition and lines as well as or more than in colors and shades. Combination of these factors in a painting brings you a total impression, which varies very much with viewers. Total impression (not just a addition of the factors, or can be said a very complex multiplication of these factors) pleases you very much or even elevates you spiritually. So paintings, especially good paintings, have a lot of hidden beauty.


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Methematical Beauty and Hidden Beauty

Mathematicians find beauty in the following formula (Euler formula). Or they say that this is a very elegant formula.

e^ix=cosx+i sinx

Where is beauty and elegance in it? It is not easy for many people to see beauty and elegance in it.
Why not? This is because ordinary people - those who have have little interest in math - do not have enough background math knowledge. Without accumulation of the related math knowledge it is impossible to find profound meanings which this simple formula contains. The degree of beauty people find in it depends on their background math knowledge. If you know more about the related math you find more beauty in this simple formula. And it usually takes a long time to accumulate the necessary knowledge.

It is similar to Enlightenment in Zen（禅）. It takes time to attain a higher level Enlightenment or Understanding (悟） and usually you must have a lot of experiences, observations and thinking by yourself.

Paintings represent beauty. It is easy to see some beauty in beautiful things. But to find beauty existing but hidden in seemingly ordinary and not so beautiful things is difficult, takes time and requires some knowledge, experiences, observations and thinking. Paintings made by the really great artists reveal this hidden beauty made in their own creative ways. These great paintings are sometimes very simple and somewhat abstract but people could find profound beauty and meanings in them.

Finding this kind of hidden beauty is a pleasure, perhaps a similar pleasure for math people when they find beauty in a simple but having deep meaning formula and for Zen people when they find Enlightenment (悟）.

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Zen Paintings

One of the key features of Zen (as a Buddhism or philosophy) is freedom, becoming free from almost everything, especially from fixed ways of thinking, experiences, traditions, even beliefs.

A painting is a very good medium to deliver some Zen concept and idea since a painting is a visual message, in a more abstract way than a poem. A poem delivers a message, some kind of thought, feeling or mood but by using words. By using words the message becomes more descriptive. A painting is more abstract. Abstract means more freedom, less restrictions. Viewers have more freedom how to see a painting and what to see in a painting than poem readers have when they read a poem.

Zen paintings look very simple in terms of objects, shapes of objects, compositions, colors. But simpleness does not mean a simple message. Viewers' interpretations of one simple Zen painting are diverse as viewers have a big freedom how to see and interpret it due to its simplicity. Zen paintings are usually very simple like depicting a simple real world object or a few objects and not so abstract - not necessarily abstract to give viewers a lot of freedom.

Many people say that abstract paintings are difficult to understand. Some people like and appreciate and enjoy abstract paintings mostly due to the freedom for understanding the paintings while some people do not like them or have no comment to give as they do not understand the paintings.

Zen paintings feature being simple and not so abstract but give viewers a lot of freedom
including the sense of freedom and the importance of freedom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Graceful Disorder (錯落有致 )

Western people find beauty in "in order" while Chinese people find beauty in "in disorder" as well as "in order". Graceful Disorder ( 錯落有致 ) is one of the expressions of this Chinese sense of beauty.








I have discovered:

1) Western people find beauty in ferns (mainly due to their symmetry pattern of leaves, plus maybe their light green color usually) and I know some women having the name of fern as a given name. I never heard of a Japanese woman having a name of fern or シダ（羊歯） 子(Shidako)，蕨（わらび）子 (Warabiko, it is a good name, isn't it?) and Chinese women having a name of fern or 蕨 (jué) . Symmetrical beauty does not so much attract the Japanese and Chinese people as Westerners.

2) Western people try to clean up the things placed in a seemingly messy or disordered way and change them to in a neat and ordered way and do not try to find some hidden beauty in the things arranged in an seemingly disordered but graceful way in a certain manner either intentionally or unintentionally.


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Chinese Shan Shui Paintings （山水画）

1) Shan Shui Paintings

Shan Shui Paintings (or Chinese traditional landscape paintings 山水画) may look very strange to the eyes of the Western people which are familiar with oil landscape paintings and maybe to the eyes of the other non-Chinese people too. The strangeness is not only at the first seeing but mostly may continue unless you study some about Shan Shui Paintings. On the contrary Chinese Flowers and Birds Paintings are not so strange as Shan Shui Paintings and even make the eyes and hearts of the Western people comfortable and pleasant which is the nature of good visual arts in general.

China has a huge population and very long history but their culture has been more unique than universal in the world. Shan Shui Paintings are particularly so. Generally, it is not easy to understand and appreciate Shan Shui Paintings. You must study them. Shan Shui Paintings are encoded so that you must decode them to understand the meanings of them.

2) Literati Paintings

Chinese Literati Paintings were developed very early much earlier than 1000DC. The definition of Literati Paintings is not so simple. They are not always the paintings made by Literati. Chinese Literati preferred poems and calligraphies to painting in art and mostly preferred philosophies and histories to arts.
There have been many good 'painters cum calligraphers' but not many good 'painters cum poets' although painters often wrote poems on their paintings. And almost no good 'painters cum philosophers' and good 'painters cum historians.


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Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊） Opening Message

Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊） Opening Message


Asnet Art Gallery （亚讯画廊）is open for general public for the purpose of enhancing appreciation of art, paintings in particular. The activities include:

1. Promotion of the appreciation of paintings and art in general

2. Opening lectures on paintings and art in general

3. Providing and introducing painting classes

4. Authenticity checking of paintings

5. Supplying news on art and auctions especially in paintings

6. Sales and purchase of paintings

7. Sales and purchase of magazines and books on paintings and art in general

8. Other activities related with art and paintings


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Chinese Modern Paintings

Chinese modern paintings have been undervalued for a long time when considering their high level of techniques and spirituality. The current rapid upward re-evaluation is mostly due to the recent growing China economy and monetary wealth but this is a welcome trend as they have high values to be appreciated by people in the world.

There are several reasons why they have been undervalued for a long time.

1) Mass production

Chinese painting artists produce really a lot of paintings in their lives. It is quite easy for them to make more than ten paintings a day because of the materials they use - ink, water and big brushes. And speed is often required to make a painting more vivid, showing movement, force, flow, direction, etc. Even very good and high quality paintings, when they are produced a lot, their values are generally diluted. But the mass production of this type has no relation with the level of quality.


2) Not enough advertisement

Chinese people have not used much time, money and efforts to say to people in the other world "Chinese paintings are very high in quality as you can see easily", etc. And theoretical and systematic explanations (which Western people prefer) why "Chinese paintings are very high in quality' have not been enough.


3) Different sense of beauty

How Chinese people see beauty in nature or paintings are naturally differ from the Western world. Symmetry is not seen as beauty so much and asymmetry or well balanced asymmetry is appreciated more as beauty.





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