Originals or Prints

Because of the rapid nature of making traditional Chinese paintings (ink with water on Chinese paper) millions or even billions of original paintings can be produced each year. This is not an exaggeration. Supposing that just one out of 1,000 people has a tendency to like to paint (by using ink with water on Chinese paper) and produces just 4 paintings in 1-2 hours a day (quite easy unless the size of paper is relatively large), he/she makes more than 1,000 paining a year even taking some holidays.  And the population of  China is over 1.3 billions. Even very high quality ones made by famous painters or those having good techniques but not famous in some reasons can be produced in thousands or some ten or hundred thousands every year. It is a great advantage for Chinese people to appreciate high quality original paintings with ease. Now the prices of the original Chinese paintings made by well known painters (no matter whether they are really goods or not) are quite expensive and seem to be over-evaluated contrast to the prices in 20-30 years ago - definitely under-evaluated.  Due to the mass production nature it is the fact that even famous painters occasionally produced not very good ones or failures, which they did not destroyed and have been circulated in the market because of their names. Meanwhile the printing technology has improved a lot in China recently so very good quality prints of famous paintings of famous painters are available at very affordable prices. You can enjoy these prints but with some unsatisfactory feeling as these are not original. Why not try original ones of painters not so famous or unknown at all but high quality ones from a technical point of view or very good ones by your own standard and preference. These are also affordable for economically ordinary people. Original ones definitely differ from prints.


AAG

Beuaty in balanced asymmetry

1. Mathematical beauty in symmetry.

Mathematician find beauty in symmetry either easily found (like those in geometry) or hidden (like those in algebra or calculus). 

2. Aesthetic beauty in Chinese paintings
 
Traditional Chinese painters try to make in their works well balanced asymmetry which brings beauty to the viewers.

What are in common in 1 and 2 ?

Both create harmony in the whole - uniting different parts harmoniously. You can feel some relation or correspondence between some different parts or even motion in a static object, either a mathematical thing (like a formula) or a painting or even a simple drawing.


Ref: asymmetrical balance drawing

https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=asymmetrical+balance+drawing+3d&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=rIBYU96OM4WciQf674CYCA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=584

AAG.

Wine Tasting and Paintings

This is an analogy of Appreciation of Paintings to Wine Tasting.


1. Balance - Acidity, Alcohol, Sweetness, (Tannin for Red wine) should be well balanced.

Acidity - Philosophy. Spirituality. Something casing a man to think.

Alcohol - Level of Technique

Sweetness - Idea. Visual pleasantness.

Tannin - Background knowledge and experience as a painter

2. Length -  Lasting aroma after drinking (more precisely in the throat after swallowing). The longer the better.

Lasting Impression.
Not get bored even seeing it hundred, thousand times.

3. Intensity - Intensity on the palate (the definition of wine intensity varies with wine writers)

Some basic things inherent to a painter. It may change with age. Great painters show better changes with aging. Or sureness of future improvement.

4. Complexity - the group of aromas

Aromatic atmosphere emitted by a painting, usually by combinations of several different factors like composition, curbs and straight lines, colors - warm and cold, light and heavy, dark and light. Symmetry and asymmetry.

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Value
Unlike industrial products wine and paintings have no specifications showing the guaranteed quality or performance (something affecting to a viewer in case of paintings). The specified performance is a large part of the value of an industrial product while the brand also contributes to the value or say price. The values (prices) of wine are also very much rely on the brands. Tasting might help but it should not be much influenced by the other people's opinion even those of the specialists. You must taste wine by yourself and judge good or bad or somewhere in the middle by your standard. The basic functions of the nose and the tongue are the same  for almost every body but vary much with individuals at the stage of appreciating wine. My nose does not work well even after some effort and training. It is difficult to develop the functions of the nose and the tongue much from the ones you inherited from your parents.
Fashion products like clothes, shoes, bags are more like paintings than industrial products but clothes, shoes, bags are in most cases necessity as well but wine and especially paintings are not necessity for basic human living.
Like wine and fashion products the values (prices) of paintings are very much depends on the brands, lot more than industrial products - the prices of famous painters' paintings are generally much higher than those of not so famous painters. And the price differences are extreme. There are no absolute specifications, no standards to judge good or bad. Brands have been made by various ways, partly made intentionally or even commercially which is not right in terms of genuine art. "Time" sometimes reveals this. Tastes, either personal or social,  also change with time.

Knowledge
Knowledge will help to appreciate wine and paintings. To encounter new knowledge, widen and deepen your knowledge itself is pleasure.

Used as investment and pleasure
Wine and paintings are used for investment as well as for pleasure while fashion products are usually not used for investment probably because fashion changes the values with time quickly although some have cyclical and retro values. Investment for real estate is sure than wine and paintings as it is highly likely that you would get constant income as rent. But you are not able to get pleasure of appreciating or tasting from the real estate you have except enjoying the ownership.

AAG

Void in paintings and Negative Enegy

As compared with music paintings are less energetic because the object(s) in the paintings do not move and remain still on a 2D surface. But you can feel or find some energy or movement in them.

Space - usually painted as air or sky in western paintings or Chinese landscape paintings (Shan Shui Paintings; 山水画）- has some function to show energy or even movement like sunshine or wind. Chinese Flowers and Birds Paintings (Hua Niao Hua; 花鸟画) and often Figure Paintings (Ren Wu Hua; 人物画) use also space as showing air or sky but quite often use space as purely space or void, nothing. In either case space shows some movement or more precisely ability to move. Where there is no space no movement is possible.

Direction - An arrow can show direction as a graphical sign and psychologically as well.

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Curve (gradual change) and abrupt change(s) of direction also can show movement.





A relatively large black or seemingly heavy object(s) like mountains or rocks (common objects in Chinese paintings) in paintings make us feel some energy too. These objects do not move even in the real world so they do not indicate movement. What kind of energy? We can call this energy as stationary or potential or negative energy. "negative" in this has no negative meaning but has even positive meaning. However when  positive is assigned for moving energy the stationary or potential energy will be negative, not neutral which is has no apparent energy or the state of positive-negative being cancelled out - equilibrium.

sptt

Freehand Figure Paintings or Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua (写意人物画)

Freehand Figure Paintings or Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua (写意人物画) are one part of Chinese Figure Paintings. I explained Xie-yi Hua (写意画) very briefly in the post "Gong-bi (工筆) and Xie-yi (写意)" before. As the name indicates Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua are the figure paintings made in  Xie-yi style (very roughly equal to Freehand) . Shi Nu Hua (仕女画), as explained in my last post, are also a part of Chinese Figure Paintings but they depict only Noble Woman Figures while Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua  have no such discrimination and have both women and men and noticeably more old women and old men employed as objects. Shi Nu Hua are Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua when they are made in Xie-yi (写意) style. When they are made in Gong-bi (工筆) style (very roughly equal to Meticulous Style) they are "Gong-bi Ren Wu Hua (工筆人物画).



The two Xie-yi Ren Wu Hua shown below are well known (very old) and high quality ones. The features of the old men's figures are short and fat (chubby) with a large head, short neck, flat nose and small eyes like a bulldog. The features of the young elegant women's figures in Shi Nu Hua (仕女画) are usually slender with a small head, comparatively long neck, not too high not too flat nose, big eyes and small mouth. You may like a bulldog as well as an elegant woman and feel pleased when you see them. This pleasing feeling comes from the technique of well considered and controlled exaggeration and deformation.

sptt

Shi Nu Hua (仕女画)

Chinese paintings are largely classified into Shan Sui Hua (山水画) Landscape Paintings, Hua Niao Hua (花鸟画) or Flowers and Birds Paintings and and Ren Wu Hua (人物画) or Figure Paintings. (See Beauty of Hua Niao Hua (花鸟画) posted  on Sept 2, 2011)

Ren Wu Hua (人物画) have one particular sub-division called Shi Nu Hua (仕女画). Shi Nu (仕女) can be translated as Court Lady or more generally Noble Woman. Like almost any other Chinese things Shi Nu Hua  (or Noble Woman Figure Paintings) have a vast traditions and a long history.

I cannot find so far the English version Wiki for this word and Chinese version Wiki (as of June 30, 2012) does have but very simple (or poor or even misleading). Baide explains a lot (http://baike.baidu.com/view/17294.htm) even including how to make them.

The Baide's explanations have largely three parts - 1) history, 2) representative works and 3) <how to> of Shi Nu Hua,

1) History

Quite a long history. Dates back to Tang Dynasty and already established as one category of Shi Nu Hua (仕女画). One big change (largely deterioration) happened in Yuan Dynasty. Before Yuan Dynasty the women painted in Shi Nu Hua were healthy, well balanced, flexible but strong and elegant, graceful and beautiful women. Since Yuan Dynasty those women changed to more symbolic (less expression and less real lives) and especially in Qing Dynasty went to extreme - apparently week and not healthy, submissive women.

2) Representative works

The works of the two famous painters Wu Daozi ( 吴道子)and Han Xizai (韩熙载) before Yuan Dynasty. The paintings are mostly multi-figures including men.

3) <How to> of  Shi Nu Hua,

Contrary to the above  2) Representative works, <how to> here describes how to paint Shi Nu in the Chinese traditional ways although recommended showing more creativity.  Lin Fengming (林風眠) painted many modern or somehow westernized Shi Nu's.

Apparently Shi Nu Hua have historically changed as the men's tastes for women have changed or the socially accepted ideal women have changed. On the contrary Chinese women may have not changed much as you might think.  They have been strong.

Very generally the women in Shi Nu Hua and especially those in Qing Dynasty and modern ones of the traditional style are slender (usually very slender), with small head downward tilted above a slender neck and a  small mouse, whitish (not healthy) skin, waring a traditional long dress with legs hidden and quite often surrounded by strange shape rocks in a Chinese garden.

However if you see them positively Shi Nu Hua the women in them are elegant, graceful, serene, quiet, light (not heavy), clean (secluded from a dirty world).

AAG

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


AAG