Chinese Landscape Painting for Beginners: A Practical Course

New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 1993. First Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 8 1/2" X 11. Quigley, Augrey - Illustrations. 64 Pages Indexed. Small Tear on lower back cover probably from a lable peel. Chinese landscape painting using simple brushstrokes and ink, step by step guide for creating classic Chinese landscape. The beginnings of Chinese painting are lost in the mists of time, as it evolved even before the art of calligraphy. At first the artists painted in symbols depicting people, nature and the life around them and these were used for decoration. The symbols were gradually expanded so that they could be used for communication as well. The two art forms - painting and calligraphy - are linked together as Chinese painting contains visible forms with an underlying philosophical concept, whilst calligraphy communicates in an artistic, impressionable way. Even as long ago as twelve thousand years, the earliest pottery was decorated with the aid of cord wrapped sticks and impressions of matting. These simple decorations evolved in time as symbols or ideographs depicting nature, people, the sun, moon, flowers, birds - everything influencing the life of the artist - began to be used. Ideographs can be found on Yang-shao pottery - hand-made pots, jars and bowls of red clay, and around this time the brush, as we know it today, was invented. When one thinks that these pots date back six thousand years, it gives an idea of how old the art of China is. When Chinese people saw one of the symbols, they envisaged not only a decoration but a thought, a concrete idea - and so the written language was formed. During the Shang dynasty (1850-1100 BC) artists were writing on tortoise shell, stone, animal bones, jade and bronze - firstly by engraving and then by paintingArtists were said to be magicians because the people, watching a picture develop before their eyes thoght it magical the way animals and appeared to live and breathe under the movement of the brush.