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    The Book of Chrysanthemum
    The Book of Chrysanthemum
    The Book of Chrysanthemum
    Ebook237 pages1 hour

    The Book of Chrysanthemum

    By I-Hsiung Ju

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    About this ebook

    The Book of Chrysanthemum captures the step-by-step brush painting lessons that have been especially designed by the masters to introduce fundamental methods of brush painting in a progressive and interactive manner. This instructional book for Chinese brush painting on Chrysanthemum includes an introductory of and appreciation for the Symbolism in Chinese Art, discussion on the ways of holding brush and using ink, the basic exercise on painting Chrysanthemum Flowers stems, branches, veins and leaves. It gives step by step procedures for making the strokes, lines, contours and shapes in a Chrysanthemum painting. The illustrations and instructions in the book work together side by side for general readers as well as painting students.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateOct 1, 2018
    ISBN9780977059836
    The Book of Chrysanthemum

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      The Book of Chrysanthemum - I-Hsiung Ju

      STAGE

      Words and Signs

      (Symbolism in Chinese Art)

      Wang Kai, a Nanking-based painter-teacher of the early Ch'ing dynasty, published around 1679 his first edition of the Mustard Seed Garden, a manual of painting covering most of the ground within which an experienced Chinese artist is expected to be familiar. It is a kind of how-to-do-it book of Chinese art. Every page of this manual, which originally comprised many volumes, was hand-printed by using the wood-block printing method mostly with black ink.

      Today we may discover several different editions of this manual. Some are quite condensed and some are fully equipped with many supplements. But there are places that have never been changed, such as its title page, Wang's original preface, and the introductory notes for each chapter, all of which are preserved in his fine calligraphy form.

      His manual is named after his studio in Nanking: Mustard Seed Garden. He also very often signed his works with his art name: the gardener of the Mustard Seed Garden.

      Things in our own everyday language had been used as a unique literary metaphors: wheat and tares, a light under a bushel, lost sheep, etc. just in the way Jesus sometimes communicated his message to the disciples, and the mustard seed which is smaller than any seed in the ground, is also found in one of the most outstanding parables of Jesus' teaching. According to a Buddhist sutra, not only our own heaven and earth, but even the three thousand great worlds of the universe, through Buddha's eyes, are all in the size of a mustard seed.

      Wang Kai did not know, actually, the parable of the Kingdom of Heaven. In his own writing, he explained that he used the word garden to refer to his art school and the word mustard seed as a modifier of his very small and insignificant studio, a way of showing his humility.

      To us the word garden as the symbol of school is undoubtedly universal. For example, our kindergarten is a school for the young and t'ao-li man tian-hsia, a Chinese classic idiom, indicates admiration for a successful teacher who has taught many students as a great gardener who has planted t'ao and li, flowery peach and prune, all over the world.

      ***

      In Wang's The Book of Bamboo, there are several sample paintings with the words Chun-tzu you chieh or Ch'ing­ feng liang chieh. Literally Chun-tzu you chieh means a gentleman has the knots and Ch'ing-feng liang chieh means Balmy breeze and distinguishable knot.

      In the dictionary, the word chieh with the radical of bamboo is originally the knot or the joint of a bamboo. Because of this, the extended meaning of chieh becomes a section, a paragraph, a verse, or even a chapter. In addition, the word chieh represents a limit of time, a festival, a term. And furthermore, since bamboo slips were used in ancient China for books, or for letters, with characters inscribed on them, the word chieh was, and also is used for a credential, a tally and a patent. To a rather wider extent, because every piece of bamboo stalk has many knots or joints that naturally maintain a certain distance and order, the word chieh as a verb means to regulate, to keep in limit, to restrict, to restrain, and, predominantly, in today's Chinese language, it means to economize, to save, or to retrench, as an adjective or adverb, chieh denotes a quality or virtue as chastity, purity, and finally, fidelity.

      Finally, we understand that a bamboo with knots expresses the idea that a gentleman has the virtue of fidelity. Thus, to speak of the knots of a bamboo distinguishable under a balmy breeze is to make an elliptical statement about the great qualities of a gentleman that one never to be mistaken.

      The phrase, balmy-fragrant breeze is also a literary allusion. It reflects the Confucian saying the powerful influence of a gentleman is like the wind in the field which always can make the high grass, (symbolizing the ordinary people or the masses of the world) bow and obey. It is also interesting to know that Wang Kai's other name is An-chieh which means to be in peace with or to feel comfortable with the 'knots' -- the restrictions and the regulations.

      ***

      In all cultures, art is nevertheless infused with a set of symbolic motifs associated with nature, myth, and religion, and charged with specific attributes intended to communicate ideas and information. Chinese people, deeply believing in the magic power of the words their ancestors invented thousands of years ago, feel quite proud of their art which is laden with a great deal of symbolic vocabulary, or rather with visualized parables. A parable in simple terms is a like story. A gentleman is like a bamboo which bows to the strong wind but never breaks; and the virtue of his self-restraint is like the knots to bamboo.

      In English, we have a word: sign. In the forest, the hunter found signs of deer, which would lead him to a great catch. Here, signs are nothing but marks, foot­ prints. And when we say that the robin is a sign of spring, the sign means a physical announcement by Mother Nature. When our discussion moves to the field of linguistics, we generally think that words are the signs of ideas. As to Chinese words, in most cases, one word, i.e. one character, is just one sign, which is used universally in Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, to represent a certain concept or message. This is very similar to the use of international traffic signs or the signs for mathematics and chemical formulas. And when these signs, also words, become more systematically organized, showing deeper and more complicated ideas, they become metaphors themselves and scarcely need any interpretation.

      In other words, we usually say that a parable is a picture in words of some facet of human experience. But, very dramatically, we find Chinese art works are parables without words. Parable is widely known as a work of art which compels immediate response. Thus, a parable in literature and a work of the Chinese artist's brush can be described together as a concrete universal whose immediate object is always to be intelligible and interesting in itself. This parable, in words as well as without words, takes an ordinary fact of everyday life and uses it to make abstract concepts simple and to make spiritual ideas real. The message it imparts is always open-ended, nothing static. The picture of reality and truth which a parable represents is almost a living thing. It becomes richer and more vital as we meditate upon the symbols, the words and their extended meanings.

      Parables, used as pictures in words are common in all languages. Parables in pictures are unique in Chinese art and especially since they are also related to the Chinese words which themselves originated from pictures. We believe that we will understand much more about Chinese art, if we have enough knowledge about these pictorial words of the ancient days in China.

      The classic Chinese language is written with thousands of characters which are mostly rooted in and evolved from the chia-ku-wen, the oracle inscriptions on river turtle shells or the shoulder blades of oxen. Many oracle characters, interpreted by studying their context and by comparing them with later words devised from them, are nothing but pictures of many concrete things from daily life. They represent substantial ideas, and their compositions are storytelling. Because of the development of Chinese life in many directions, the ancient Chinese language also became gradually complicated but systematized. Then, some of the pictorial words showing material things or daily activities were borrowed to serve, some only a phonetic sign, some as prepositions and other parts of speech. But, a great many were extensively used to describe more elevated concepts, or infused with abstractions. Even today when we see those ancient words, and identify the central point of the message, a clear, direct image is deeply planted in our mind. The meaning of what one has received grows richer and more profound as one attends more to it.

      For example: The character for a dagger, originally just a simplified picture of the weapon itself, was borrowed to be the sign for danger, the symbol of pain and its extension, bitterness. One might be impressed to know that the word not edible was and still is a picture of an open mouth with a dagger hanging above, and that the word concubine was and still is a picture of a kneeling woman with a dagger suspended over her head.

      The orchid flower, one of the four gentlemen, is well known for its fragrance. Many orchid painting samples in the Mustard Seed Garden Manual are accompanied by poems concentrating on the Royal smell and everlasting fragrance. The original word for fragrance depicted ripe rice against the setting sun. Thus, its extended meaning today is success, reward, then great virtue and a good reputation.

      Yet, the word for bad odor was a combination of a nose and a skunk. This pictorial word standing for any offensive smell was and still is used to indicate a person who has ill fame, a foul reputation. It is the same as in colloquial English, when one says he stinks, meaning he is notorious but hateful and unwanted.

      Chinese painting has been for long considered as the extension of poetry. Wang Wei of the T'ang dynasty was admired by his contemporaries as an artist whose poetry is full of picturesque representations, in Chinese, Shih chung you hwa, and whose painting embodies poetic imagination, in Chinese,Hwa chung you shih.

      The works of literature incorporate numberless similes and metaphors. Due to the characteristics of our words, there is almost no clear boundary to separate the two. In a very romantic manner, Chinese use simile as something akin to a countersign. In Chinese art, a simile is not limited only to saying A is like B but also allows the statement B is like A. So, A and B are inter-changeable, and many times they are overlapped and are interwoven.

      The metaphor aspect is more unruly and illogical. It could remain in the form of a parable. For instance, the earliest blooming branch of an old plum tree that

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