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15
January, 2001
THE
ZEN OF PAINTING IN BLACK AND WHITE
I don't remember the first time I dipped a brush into water, then smeared it around some paint and wiped across the piece of paper. I'm sure it was nursery school or kindergarten, and I'm sure the results were predictably messy and unintelligible.
| Sumi-e, if done correctly, is simple, elegant and rich with shades of gray. |
In art school, I tried watercolors yet again, and found much the same results - although I learned much more about brush techniques and how to mix colors so they stayed vibrant, I simply never connected with watercolor painting.
Although I can appreciate a fine watercolor, I don't think I'll ever paint one.
However, I have always been fascinated with and dabbled in a different type of watercolor painting: the black and white kind that in Japan is called sumi-e.
Sumi-e (literally, "ink picture") uses precisely pointed brushes, black ink (not paint) usually made from a stick of dried ink that is mixed with water in a special flat mixing stone called a suzuri, and thin fragile rice paper.
Like much of Japanese culture, sumi-e was first developed in China, growing naturally out of the art of calligraphy as a way of depicting landscapes and other images of nature. The ink drawings of Buddhist monks made their way to Japan and Korea around the 14th century. It is unique from the history of Western landscape painting in that instead of trying to show nature as exactly as possible, Asian ink painting has always been about capturing the essence of the subject. In that sense, it is very abstract, and when European artists made a fad of Japanese art including sumi-e in the mid-19th century, it helped usher in the modern era of abstract art to the West.
The heart of sumi-e is the fluid stroke, so the painting is created quickly - like with calligraphy, an artist may stare at a blank piece of paper for a long time only to lift the brush and lay down an image in the blink of an eye, with just a few strokes. The act is almost meditational and Zen-like.
The result, if done correctly, is simple, elegant and rich with shades of gray, as well as the familiar (but controlled) bleeding of the brush strokes for artistic effect.
Once mastered, the aesthetics of sumi-e can be applied to other styles of painting. Western-style watercolor, of course, is a natural sibling of sumi-e.
One Denver artist, William Mathews, is best known for beautiful, detailed and precise watercolor paintings of cowboys, although he also does landscapes and has a catalog of artwork of trips to China, Ireland and Afghanistan. I once asked him if he studied sumi-e, because I noticed very quick, calligraphic brush strokes in many of his paintings, and he indeed had been a disciple of sumi-e. Some of the details of his very large paintings are painted in a decisive, sumi-e style, and I love the juxtaposition of Eastern and Western art that he embodies.
Last fall, I was fortunate enough to see an exhibit in San Francisco of the Japanese America painter Chiura Obata, who was trained in sumi-e and incorporated his knowledge in everything he did in his long career. The most striking examples of his great art were pre-World War II paintings of Yosemite National Park, in which he uses the sweeping, expressive strokes of sumi-e to capture the grand sweep of the cliffs jutting out of the landscape. Obata also took his sumi-e materials to Topaz internment camp in Utah, and taught art there while he captured the touching everyday lives (and death in the case of one unfortunate old man who walked his dog too close to the fence and was shot) of Japanese Americans imprisoned during the war.
Obata's internment camp pieces (collected eloquently in "Topaz Moon, Chiura Obata's Art of the Internment," Heyday Books, 2000) show the variety of sumi-e. Many of the works are very precise illustrations, and now abstract at all, even though he used ink and a brush. Others show the expressiveness of the brushstroke, but the ink is applied in a dry, scratchy fashion as if he were commenting on the parched, dusty existence of a concentration camp. Some of the artwork uses a full scale of gray washes and brings a full-dimensional tonality to the scenes, using all the techniques of more familiar watercolors.
I received sumi-e supplies for my birthday last year including a stick of dry ink, a bottle of already-mixed black ink, two brushes, a suzuri and a pad of rice paper. The stuff sat on the dresser for a couple of months, but I got them out over the weekend to see if I could do anything with them. It had been a long time since I had held a brush in my hand, so I was tentative. My subject was our beautiful cat, because his coat is a series of tiger stripes and leopard spots in lustrous shades of gray with hints of orange starting to develop. I thought he'd be a perfect image for my first sumi-e in years.
I made two quick studies of the cat and tried to maintain the feel of spontaneity, aiming for the essence of the cat and not worrying if I got details wrong. The paintings are, as you might expect, messy, although I did manage to capture something of the spirit of the cat. Next time, I'll be more comfortable with the materials, and be able to concentrate more on the act of painting instead of looking at the paper and then the cat and then the paper and then the cat.
Hopefully I'll be able to master the Zen of sumi-e someday. Wish me luck.
Learn more about sumi-e, William Matthews and Chiura Obata online.