Traditional Chinese Painting – Lotus Flower
Background
Coloured petals of myriad types of colour and a special plant that has accompanied humanity for millennia with myriad uses – as lotus root food, herbal medicine and a beautiful flowering plant – the lotus with it’s verdantly bright lotus flower is recognised not just in China but across the world.
As centrepiece in the “bird and flower” genre the lotus flower is a well known and distinctive art focus that has been well loved in Chinese culture.
Tang dynasty poems sang by ladies of culture to regale courtesans in ancient Xian associated this flower closely with what many modern Chinese believe to the golden age of historical China, linking it’s bloom and fragrance to the fine palaces and glorious bustle of this silk road contemporary metropolis.
Chinese lotus paintings cover styles and designs wide ranging and differing in character, the lotus flower itself naturally demonstrates a range of colours which in turn are painted in many different though traditionally dictated ways, while the great leaves act as shade for plethora of painted animals which often are accompany to the scene.
The plant itself is a complex flower growing from an underwater tuber through to stem and blossoming with an evident flower with core of female receptacle and surrounding male pistil. Budding leaves, sepals, seed capsule and a defined life cycle for all components once diligently studied allow the artist to understand and better “write” the plant onto paper in a more detailed and complete way.
Drawing of the lotus flower is considered a basic prerequisite of approaching the “bird” part of “bird and flower” painting as it often is the “landscape” which forms the basis for bird to “live” in as well as fish, insect and other small animals which are often placed in scene.
Drawing of the Lotus Form
Often starting from the point of petals Chinese art comprises at least seven different techniques for drawing lotus petals.
Our designer has drawn from the – starting point – of the “draw bone” technique where different ink tones are lightly daubed in a careful single stroke to place the broad shape of each petal.
Three pigments are prepared which are a breaking or light tone colour, proper mid tone colour then the same colour toned with a blacker ink, in one stroke a tending toward light brush is dipped into the three colours respectively to daub it in the light to dark colour gradient after which the petal is drawn.
In a single stroke the shape of the petal is then defined by the movement with which the brush touches the paper, from the tip to the base the brush is splayed out forming the petal from tip to root.
The general petals depth and shape is defined by the manner in which the brush touches the paper, from the tip the brush is splayed out to the base with pressure varied over the stroke to produce gradient in colour – in this case the tip of the petal is darker than the base.
This play of pressure will create bands of colour in this particular style while the manner in which the angle of the brush is splayed out will define the shape of the petal conforming the perspective angle.
Continuing with the above picture after the basic impression of the petal is drawn the petal is continued with the “lay line colour” method, this is continued with a finer brush laying a typically deeper colour line impressing the outline and the veins of the petal over the previously drawn “draw bone” strokes.
In Chinese painting each stroke like the stroke in a character is made to represent an evident and precise part of the greater picture – as a complex character is represented by many strokes to produce a particular meaning so in painting the strokes are precisely “written” out to make a final form.
Though similar to other painting techniques in that a series of strokes create a final form the traditional Chinese technique is more stipulating in that each and every brush stroke must have a clearly defined and recognised form. It is the layering of the these carefully placed and impressed strokes that form the object with a stroke count that is very small in number in comparison to other painting methods.
This painting better represents a simpler “draw bone” technique of which the petal is impressed in a single stroke.
As before a selection of three pigments are prepared and applied to the brush while the gradient of pigment applied is controlled by the depth to which the brush is applied to the ink.
As the petal is drawn colour is gradiated out by the angle of which the brush touches the paper and the coating of the previously prepared pigment which now coats the brush while care is taken to control the flow of ink to paper corresponding to the depth of colour and shape required for the petal.
Large expansive leaves of the lotus plant are drawn in similar fashion to the petals, this unfinished work above as well as displaying a beautiful small blue bird resting on a stem of a lotus flower illustrates large shady leaves drawn in the traditional fashion.
In the draw out bone technique a dry vertical brush first strokes out the bare shape of the leaf bones, a wetter black daubed brush then draws out larger impressions of leaves where when the brush is wet the heaver elements of the leaf are applied and the lighter parts are drawn from the drier part of the brush.
In this second painting using a frequently used mineral based black ink lotus leaves are drawn in a different technique.
A large though fine haired goat or rabbit brush is used for this style of black pigment drawn leaf, where the large brush is carefully applied to draw the leaf in a single stroke care being taken to apply gradient of colour to better define the edge of the leaf.
In the second stroke to complete a dry brush finishes the structure or bones of the leaf including the central stem part this is in opposite order to the first technique talked about.
Summation
Of myriad techniques for painting lotus I have covered only a few basic points taken as highlights from some of the many Chinese texts available on the subject and recommended reading for any interested in painting in this way.
Perhaps the most important point of all dedicated books is that the characteristic of the plant should be recorded from nature and learnt by heart, continuous practising and careful reflection of the key traits of the flower will ensure the best results.
In this observation and recreation of the natural world modern Chinese traditional paintings is as much connected to the natural world as the first peoples who discovered tools to record the world which was then as is now so connected to us.