Freehand landscape painting techniques

Author: Yu Jinsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-07-01
Features: "Landscape Painting" is a major category in traditional Chinese painting, standing alongside other genres such as "Figures" and "Flowers and Birds." Landscape painting depicts natural mountains and rivers as its subject matter. The techniques of landscape painting are both realistic and expressive, embodying a sense of representation. Essentially, it employs realistic methods to achieve the goal of "extending the appearance to depict the object." Expressing the texture, spatial depth, and the beauty of seasonal and meteorological changes like wind, rain, and snow in mountains and rivers are key topics that landscape painters strive to explore. However, Chinese landscape painting is not a mere photographic imitation of nature like Western landscape painting. The mountains, rivers, clouds, and trees in Chinese landscape painting are products of the painter's subjective imagination. As the master landscape painter Huang Binhong once said, "Mountains and rivers are natural objects, while paintings are man-made creations." In Chinese landscape painting, mountains and rivers are the painter's imaginative creation based on nature, forming a "mental landscape" within their hearts. Therefore, accomplished landscape painters have always adhered to the spirit of "learning from nature and expressing the heart's source," continuously exploring the mysteries of nature, capturing the essence of mountains and rivers, refining their expressive techniques, and crafting artistic languages that reflect their inner spirit. Like other traditional Chinese painting genres and calligraphy, landscape painting relies on the simple yet versatile brush and ink as its primary tools. Painters often possess calligraphic skills, leading to a brush-and-ink technique that emphasizes line and ink, focusing on the emotional expression of brushwork and ink charm, as well as the moving power of brush-and-ink forms. By deliberately abandoning the pursuit of natural shadows and colors, Chinese landscape painting has developed unique compositional methods such as scattered perspective and the "Three Distances" (high, far, and deep), as well as a summarizing approach of "less is more," all in pursuit of the ultimate expression of subjective emotion and the creation of "artistic conception." Creating a painting that resonates with viewers is the soul of landscape painting. It reflects the relationship between human beauty and natural beauty, and embodies the dialectical relationship between natural laws and artistic principles. Chinese landscape painting originated in the Jin Dynasty, reached its height of maturity during the Tang and Song dynasties, and has evolved through the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, forming a rich tradition of numerous schools and styles over its 1,500 to 1,600-year history. Different cultural environments, varying artistic temperaments, life experiences, and regional influences have given rise to diverse landscapes with unique appearances. The varied techniques for rendering rocks and mountains, trees, clouds, and water, as well as the artistic theories and doctrines inherited from different eras, are all accumulations of painters observing nature, inheriting, and developing the achievements of their predecessors, forming a solid foundation for the tradition of Chinese landscape painting. Due to the stylized language of traditional Chinese landscape painting techniques, learning this art requires respecting tradition while exploring new paths based on ancient masters. Only by immersing oneself in nature can one create works that blend tradition with innovation.