Painting and Calligraphy

Painting and Calligraphy: began with rock art and wall painting which were related to ancestor worship, the spirits and Gods.

Silk painting emerged about 300 BCE mostly producing banners and scrolls. Paper has taken over however, silk fans are still popular.

Painting on paper was preferred when it was found that it absorbed ink and gave more freedom. Traditional subjects are flowers ,birds, butterflies and bamboo.

Landscape painting developed in Tang dynasty around 700ce influenced by Daoism, some included human activities and is considered the highest form of painting.

Chinese painting does not employ the western perspective of one focal point instead it uses shifting perspective encouraging the viewer to journey through the painting.

The aim is energy and vitality to catch the spirit of the subject which is more important than capturing the exact image. Artists have a long tradition of revisiting old styles and subject matter.

There are mainly two techniques in Chinese painting, which are:

Meticulous - Gong-bi -often referred to as, court-style, painting.

Freehand - Shui-mo- loosely termed watercolour or brush painting started by Buddhist monks who created direct uncomplicated works with narrow quick and urgent or broad sweeping brush strokes that were different from court art and still remain the basis of Chinese painting.

The sacredness of calligraphy, which attains to great heights for the first time in this Lao period, is the worship of the line, pure and simple.

Each stroke of the brush contains in itself its principle of life and death, inter-related with the other lines to form the beauty of an ideograph.

Calligraphy and art are closely linked so you will find inscriptions included in paintings usually giving a story line or dedication attached.

Basic writing characters were hardly changed until 1949 when they were simplified, but still most can read the inscriptions and poems from long ago.

About the 8th century printing was invented this consisted of carved wood blocks which were inked and the image transferred.

Chinese calligraphy remains popular today, with many people translating their names, onto scrolls for decoration and even tattoos.

Arts - Crafts - Gifts - Posters

• Chinese Art Store The Chinese Art Store Web site offers you one of the most extensive collections of Chinese art available online. Our Chinese art collection includes wall scrolls, watercolor paintings, calligraphy and too many other artworks to list here on this page.
• Artistic Chinese Creations We are professional craft artists. It is a great joy of life to us. We want to share this kind of pleasure with more people and let them know the traditional crafts of China
• Chinese Calligraphy Store is an art gallery offering a large collection of Chinese calligraphy symbol paintings and other art, get your name done in Chinese characters.
• Chinese Jade Jewellery Store offers one of the finest collections of Chinese jade jewelry available online. Many items we offer are one-of-a-kind and handmade in China by skilled artisans.
• Posters and Prints of Chinese art and culture can be viewed here, just type in your preference in the search box on this page,