Emptiness, Negative Space and Nothingness in Chinese Painting. Daoist Talks [IX]
In this instalment of Asian Art Theories, I want to look at a question that has stayed with me through many years of painting: how can the part of an image that remains unpainted become as expressive as the brushwork?
Emptiness and Nothingness
Emptiness is an important idea in Chinese painting, but the word needs care. Daoist non-being, Buddhist emptiness and the unpainted space of an ink painting belong to different contexts. I do not treat them as interchangeable. What interests me here is how something left unpainted can nevertheless contribute to an image’s meaning, rhythm and structure.[1]
Daoist and Chan Buddhist thought offer different ways of questioning the opposition between something and nothing. Painting lets us approach the question with our eyes: a blank area of paper may carry as much compositional weight as a brushstroke.
I would like to begin with a gōng’àn (公案), better known in English by its Japanese name, kōan: a brief encounter or dialogue used in Chan and Zen practice.
A Koan
In a dialogue preserved in the Jikji, Yanyang asks Zhaozhou what happens when one brings nothing. Zhaozhou tells him to put it down. Yanyang objects that, having brought nothing, he has nothing to put down. Zhaozhou then tells him to carry it away.[2]
For me, the difficulty lies in Yanyang’s apparent certainty that he possesses “nothing.” Even that idea can become something he holds on to. I begin with this encounter because it unsettles the terms we are about to use. It does not provide a simple definition of emptiness.
Light on Water
A more visual example can be found in the treatment of reflected light on water. Imagine the sea near sunset, when small waves catch the remaining sunlight and produce constantly changing points of brightness. A European painter such as Claude Monet could represent these reflections by applying strokes of lighter paint to the surface. In a Chinese ink painting, a comparable effect may be created in the opposite way: areas of paper are left untouched, allowing the white ground itself to become light. One painter adds brightness; the other may create it through omission.
This comparison should not be understood as a rigid distinction between “Western” and “Chinese” painting. Both traditions contain many different approaches. What interests me is the artistic possibility demonstrated by the second example: absence can become visually active. What has not been painted can participate directly in what we see.
The kōan and the paintings concern different kinds of absence. I place them together as an invitation to look more carefully, without making the Buddhist dialogue a technical instruction for painting.
Empty Space in Chinese Painting
Empty space in Chinese painting can have both visual and philosophical significance. It may represent mist, water, sky, distance or light, but it can also create rhythm, separation and tension between painted forms. Daoist texts offer an especially important way of thinking about the usefulness of what is absent. In the Daodejing, emptiness is not merely a deficiency: the empty center of a wheel, the interior of a vessel and the space within a room are precisely what make these things useful.
This offers a way into the work of Zhu Da, better known as Bada Shanren,[3] and Liang Kai.[4] Their paintings show how reduction and unpainted space can intensify an image.
In Chinese aesthetics, this relationship is often discussed through the complementary ideas of Xu (虚, emptiness or the insubstantial) and Shi (实, fullness or the substantial). The two do not simply oppose one another; they give meaning to each other.
In Liang Kai’s figure, a few soft strokes establish the robe while much of its interior remains open. The face is barely indicated, yet the tilt of the head gives the figure presence. In Bada Shanren’s vase painting below, the vessel has a firmer outline and patches of grey wash. The open paper within it and around the chrysanthemums is part of what makes the arrangement so clear.
Lao Zi on Nothingness
Chapter 11 of the Daodejing[5] makes the relationship tangible. A wheel depends on the opening in its hub for the axle; a vessel is useful because of its hollow interior; a room requires open space and openings for doors and windows. The material gives these objects form, while what is absent makes them usable.
In a painting, ink gives visible form to the image, while untouched paper separates those forms and allows them to interact. I see a related task in Chinese seal carving: the arrangement of the uncut or unprinted areas matters as much as the visible marks.
The Heart Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text, brings us to a different philosophical context. Its familiar formulation, “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,”[6] concerns the absence of independent, inherent existence. It does not mean that a blank sheet is a direct illustration of Buddhist emptiness, or that Daoist non-being and śūnyatā are the same concept.
In painting, the distinction becomes practical as well as philosophical. The artist must pay attention not only to the marks made with ink but also to the spaces created around and between them. The white paper is therefore not merely a passive background waiting to be filled.
Giving Meaning to the Unpainted
Empty space in Chinese painting is therefore not simply “nothing.” It may represent something concrete such as mist, water or light; it may organize the composition; or it may invite philosophical reflection. Most importantly, it gives the painted forms room to act.
This remains highly relevant to my own work. The longer I work with ink, the more important the decision not to paint becomes. A successful brushstroke depends not only on its shape and movement but also on the space that surrounds it. Painting is therefore partly the art of making marks – and partly the art of knowing what to leave untouched.
The sparse flowering branches in the final illustration make the question concrete again. A long diagonal stroke crosses a broad open field; small blossoms ask for close attention. How much could be added before the space ceased to work?
This article is based on a lecture I gave in 2020 at the Austrian Society for China Research (Ö.G.C.F.) in Vienna.
Footnotes
[1] Terms. The visual use of blank paper is discussed here alongside philosophical ideas, without equating them. For the distinct textual contexts, see the Daodejing, chapter 11 [5], and the Heart Sutra [6]. ↩
[2] Zhaozhou and Yanyang. The dialogue is paraphrased from Jikji, English translation, p. 76. The exchange includes both the instruction to put it down and the final instruction to carry it away. ↩
[3] Bada Shanren. Zhu Da, known as Bada Shanren (1626–1705), came from the Ming imperial family and became a Buddhist monk before working as a professional painter and calligrapher. See the Smithsonian’s exhibition overview. The final flowering-branch illustration is retained with a qualified attribution; its precise identification and date have not been established. ↩
[4] Liang Kai. The Tokyo National Museum catalogues The Poet Li Bai Strolling as an ink painting on paper by Liang Kai, Southern Song dynasty, thirteenth century. It gives the artist’s life dates as unknown. ↩
[5] Laozi. Daodejing, chapter 11, Chinese text. The wheel, vessel and room passage is paraphrased above. Laozi is the traditional authorial name; a firm sixth-century BCE date is not assumed here. ↩
[6] Heart Sutra. See the FPMT edition of the Heart Sutra, which describes the aggregates as empty of inherent nature. ↩
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