Emptiness, Negative Space and Nothingness in Chinese Painting. Daoist Talks [IX]
In this series, Asian Art Theories, the author explores ideas, techniques and philosophical concepts that have shaped Chinese painting and calligraphy. This essay focuses on one of the most important and difficult of these ideas: emptiness. Having studied Chinese painting and freehand brushwork for many years, the author is particularly interested in the question of how the unpainted areas of a work can become as expressive as the painted ones.
Emptiness and Nothingness
Emptiness plays a fundamental role in Chinese art, but the term itself requires some caution. Daoist non-being, Buddhist emptiness and the unpainted space of a Chinese ink painting are related to different philosophical and artistic contexts and should not simply be treated as identical concepts. What interests me here is how absence can become active: how something that has not been painted can nevertheless contribute to the meaning, rhythm and visual structure of an image.
Both Daoist and Chan Buddhist thought have contributed to the philosophical background against which emptiness has been discussed in East Asian art. Their concepts are not identical, but both can challenge the simple opposition between something and nothing, presence and absence. Chinese painting provides a particularly fascinating visual field in which to explore these relationships, because the unpainted paper may carry as much compositional weight as the brushstrokes themselves.
To get closer to the topic, I want to begin with a gong an ((Japanese 公案; Chinese 公案, Pinyin gōng’àn). We know it better as Kuan, which is relatively easy to understand. [2]
A Koan
A monk said to Zhao Zhou: “Master, I have not brought anything for you. What do you have to tell me?” Zhao Zhou replied: “Carry it away again.” The original text uses the word “nothing.”
What initially sounds like a paradox points to a deeper problem: the monk is still caught in a way of thinking that distinguishes rigidly between the existent and the non-existent. I have placed this example at the beginning because it illustrates some of the conceptual difficulties we encounter when speaking about emptiness and nothingness.
A more visual example
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.
These two examples—the koan and the paintings—show us very different manifestations of what we might call “nothing.” In one case, nothingness becomes a philosophical problem; in the other, absence becomes an active visual element.
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 idea provides a fascinating perspective from which to look at painters such as Zhu Da (Bada Shanren) [3] and Liang Kai [4] . Their works demonstrate, in very different ways, how reduction and unpainted space can intensify rather than diminish 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.
At first glance, the works appear remarkably simple. In Bada Shanren’s painting, the vessel is only lightly suggested, while much of the surrounding paper remains untouched. Yet this apparent emptiness gives the few painted forms extraordinary presence. Liang Kai achieves a related intensity through radical reduction: instead of describing every fold, texture and detail, a small number of brushstrokes are sufficient to establish the figure. In both cases, what has been omitted is essential to the effect of what remains.
Lao Zi on Nothingness
Chapter 11 of the Daodejing [5] offers one of the clearest expressions of this idea. A wheel functions because of the empty space around its hub; a vessel is useful because of the space within it; a room becomes habitable because its walls enclose an empty interior. Form provides structure, but emptiness makes that structure usable.
This relationship between presence and absence is highly relevant to Chinese painting. Ink gives visible form to the image, while untouched paper allows those forms to breathe, interact and extend beyond themselves. Similar relationships between positive and negative space can also be found in Chinese seal carving and calligraphy. We work with being, but non-being is what we use. Of course, this concept appears in many other areas such as in the art of seal carving.
Mahayana Buddhism [6] approaches emptiness from a different philosophical direction. The famous Heart Sutra states that “form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” Buddhist emptiness (śūnyatā) should not be understood simply as blankness or non-existence, and it is not identical to Daoist non-being. Nevertheless, both traditions contributed to a cultural environment in which the relationship between presence and absence could acquire profound philosophical significance.
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 picture, painted in the 17th century, does not look antiquated, in fact, it could just as well find its place in an exhibition of modern art.
瓶菊圖 八大山人(1626-1705)
footnotes
[1] Emptiness never is an absolute term because emptiness is always related to what exists. See also yin-yang philosophy.
[2] In Chinese Chan- or Japanese Zen Buddhism, a kōan is a short anecdote or sentence that, for example, represents a meaningful action or statement by a Zen master. It is often written that the course and punch lines of these special anecdotes usually seem completely paradoxical, incomprehensible, or pointless to the layman.
[3] Zhu Da (He was a descendant of the Ming Prince Zhu Quan. He was considered a child prodigy and began painting and writing poetry at an early age. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, he fled to a Buddhist monastery. At the age of twenty and became a monk, later even abbot of the monastery. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1678, Zhū showed signs of serious mental illness. His monk’s robe burned and one day he wrote the sign “yǎ” (啞; “mute”) on his door. From then on did not speak a word).
[4] Liáng Kǎi (梁楷 c. 1140 – c. 1210) was a Chinese painter of the Southern Song Dynasty. We also know him as Madman Liang because of his very informal pictures.
[5] The Tao Te Ching ( 道德经 pinyin: Dàodé Jīng) is a Chinese classic text traditionally credited to the 6th-century BC sage Laozi. Lao Tzu or Lao-Tze are common too.
[6] Zen (Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Chán; Japanese: 禅) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism. It originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (Chánzong 禪宗), and later developed into various schools.
This article is based on a lecture I gave in 2020 at the Austrian Society for China Research (Ö.G.C.F.) in Vienna.
Related articles: Wabi-sabi Art: The Beauty of Imperfection I Nothingness in Color I Gestural Landscape: The Landscape Within
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