Practice, Naturalness and the Living Brushstroke
When I look at Chinese freehand painting, I often find a way of thinking that I also recognise in Daoism: a form comes alive when it seems to grow from the movement of the brush. I sometimes think of xieyi painting as Daoism put into practice. That is my way of reading it, rather than a definition of a tradition shaped by many different ideas.
The other essays in this series are collected in Daoist Talks. Here I want to stay close to a few painted examples.
What interests me is the relationship between practice and naturalness. How can a leaf made with one brushstroke seem more alive than a carefully corrected outline? And how can learned forms remain fresh?
The Daoist idea of ziran, often translated as naturalness or spontaneity, helps me think about this.[1] It does not simply mean copying the visible world. In painting, I understand it as a movement that feels unforced. The painter is so absorbed in doing that the wish to control every mark recedes. The apparent ease rests on a great deal of practice.
The Dao of Bamboo
Bamboo paintings can look deceptively simple. Why does one arrangement feel alive while another remains a collection of strokes? The teaching examples in fig. a offer a way into that question.
First there is the individual leaf: the pressure, speed and release of the brush have to work together. Then there is the group. In the teaching examples, clusters take names from a crane or a wild goose rising or settling on water. These are reminders of movement and balance, rather than instructions to draw a bird. The leaves must belong together without becoming rigid. After hundreds of practice sheets, I know how difficult that apparently simple task can be.
Dao, One Step Further
Wu Zhen (1280–1354), a major bamboo painter of the Yuan dynasty, gives this movement extraordinary life.[2] In fig. b, his bamboo is placed beside a dancer by Ye Qianyu. What draws me to the comparison is the grace of the bending forms: the arc of the bamboo and the dancer’s tilted body, the leaves and the movement of her clothes. I see a kinship in the brushwork, without claiming that this particular bamboo painting was a direct source for Ye’s dancer.
Qi Baishi and the Living Flower
The peony reproduced on the right in fig. c–d, attributed to Qi Baishi, offers another comparison.[3] On the left is a teaching illustration from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual, showing the flower’s structure. On the right, the crowded petals become broad red strokes above heavy dark leaves. The change from studied outline to concentrated gesture is what interests me. Knowledge of the flower’s construction can remain present even when the painter no longer spells it out.
An Extra: Marks in My Own Paintings
These examples also help explain what I seek in my own abstract work. The marks in fig. e sometimes suggest birds, fish or other forms, yet they remain brushstrokes. A change of pressure or direction can give a small mark its own weight and movement. Years of practice lie behind that freedom. What I keep looking for is the moment when a learned gesture stops looking learned, and seems simply to belong.
Footnotes
[1] 自然 (ziran) literally suggests ‘self-so’: something being so of itself. ‘Naturalness’ and ‘spontaneity’ are useful translations. The connection with brushwork here is my interpretation. See Laozi: Naturalness and Nonaction, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ↩
[2] For Wu Zhen’s dates, Yuan-period context and the relationship between bamboo painting and calligraphy, see the National Palace Museum’s Manual of Ink Bamboo. That catalogue concerns its own album, not a provenance identification of the reproduction in fig. b. ↩
[3] The chronological claim “last painting” in the original comparison image has not been independently established here. The discussion concerns the visible treatment of the flower, rather than a claim about its place among Qi Baishi’s final works. ↩
Related articles: Analyzing a Simple Painting by Qi Baishi · The Essence of Chinese Painting (III) · What a Dot Can Do
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