Brushstrokes: Styles and Techniques of Chinese Painting (review)

Reviews 211 3.John Hay's term, used by Murray on pp. 64 and 68 only; the painting discussed by the author on p. 64 is actually termed a "moral-narrative" by Hay in "Along the River" (p. 298). 4.The original composition is preserved in copies in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the Freer Gallery ofArt, and has recently been redated to the late sixth century by Chen Pao-chen. So Kam Ng. Brushstrokes: Styles and Techniques ofChinese Painting. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1993. 55 pp. Paperback $14.95. Conveniently sized for purse or jacket pocket, this slim catalog of a traveling exhibition from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco simply and clearly explains the materials and techniques of Chinese painting and illustrates them by reference to specific works in the Museum's collection. The exhibition defined Chinese pictorial art in terms of its division into detailed works in color versus works in sketchy ink monochrome, and traced its influence on Japanese painting and on certain pieces done in other media such as pottery, bamboo, and jade. In general the catalog is well conceived, although its small format means that similarities are inevitably stressed over differences. While its illustrations and accessible text can recommend it to the nonspecialist, students of Chinese art history should still rely on Jerome Silbergeld's Chinese Painting Style: Media, Methods, and Principles of Form, a scholarly book which uses early Chinese masterpieces to illustrate points of style. It should be recognized that the brush techniques taught in modern Chinese painting have sometimes been interpreted in school traditions so that they seem closer to woodblock-printed depictions in manuals than to the strokes used in eleventh- and twelfth-century originals. In the catalog certain brushstroke techniques are illustrated by contemporary sketches (unidentified) that are particularly misleading in the case of axe-cut strokes (Ma Yuan and Xia Gui) and cloudhead strokes (Guo Xi), and a purist will not be happy with Ni Zan's image here. Ni's severed bands (more happily designated folding-sash strokes by Silbergeld) are sighted in a Japanese bunjinga painting by Gyokudo, and Ni's uninhabited pavilion is pointed out on a Qing brush holder. One might also note that the use of the botanical name "Cymbidium" without adding that this is a kind of"orchid"©1994 by University ^068 recmœ me acceSsibility ofthe text. Nonetheless, this is an ambitious effort in a convenient format that is reasonably priced. Susan Bush Fairbank Center, Harvard University ofHawai'i Press ...