Brushwork And Stroke

Because of the wide coverage of the two words, "brushwork" and "stroke", this essay firstly focuses on the direction of what is studied here, thus "brushwork" is defined as the brushwork of traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting, and "stroke" is defined as the stroke of oil painting. Secondly, the essay compares their emergence, development, history, tools of usage, and spiritual conception, for the purpose of discovering the more flexible and varied expression of "brushwork" compared with "stroke", which is worth our learning in the artwork of oil painting. In fact, I have been learning a lot of experience from the essence of traditional Chinese culture and art in my artwork, especially during the three year post graduate studying. I have been gradually trying to find out my own way to express and build up my own artistic view and insight through trial and thought. During the practice of traditional Chinese art and culture, I think that I benefit most from the "brushwork" of Chinese calligraphy and painting. Actually in my artwork, the treatment of "stroke" mostly refers to the "brushwork". Scanning the well-known contemporary oil painters, we can find that many of them are concerned with absorbing the essence of "brushwork" of Chinese calligraphy, and they combine it with their own stroke in a flexible way as to express their themes and then transfer their thoughts and feelings, which is not only applied by the Chinese artists but also many Western artists. They have been aware of the advantages of the expression of Chinese calligraphy and painting, together with other oriental art elements, and applied these techniques in their oil paintings and produced a lot of prestigious artwork. In this essay, I review and summarize my artworks and studies in the past three years, demonstrate how I "unconsciously" imitated the simple brushwork of Chinese calligraphy from the beginning and evolved to "consciously" studies and learning to combine "brushwork" and "stroke". In addition, I briefly introduce the "brushwork" of Chinese calligraphy applied in their artwork of oil paintings by some successful artists.