The Brushstroke Part II

© artstor.org

Writing around the same time that Chauchetière and Cholenec were penning their biographies of St. Kateri, a master painter in China, Zou Yigui was writing an instructional text titled The Little Mountain Painting Manual. An except from that text recently appeared in Dr. Martin J. Powers' essay "The Cultural Politics of the Brushstroke" in Volume XCV of The Art Bulletin. Zou Yigui writes

Westerners are good at geometry, therefore when it comes to shading and spatial depth, their painting is exact in every detail... Students can learn a few tricks from them, by way of catching people's attention. But they have no brushwork to speak of, and their skill is that of a craftsman. Consequently it cannot be classified as art.

It's quite paradigm shifting when you consider that he is speaking of the work of Raphael, Caravaggio, and Bellini. Michelangelo cannot be considered an artist because the Sistine Chapel ceiling has no brushwork to speak of.

It's hard to agree to the whole of Zou Yigui's arguement, but he certainly has a point. Brushwork can be one of the greatest parts of a painting, but it is only recently in western art, that this has been recognised. Perhaps not as recently as is related in Dr. Powers' article. The admiration for Titian's later work in the early British Royal Academy and the criticism of the "liney" quality of American work at the same time would seem to indicate at least a healthy respect for the gestural mark in British art at the time of Yigui's text. This notwithstanding, Dr. Powers' is right in that it is not until the early 20th century that brushwork is truly seen as the mark of the artist.

To close: aphorisms of the brushstroke by Robert Henri from The Art Spirit

Strokes that started bravely, but don't know where to go. Sometimes they bump into and spoil something else, or they may just wander about, fading into doubtfulness.

There are rich, fluid, abundant strokes 

There are strokes which laugh, and there are strokes which bind laughter. 

Strokes carry a message whether you will it or not. The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it. All the bigness of his spirit and all the littleness are in it. 

He paints like a man, going over the top of a hill, singing