FA: $9.00 The How and Why of Chinese Painting

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The How and Why of Chinese Painting
By Diana Kan

Hard Cover, with jacket, VNR, 1974, 176 Pages
Jacket torn on back (2" tear at top edge)

Although Oriental brushwork has often seemed a mystifying challenge to most Westerners,
acquiring skill is essentially a matter of knowledge and discipline. Diana Kan is a contemporary
Chinese artist well-versed in
the centuries-old traditions of Eastern painting. She has lived and taught in the United States
for over ten years and has developed successful methods of trans mitting her techniques to her
students, whether they are
pro fessional artists or interested amateurs. She brings to this book the benefits of her own
rigorous training and her broad teaching experience.

Beginning with the fundamentals of how to hold and ink the brush, Diana Kan guides you through
each stroke of your painting. In examining four traditional sublects, you will learn to depict
the bamboo, plum
blossoms, the Chinese orchid, and the chry santhemum, both in ink monochrome and in color.
Continuing with landscape, you will develop a fascinating vocabulary of modeling and dotting
strokes used to indicate
craggy rocks and lofty mountains, distant vegetation and tree foliage, and you will see how to
combine these elements in a harmonious composition. You will also learn how to achieve the
important effects of silvery
waterfalls, billowing clouds and vaporous mists, which contribute so greatly to the impact of
the composition. Again the use of ink monochrome, with its delicate nuances of tone, and the use
of color--vibrant and
startling in some landscapes, soft and subtle in more traditional works--are thoroughly
explored.

Among the other unique topics covered in this book are:

· A comparison of Chinese and Western colors

· The importance of the scroll forms and the use of seals

· The painting of the lotus plant

· The role of calligraphy in Oriental art

In elucidating the practical aspects of Chinese brushwork, this book echoes the simple elegance
and poetic concepts that under lie Diana Kan's masterful paintings and creates a clear under
standing of the ancient
traditions and philosophical foundations inherent in all aspects of Oriental life.

Diana Kan, an eminent artist, lecturer and educator, was born in Hong Kong to Kan Kam Shek, a
noted calligrapher and carver, and Hong Sun-Ying, a prominent political writer. She studied with
Chang Dai-chien,
who has been acclaimed by many as the greatest living Chinese artist, and also attended the Art
Students League of New York and the Beaux Arts in Paris. She had her first one-man show at the
National Academy of
Fine Art in Shanghai at the age of nine. Since then she has had twenty-four one-man shows at
major museums and galleries throughout the world. Her most recent shows were held in the
National Historical Museum,
Taiwan, 1971; The New York Cultural Center, New York City, 1972; the Elliott Museum, Stuart,
Florida, 1973. Her paintings are in many important public and private collections. Since coming
to the United States
in 1949, she has won over twenty major awards; she is a member of the American Water color
Society, and is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Art, Who's Who of American
Women, and
Two Thousand Women of Achievement, England.

Sing-Si Schwartz is a talented young photographer whose work was appearing regularly in The
Villager (NewYork) and Cosmorama Pictorial magazine (Hong Kong) by the time he was seventeen.
His interests and
assignments have been far-ranging, taking him from New York, where he currently resides, to
Brazil, Burma, Nepal, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. He has studied portraiture with Philippe
Halsman and has been the
subject of television and newspaper articles here and abroad.

The ART-IN-PRACTICE SERIES represents a new, important concept in art instruction books and is
based on many years of experience in teach ing art through the printed page. For each book in
the series, the
publishers have drawn on the combined talents of a well-known creative artist and acknowledged
experts in the fields of book design, professional writing, and photography, in order to bring
to the reader the most
effective and stimulating learning experience that can be presented in book form.

Contents
Introduction
1. The Four Treasures
Ink The Inkstone Brushes Paper and Silk
2. Brushwork
3. Color
4. Bamboo
5. Plum Blossoms
6. The Chinese Orchid
7. Chrysanthemum
8. Landscape
Trees Rocks and Mountains Water and Waterfalls
Clouds and Mist Places, People and Things
9. Scrolls and Seals
Scrolls and Album Leaves Seals and Colophons
10. The Lotus
Calligraphy Appendix