If it were the former Gu Weijing, wanting to imitate the "Bean Flower Painting," facing the delicate plant texture brushwork on the scroll today, he would surely feel like a dog encountering a hedgehog, at a loss.
Chinese painting and calligraphy share the same origin and vein,
Compared to the Western artists who evolved from "painters" dabbling furiously on canvas with a small brush, the realm of Chinese painting pays more attention to rules and techniques for holding and using brushes.
With just a small soft-haired brush,
there are six ways to use the brush: central tip, side tip, smooth tip, reverse tip, scattered tip, and hidden tip, as well as five methods of ink application: intense, dense, heavy, light, and clear.
If considering the finer categorization for handling different scenes in the painting,
the methods for different ink-outline lines alone exceed twenty or thirty types.
