The skill of the Chinese as skillful artisans cannot be denied as you walk through the Rong Bao Zhai studio in Beijing. The studio that has been there for hundreds of years has collected thousands of different kinds of art works of Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty.

It has a large number of pictures and an art gallery that shows part of these works regularly.

Walking through the gallery, looking at the different works, I realized how important it is to know the original purpose of the maker of something, and when we have found out, we need to see how satisfy the purpose. The studio collects paintings, learns from them to make such art.

The Gongbi and Xieyi painting techniques

The studio made me learn about the Gongbi and Xieyi painting techniques.

Both arts have a message to communicate, and of the two, Xieyi looks to be an unusual type of art. The Xieyi paintings have faint boundaries and this may make them look not so easy to understand. These paintings are said to be expressive and depictive of the painter’s feelings.

This kind of art, I think is more meant for depiction of messages rather than beauty.

For Gongbi, the boundaries of paintings are sharp. The Gongbi technique uses highly detailed brushstrokes that portrays details very precisely. It is often highly colored and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. So, it is easy to look at them, understand them, though they may not be so strong in expressing feelings like Xieyi.

Hudson Kuteesa contributes to the article. The ideas expressed are the author's alone, and do not represent the position of our website.