Ink and wash painting, one of the unique traditional art forms of chinese,
is representative of chinese painting. It began around in the Tang dynasty,
and then prospered in the Song and Yuan dynasties. With the history of one
thousand years, it has experienced constant development, improvment and
perfection.The tools and materials used to create ink and wash painting, i.e brushes
and rice paper, and ink, are characteristic of chinese culture and closely
related to the feature of the paintings. For example, the mixing of water
and ink creates different shades of dryness, wetness, thickness and thinness.
The integration and infiltration of water, ink and rice paper enales such painting
to convey rich images, and hence to achieve unique aesthetic effects.
Ink and wash painting holds a high atatus in the history of Chinese paintings,
and it is even regarded as the criterion to evaluate the artistic level of Oriental
paintings.