Artist: Liang Kai (3rd Quarter of the 12th century)
Title: The Tang dynasty poet, Libo
Material: ink and color on paper
Site:
Current Location:
Period/Date: Southern Song dynasty (painting attributed to ca. 1200)
Iconography/Iconology: See previous screen
Stylistic Comments: While there is an appearance of great spontaneity, the detail shows that in actuality the brush is highly controlled. Even such nuances as the shading around the poet's collar, and the two-toned heavy brush strokes that define his back, are created with multiple strokes of varyingly charged brushes and varying values of ink. As a result, the artist had to have pre-planned and visualized the entire image, stroke by stroke, prior to the brush ever touching the paper.
