Aventurina King

After nine months of absence, the duo is back: Aventurina and her faithful steed: pink bicycle junior (for information on adventures with senior, please see last summer in
Beijing’s blog).

Mr. J, as usual was elemental in my acquiring of this Beijing hood attitude’s required ornamentation.  The bicycle scout was patrolling the nearby hutongs in search of potential buyers.  She wore a ponytail and her sun-beaten face framed her accented mandarin (she was from outside the city I concluded).  She hopped in the car and lead us to a different hutong, rife with salient garbage, flies and arrays of stolen TV sets.  After a few moments of absence, she materialized with my companion, it performed well.  I rolled in the usual frowns and fibs but it was though she had cut the price in stone (and Mr. J’s verbal honoring of the dividend he would get off the deal behind my back did not make things easier, God bless you Mr.J).  The first bicycle stop of the day(after carefully paying due to the lady that guards the bicycles): the Chaoyang Book Market.  It is a two-floored lego puzzle in which the assembled pieces are separate book companies.  It is dusty and busy, cart full of books and sitting personnel race through the small alleys between the glass boxes of the companies.

Number 103 was the arts box.  I purchased A Complete Collection of Famous Chinese Paintings. I have eternally been confused about Chinese painting, yes they are beautiful, graceful, elegant additions in newly furnished New York apartments, but what more?  This book may have started to shed some light onto my desperate situation.  I have translated the following excerpt from mandarin(there being no English edition or equivalent on the www)(if there are any mandarin speakers that wish to make amendments, don’t hesitate to comment):

Modes of Expression of Chinese paintings:

The six canons of painting:The six canons of painting represent the six goals of the classical painter: 1)The subject must be life-like 2)Outlined paintings must be drawn with a pen. 3)the objects of the painting must imitate shapes, or must be arranged along shapes 4)the chosen colors depend on the type of object, the season and the weather surrounding what is depicted 5)the painting must be composed 6)the painting must be true to its subject.   Boneless Painting: Painting without a pen, with only color.

The Five Faces of Ink:

In Chinese painting, ink is not only considered as a monochrome parcel.  It can complete the painting on its own and therefore can change appearance.  These appearances belong to five categories:anxious, strong, heavy, thin and clear.

The Eighteen Outlines:  There are eighteen ways to outline the folds of the ancient characters’ robes: the iron line, the olive line, the smooth and natural line, the date stone line, the line of the battling pen and aqueous fold, the reduced pen line, the willow leaf line, the bamboo leaf line, the confused line, the pin-head line, the dry bramble line,  the earthworm line, the hairpin line, the lute’s string line, the horse leech line, the nail head and rat’s tail line, the cao clothing line, and the snapped line. (to be cont.)