Bamboo and Pine Trees

Bamboo and pine trees are very common designs in Chinese brush painting. Both plants are very important symbols in Chinese culture.

Pine trees are evergreens and keep their green needles through the long winter. They are a symbol of long life. Bamboo looks very delicate, but because it bends in strong winds and does not break, it symbolizes strength and flexibility in Chinese culture.

These examples of bamboo and pine trees are from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, first published in China in the year 1679. Many famous Chinese artists began learning painting with the help of this manual.

Can you find bamboo and pine trees in Ruby’s paintings?

What holiday do many American families celebrate with a decorated pine tree?

Black Ink

Chinese black ink (called “mo”) is made from burnt pine tree soot mixed with animal glue, molded and dried into hard sticks, which are decorated with gold. Ink makers have guarded their special recipes carefully, never writing them down, and have passed down their special formula to their apprentices. To make liquid ink from an ink stick, painters must rub it with drops of water on a fine- grained rock, such as slate.

In Chinese color theory, black contains all colors and it is possible to create an infinite number of shades of black ink.

Find the paintings that use only black ink. (Hint: both traditional landscapes and large abstract paintings use only black ink.) Which painting do you prefer?

Chinese Writing

In China, painting and writing developed together, using the same skills and tools (brush and ink). Chinese writing is composed of symbols that stand for ideas. These symbols, called characters, are written in columns, from top to bottom, unlike English letters, which are written in rows from left to right. Ruby Wang writes her English signature with the letters going from top to bottom, just like Chinese characters. Sometimes she also adds her Chinese signature next to the English. Her Chinese name is “Chih Ning.”

How many paintings have the artist’s signatures in both English and Chinese?

Chinese Landscape Painting

The word for landscape painting in Chinese is “shanshui hua,” which means “mountain water painting.” The name shows the importance of these landscape elements in Chinese painting. Mountains rise up; water flows down. The Chinese see mountains and water as symbols of the eternal process of change and of the balancing yin and yang.

“Yin and yang” describes how opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. Many natural opposites (such as male and female, light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, water and fire, life and death, and so on) are thought of as physical examples of the yin-yang concept.

Find the paintings with mountains and water. How are the hills and rivers around Binghamton different from the mountains and water in Ruby Wang’s paintings?

Red Chinese Seals

Carved seals, dipped in red paste and pressed on paper, have been used on documents in China for thousands of years. Seals are carved from stone, but used like rubber stamps are today.

Chinese seals are like signatures. Emperors used seals to proclaim their laws to the people, officials used Draw a seal that represents seals to signify their power, merchants used seals to your name and signature: demonstrate their honesty, landholders used seals to mark the edges of their property, and common people used seals to mark their personal belongings.

Ruby Wang has many different seals in different shapes and sizes. She chooses which seals to use for artistic reasons. Many of her paintings use two red seals. One is carved with “Hwa,” her maiden name. She often prints it next to the “H” in her English signature. The seals with two characters means “Chih Ning,” Ruby’s Chinese name.

Paintings by Ruby Wang Ruby by Paintings

Worlds: Two Between

Guide Family

Family Guide Design: David Skyrca Developed by: Karen K. Madsen, Outreach Coordinator, Institute for Asia and Asian Diasporas Photography: Chris Focht, Karen Madsen This exhibition is supported by: The Confucius Institute of Chinese Opera, Binghamton University The Institute for Asia and Asian Diasporas, Binghamton University

This Family Guide was produced with support from an outreach grant of the Association for Asian Studies, Council of Conferences.

Thanks to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for permission to use information from Brushstrokes — Styles and Techniques of Chinese Painting by Molly Schardt, 1995.

Binghamton University Art Museum

binghamton.edu/art-museum

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