Sumi-e

sumi ink stick production

Investigating Japan’s Edo Avant GardeExplores Edo-period art and provides lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school students.

Introduction

The Japanese art of sumi-e, charcoal ink painting, explores the infinite range of shades between black and white by dissolving sumi (charcoal) ink with differing amounts of water and by painting with a wide variety of brushes. Artists of the Edo period expanded the styles and subjects of sumi-e by experimenting with a broad range of techniques, pushing ink painting toward minimalism and abstraction—techniques that today we refer to as “modern.

Japanese master Shozo Sato demonstrates tarashikomi (in Japanese 垂らし込み, meaning "dripping in") painting techniques

Pine Trees by Hasegawa Tohaku (Hasegawa Tohaku ”Shorinzubyoubu”) - The Magic of Japanese Masterpieces | NHK WORLD-JAPANThe masterpiece represents the pinnacle of Japanese ink painting. The monochrome features pine trees depicted in the foreground, with snow-capped mountain in the back. What appears like a graffiti of a mass of black lines at first glance will look like pine needles from a distance. And even from a farther place, a pine grove emerges. With just a minimum process, the artist successfully brought out the greatest possible effects and even a misty veil.

The Pine Trees screen (松林図屏風, Shōrin-zu byōbu) is a pair of six-panel folding screens (byōbu) by the Japanese artist Hasegawa Tōhaku. Made in the late 16th century in the Momoyama period. This work illustrates the Buddhist concept of ma (間) (artistic interpretation of empty space/negative space)