CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Painting and Writing Tools
Brushes, inkstones, ink sticks, seals, water droppers and other implements of the scholar's desk, collected as objects of beauty.
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About
In China, Korea and Japan the tools of calligraphy and painting carried real prestige. Brush, ink, paper and inkstone were known in China as the Four Treasures of the Study. Ink sticks, pressed from pine soot or lampblack with animal glue, were moulded with gilded inscriptions and scenes; inkstones, on which the stick is ground with water, were cut from admired stones such as Duan stone from Guangdong, whose natural markings collectors named and compared.
Around these grew a world of desk objects: brush pots carved from bamboo or root wood, porcelain water droppers, jade brush rests shaped like mountain ranges, wrist rests, and seals whose red impressions record authorship and ownership. Scholars wrote about their favourite stones. The best pieces join use with quiet refinement, a stone that feels silky under water or a brush pot whose carving rewards turning in the hand.
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