Diamonds (5.72 CTS.), Rose cut diamonds (0.68 CTS.), Blue sapphires (0.50 CTS.), Orange sapphires (0.54 CTS.), Pink sapphires (1.08 CTS.), Yellow sapphires (0.29 CTS.), Tsavorites (3.16 CTS.)
'My challenge is to mimic all abstract things in Chinese civilisation. how do you mimic something so abstract (painting) in jewellery. How do you mimic brush strokes in jewellery? My answer was to paint with gold.'
Gong Bei paintings 工筆畫 are a Chinese concept, they found favour in the Imperial courts and were collected by Emperors. Coloured and made up of precise, highly detailed brushwork, the difficulty in executing a good Gong Bei painting 工筆畫 or any ink painting is that there is no turning back, unlike in oil painting and pencil where the artist can paint over or erase, once the ink is on the paper, that is it — one mistake and the artist needs to start again! They depict the reality and do not allow for imagination or emotion to be expressed, a Gong Bei 工筆artist paints exactly what is in front of him.
During the Tang 唐(618-907) and Song dynasties 宋朝(960-1279) they were also collected by the elite, but in secret, as this was ordained to be an Imperial pastime.
Yewn's thought provoking bracelets embrace the Gong Bei 工筆style to introduce a fleeting moment of consciousness into the everyday life of a literatus or scholar. He uses materials which are dear to the literati such as wenge wood and jade with symbols such as peach and winter plum blossoms, butterflies, bats and birds.
'Technique is important but if you let technique overtake you, you lose the most important aspect which is originality.'
Usually Chinese painting is about maximum effect with the least number of brushstrokes, it is about showing what the painter feels from within, his emotion has been displayed and there is no turning back and no room for regret.
“Once the water is spilled, it’s hard to recollect it.” A famous Chinese saying. — the essence of the scene and conveying this emotion in his painting rather than the reality set before him, is the opposite of the Gong Bei 工筆 technique. An example would be a painting of a winter scene, the artist must be capable of communicating how it feels to be cold and maybe even hungry. One famous artist from the Sung dynasty 宋朝( 960-1279), Kuo Hsi 郭熙(second half of the 11th century) used vigorous brushstrokes to show the rugged splendor of mountains and then changed his brushstrokes to create a layered effect to describe the cadence of countryside he was painting.
Frequently the artist will use both calligraphy and painting together to convey his message so a landscape (a popular form of contemplation for the literati) may be accompanied by a poem which has inspired his work.
In “Photographs of Betrayal”, Yewn's conceptual photography exhibition from early 90’s, he has attempted to use photography and darkroom printing techniques as a deliberate alternative to express his emotion using "painting with light" and the idea of the accompanying text by Antoine de Saint Exupery represented this norm for many literati painters, to place a poem next to their expression in paints or inks.
'The natural world...is to Chinese tradition what the human body is to the West: a subject that has for centuries enthralled artists and the raw material for their metaphysical and existential quests'
Nicholas Chow, director Sotheby'sHK.
Line drawings do not have much shadow and have little colour, shadow and light do not have their place in traditional Chinese painting. Chinese paintings refer to philosophical thought and people illustrated in Chinese paintings are always small in comparison to the nature which surrounds them.
Flower painting can be divided into four basic categories 'complete scenery'; 'intimate scenery'; 'broken branch' and 'vase arrangement'.
In the Tang dynasty 唐朝(618 - 906) landscape painting became more popular and two schools seemed to thrive side by side that of the 'blue-green landscape' or 'gold-blue-green landscape' — ginglushanshui 青綠山水and jinbishanshui 金碧山水respectively, they both used blue and green mineral colours which were added to the painting using a technique of meticulous fine lines building up a rich and detailed composition often with the addition of white or gold; they resembled the jewelled paradise landscape paintings of Taoist immortals which were so popular in the Imperial court at that time. The Tang dynasty 唐朝 was a great period for Buddhist art in both sculpture and painting.
The artists from each era have common stylistic traits, however their use of similar techniques can be very different. They use four basic techniques such as 'boneless' washes where no outline is used; the 'baimiao' technique which uses very fine ink-lines; 'outlines filled with colours' and the 'sketching ideas' methods. The 'ruled -line' and the 'palace-filling' methods using a background wash, are others.
Court paintings adopted this style as can be seen in the famous scroll painting 'Ladies preparing Silk' 搗練圖 by Zhang Xuan 張萱.
The second style was that of using ink to create ink-washes grasping 'an emotion or atmosphere so as to catch the 'rhythm' of nature'.
One of the great artists using this technique was Wu Daoxi 吳道子, he was famous for creating a sculptural depth to his paintings with ink alone.
He is said to have had a profound effect on figurative painting and his style can be seen to great effect in some of the murals in the caves of Dunhuang敦煌.
During the Song dynasty 宋朝, the Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗, (born in 1082, he died in 1135, ruling from 1101 - 1125), a great lover of the arts and a talented artist in his own right, encouraged the development of art through his interest in the Imperial Painting Academy and also the setting up of a new school of Painting. Culture flourished under his reign and other than landscape painting, portraiture and themed painting gained in importance. During this period the great work 'Along the River during the Ch'ing-ming Festival'清明上河圖was painted.
During this period, 'bird-and-flower' and 'landscape' paintings became independent styles.
The political turmoil following Emperor Huizong's 宋徽宗 abdication and the attacks occasioned by the Jin-Song wars 金宋戰爭, meant that artists and literati fled south of the Yangtze river 長江 where the scenery changed dramatically, accordingly from landscape paintings of great mountains, artists had new challenges and a different yet endless source of inspiration.
'Villages in snow and smoke, and banks in mist: they are easy to enjoy, but difficult to capture' Li T'ang李唐 (c.1049 - c.1130) Northern Sung master of landscape painting
The artists turned to paintings depicting wisps of mist and snow, as reflected in the landscapes that they were now witnessing, they interpreted the new landscapes in a more intimate and detailed style. For some a landscape scene was now painted to one side of the composition.
'The river flows beyond the heavens and earth, the mountains appearing to fade in and out' Li T'ang 李唐 (c.1049 - c.1130) Northern Sung master of landscape painting
Another form of painting to exist during the Southern Song dynasty 宋朝 was inspired by Confucian and Buddhist teachings. During the Yuan dynasty 元朝(1280 -1368) many literati were prohibited from taking part in the life of the Imperial court under Mongol rule and they sought safety in seclusion and by impersonating artisans. They continued the traditions of the literati in seeking to illustrate their inner emotions through their work. Chao Meng-fu 趙孟頫 and the Four Masters of Yuan 元四家 (Huang Gongwang 黃公望; Ni Zan 倪瓚; Wang Meng 王蒙; Wu Zhen 吳鎮); were great masters of this period.
With the new Ming dynasty 明朝(1368 - 1644) Chinese art reached a pinnacle of taste and the great themes of the Song dynasties 宋朝 were back in favour from landscape paintings to 'bird and flower' paintings. It also developed its own school of art - the Zhe School of Painting 浙派繪畫(Wu Wei 吳偉 and Dai Jin 戴進) whilst the Wu school 吳門畫派(Shen Zhou 沈周) continued with themes from the Yuan dynasty 元朝. It was a period of great refinement in their art.
Western styles of painting using perspective and shading were introduced amongst others, by Lang Shining 郎世寧or Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit missionary from Italy (1688-1766). He merged his Western techniques with those of China to create his own very distinctive style that was admired by three Emperors of the Qing Dynasty 清朝(1644 - 1911) for whom he worked, in their Imperial Courts.
The three Emperors were Kangxi 康熙(1662-1722), Yongzheng 雍正(1723-1735) and Qianlong 乾隆 (1736-1795).
Gong Bei painting 工筆畫in contrast to all these styles is about reality, a style of painting which is about precision (similar to copper plate prints)and depicts how something is - such as the daily lives of people or animals similar in a way to realist painting in the West. Giuseppe Castiglione was famous for using this technique merged with Western painting techniques of 'one point perspective' (objects closer to the viewer are larger) and 'Chiaroscuro' (light from a uniform source is represented by light and darker shades for shadows).
