BRUSH AND INK FOLLOWING THE TIMES: REACTIVATING CLASSICAL METHODOLOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY SHANSHUI

Abstract

This study reframes “brush and ink following the times” from material nostalgia to procedural literacy, proposing a portable grammar for contemporary shanshui (Chinese landscape painting). Drawing on classical treatises and Song–Yuan exemplars, it distills a 14-unit taxonomy-including distance architecture, value-first atmosphere, reserve and “white lines,” calligraphic bone-line, structural rhythm, and viewing paths. Each unit is paired with studio cues and contemporary translation slots.

  Reactivation is operationalized through the ITC mechanism (Inheritance–Translation–Coexistence): inherit structural grammar, translate techniques via media-appropriate means, and test coexistence for landscape legibility and relevance today. A case study of Yang Yongliang’s Artificial Wonderland anchors the analysis. Findings show that urban micro-modules and photographic compositing can reconstruct composite distances. Grayscale control and haze re-enact ink hierarchy, while optical gaps reassign reserve. These strategies achieve recognizable shanshui without imitating historical surfaces.

  The study also proposes six guiding principles and twelve operations to make reactivation teachable. A THA instrument (Timeliness, Heritage, Aesthetic coherence; 1–5) is introduced for diagnostic review. Discussion situates the work within scholarship on the “three distances” as compositional routes, reframing modern change as functional reassignment rather than rupture. Pedagogical and curatorial implications emphasize grammar-first instruction and structural legibility in exhibition design. Overall, contemporary credibility depends less on traditional tools than on safeguarding distance logic, value scaffolds, active reserve, and choreographed gaze-procedures that speak to urbanization, technology, and ecological anxiety with a recognizably Chinese inflection.