InksOnce upon a time handwriting mattered, especially in China, where the nuances of meaning were conveyed through calligraphic style. Chinese calligraphy could carry the mood the tone of voice of the speaker adding the color of true human emotion to the black and white correspondence. Not only the qualities of the brush, the flight of its movement and the intensity of its touch, but the ink itself was an integral part of the final expression. Ink much favored by Chinese calligraphers and painters and also widely used by sumi-e artists in Japan is so called brown ink. Really it is black with brown tint and is very warm and lively. Brown ink is produced from the soot of rapeseed oil. The pigment particles are rather small and reflect a lot of light. Our black ink is made at the Shanghai ink factory. These words and the factory's trademark appear at the bottom of the stick. Two characters on the top mean: Dragon Gate. That is the name of this particular line of ink. On the backside of the ink there is a relief of the river and a carp fish looking up at the moon. This line of ink was inspired by an old story about a carp who will become a dragon if only he can jump over the gate. The meaning of the story is: even if your first success in painting or calligraphy is rather humble keep trying and one day you will reach your goal, just like a humble carp that once managed to jump over the dragon gate. Color Inks.Color inks are also used in both Chinese and Japanese traditional ink painting. Even though orthodox Chinese painters insist that the intensity of ink can express every existing color as well as light and darkness, color has always been used in paintings to enhance the ink, to add "fragrance" to the atmosphere of the painting. Its fair to mention that color is never used in Zen paintings and when used with ink in other ink painting styles is mostly secondary and is applied in the same manner as ink. Our set of 6 colors including black when mixed can fill a rather wide pallet of shades. The same factory in Shanghai makes it and the characters simply mean "Color Ink". |
