Monk Painter Shi Tao and His Innovative Paintings

The uniqueness of the painting is that the mountain appears to be bowing, with a monk standing steadily on a boat floating along the Qin Huai River, looking up with admiration at the stone giant. Shi depicts a mutual respect between man and nature in a sophisticated style in the painting in a way only he can.

Another one of Shi’s subversive innovations in drawing lies in his attention to the act of painting itself through the use of washes, and bold, impressionistic brushstrokes, as well as the use of negative or white space to suggest distance.

A perfect example illustrating Shi’s special attention to the act of painting is in his work 10,000 Ugly Ink Dots. As the carefully painted landscape degenerates into Pollock-esque splatters, the viewer is forced to recognize that the painting is not as transparent as it seems to be. Despite being labeled "ugly", the ink dots begin to take on a sort of abstract beauty. This unique work challenges the accepted standards of beauty.

10,000 Ugly Ink Dots

Furthermore, the compositions of Shi’s pictures are novel. Whether the subject is cloud and mist, rock and cliff, or old tree and craven, he tried to make the composition different from what his predecessors created. Shi was especially good at employing the intercept method—the plum blossoms he painted serve as a good example.

The Painting of Clouds and Mountains

The Painting of Clouds and Mountains challenges two traditional principles in composition. Previously, the composition of landscape painting was land in the first layer, trees in the second and mountains in the third, or the landscape would lie below, clouds in the middle and mountains above. With the intercept method, Shi took only a part of the view where the foot of the mountain is absent and the mountain is seemingly invisible, thus the clouds in all their majesty stand out.

Besides the beautiful and vivid paintings, Shi’s fantastic poetry and calligraphy always accompanied his landscapes, showing the diverse talent of this master artist.

By Wen Yi