Customer Reviews

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While the English translation leaves much to be desired, this book is THE classic manual of traditional Chinese painting. It is a must for the library of any fan of Chinese brush painting, but it should not be the only book used for instruction, especially if you don't have a teacher. Since the true original book was written in the 17th century, it was printed with woodblocks, so the subtleties of ink shading are not very well illustrated.

However, it is an excellent summary of the myriad of brush techniques, especially for rocks and trees. I highly recommend it as a reference book for anyone serious about Chinese brush painting.

If the translation were better, I would give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, this is the only English version in print, as far as I know. But once you know how to paint, most of the words are not important anyway.

The Mustard Seed Garden Manuel of Painting had been a standard reference book for Chinese beginners of painting for a long time (though it ceased to be so quite a while ago). It remains a valuable summary of styles and methods in traditional Chinese paintings, and is of a lot of historical interests because it represents the scope and perspective of the authors some 300 years ago. It is really a fun book to read, but it would be dangerous to use the book as a guideline for appreciating traditional Chinese paintings cause this book was, after all, compiled with a very strict ideology of paintings, even ignoring and misinterpreting many art-historical facts. I would have given the book a 10 if this was not a bad translation. First, we have to admit, it is an old translation. For whatever reasons which I suspect are related to the fact that the book was first published at 1956, there are simply many wrong translations in the English text. If you can read Chinese, I bet you would hardly resist the temptation of giving the book a thorough revision. I often laughed hurting my stomach when I read it. I will leave you to judge whether it's a good aspect or a bad one of this book.

Thanks to the Amazon:" look inside this book" I purchased the The Mustard Seed Garden Manual Of Painting. It is amazing how didatic and philosophical can be a text written three hundred years ago ! I could not stop reading since opened the first page: for those who paints or admires chinese pictures (or even calligraphy ) - it is really a must. I recommend to read carefully the : "look inside" because when you receive the book it will surprise you: it is much, much more than that. And, being a 640 pages book and in an almost squared form, it is also delightful to hold those messages that came from the past and is still valid today. Buy now, because if it goes out of print, for sure , you will repent to miss a Classic.

Wonderful book. A great book for any painter or artist with a fascination or desire to understand chinese paintings. This book would have been a ten if it was in color but despite that it's many (many!) illustrations and the translation make this book a genuine treasure. It encompassed several volumes from books over 200 years old - but the wisdom and teachings shared are invaluable and timeless

This manual has been used for centuries in China and Japan and illustrates all the basics needed to paint in oriental style, with helpful written pointers. Be aware that the black ink illustrations were originally wood-block prints so grey tones do not translate. Particularly useful for compositional study and models of outlline figures, animals and architectural elements. For more up-to-date and in-depth instruction in the Four Gentlemen, including stroke-by-stroke illustrations, try the "Book of Bamboo", "Book of Plum", "Book of Orchid" and "Book of Chrysanthemum" by Prof I-Hsiung Ju.

The illustrations are a wonderful source of reference and inspiration for the beginning and intermediate painter. There are plenty of examples to get you started if you're thinking of trying something new and aren't quite sure how to approach it. The sections I find myself using all the time are trees and human elements.

I learned from a teacher when I was living in Japan, so the bad translation doesn't bother me. I use this book for the images, which is what you really should buy it for. If you want something more of step-by-step instruction for the very beginner, this book isn't it.

Excellent book to understand how to work with Sumi brush.

I am a student of Chinese painting and this book was recommended by our teacher as the most reliable reference book for Chinese painting. I am very pleased with this purchase since it is everything that I expected.

This book is almost priceless to me. Not only are the illustrations well reproduced and are a huge benefit to the artist, but the text is a testament to the Spiritual eyes and heart of its authors. Few people are patient enough these days to really take the time to understand what these subjects really are...living, breathing, knowing life-forms. I have discovered a new way to look at the subjects I paint, they require one to sit and share conversation and acceptance on the deepest level. I will treasure this book more than any others in my collection.

This is a fantastic book! I can recommend it to everyone wants to learn the techniques of Chinese painting.The posting was accurate and correct. Thank you Amazon.com