Chinese Xieyi Painting is also named Freehand Brushwork and is characterized by vivid expression and bold outline.   

Xie, means "write"; Yi means "meaning, idea". Xieyi means to express (but with the style of writing as calligraphy, write out ) the idea or thoughts in an artist’s heart or mind, instead of something it can be seen with their eyes only. So, to express the thoughts or feelings of human being through painting, and to express the spirit of the nature objects is the core of a Chinese Xieyi Painting.   

A simple and summary style, focusing on the spirit of objects to express an artist's feelings directly and freely is the basic character of Chinese Xieyi painting.

Since the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and in Song Dynasty (960-1127) and Yuan Dynasty (1279 - 1368), many liberators, scholars and officers joined the Xieyi Painting, pushing it the mainstream of Chinese painting.      

In the history of Chinese art, many great Xieyi artists were also great literatures, poets or thinkers. They had good education and they were very intelligent, and they had creative minds and high art skills. With wide chests and rich thoughts, they set out to paint something simple but interesting, with free and quick strokes, to stress the spirit of the objects they painted, while not paying too more attention to the shapes of the objects.

Chinese Xieyi painting usually is painted on special paper that is permeable, called Sheng Xuan. The permeability of the paper can help artists to express their thoughts and feelings freely.

Chinese Xieyi can be divided into Small Xieyi and Big Xieyi. The difference of them is in the degree of freedom. The latter is much freer.   

Most of the paintings that I painted for the poems in comprehensive art part are Chinese Xiyi Painting. Some of them are Mixed Gongbi and Xieyi.

Now I would like to share some of my Chinese Xieyi Paintings in Chinese National Academy of Arts. China Central Acadmy of   Fine Arts as a full time students 2010 to 2015 and something I created before I went to Beijing as a part time students 2002 to 2009.

if you have any questions, comments and suggestions, you are welcome to write to info@ebridge.cn or or publish your opinions in Forum For Friends.


Shirley Yiping Zhang
August, 2015