Asian aesthetic writing is generally consistent in stating the goal of ink and wash painting is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its spirit. To paint a horse, the ink wash painting artist must understand its temperament better than its muscles and bones. To paint a flower, there is no need to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essential to convey its liveliness and fragrance. East Asian ink wash painting may be regarded as a form of expressionistic art that captures the unseen.
In landscape painting the scenes depicted are typically imaginary, or very loose adaptations of actual views. Mountain landscapes are by far the most common, often evoking particular areas traditionally famous for their beauty, from which the artist may have been very distant. Water is very often included.
East Asian ink wash painting has long inspired modern artists in the West. In his classic book Composition, American artist and educator Arthur Wesley Dow(1857–1922) wrote this about ink wash painting: "The painter ...put upon the paper the fewest possible lines and tones; just enough to cause form, texture and effect to be felt. Every brush-touch must be full-charged with meaning, and useless detail eliminated. Put together all the good points in such a method, and you have the qualities of the highest art". Dow's fascination with ink wash painting not only shaped his own approach to art but also helped free many American modernists of the era, including his student Georgia O'Keeffe, from what he called a 'story-telling' approach. Dow strived for harmonic compositions through three elements: line, shading, and color. He advocated practicing with East Asian brushes and ink to develop aesthetic acuity with line and shading.
A hanging scroll is one of the many traditional ways to display and exhibit Chinese painting and calligraphy. Displaying the art in this way allowed public appreciation and appraisal of the aesthetics of the scrolls in its entirety by the audience. It is to be distinguished from the hand scroll, which was narrower and often much longer and not designed to be all visible at once.
Hanging scrolls are generally intended to be displayed for short periods of time and are then rolled up to be tied and secured for storage. The hanging scrolls get rotated according to season or occasion, as such works are never intended to be on permanent display. The painting surface of the paper or silk can be mounted with decorative brocade silk borders. In the composition of a hanging scrolls the foreground is usually at the bottom of the scroll while the middle and far distances are at the middle and top respectively.
The traditional craft involved in creating a hanging scroll is considered an art in itself. Mountings for Chinese paintings can be divided into a few types, such as hand scrolls, hanging scrolls, album leaves, and screens among others. In the hanging scroll the actual painting is mounted on a larger mount of fabric or paper, sewn at the top and bottom ends round small wooden poles or rods. At the top the pole allows hanging by a cord, and at the bottom it provides a little weight to hold the scroll flat and steady.
In China, scrolls originated in its earliest form from literature and other texts written on bamboo strips and silk banners. The earliest hanging scrolls are related to and developed from silk banners in early Chinese history. These banners were long and hung vertically on walls. Such silk banners and hanging scroll paintings were found in the tombs at Mawangdui dating back to the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the aesthetic and structural objectives for hanging scrolls were summarized, which are still followed to this day. During the early Song Dynasty (960–1279), the scrolls became well suited to the art styles of the artists, consequently hanging scrolls were made in many different sizes and proportions.
The hanging scroll provides an artist with a vertical format to display his art mounted onto a wall. It is one of the most common types of scrolls for Chinese painting and calligraphy. Horizontal hanging scrolls are also very frequently used and a common form. The hanging scroll is different from the hand scroll in that the latter is not hung. The hand scroll is a long narrow scroll for displaying a series of scenes in Chinese painting. This scroll is intended to be viewed section for section during the unrolling and flat on a table, which is in contrast to a hanging scroll that is appreciated in its entirety while guiding the eyes through the artwork.
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