Art Np2

Link - The New Yorker Article

Bull, Picasso Persimmons, Ink/Paper, Mu Ch'i, 1270  "This monochrome, Persimmons, by Mu Ch’i, a thirteenth century Zen priest and painter, is a splendid example of a painting in which the artist plays with contrasts (the male and female principle in Chinese and Japanese painting): rough and smooth, empty and full, one and many, line and mass, black and white, tint and shade, up and down. It is a study in the metamorphosis of a fruit, as well as of a painting. (The artist, incidentally, never used any color but black.) The reader may find a parallel, at least in spirit, between this painting and the preceding one by Picasso. Both employ a single color, and exploit this limitation to achieve as much variety as possible, and both undoubtedly were painted (done) very rapidly, a condition often conducive to utmost simplification and improvisation." To see the entire article, Design and the Play Instinct by Paul Rand, click on the link below. To read a poem by Gary Snyder, publ...