Wash (visual arts)

Xia Gui (Song dynasty) – Mountain Market- Clear with Rising Mist, one of the 8 scenes of the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang, a favourite subject in the Chinese ink wash painting tradition, showing the variety of effects achievable with black ink.
Rembrandt selectively used a wash technique in his depictions of lions to enhance the contrast between "the heavy manes and supple skin".[1]

A wash is a term for a visual arts technique resulting in a semi-transparent layer of colour. A wash of diluted ink or watercolor paint applied in combination with drawing is called pen and wash, wash drawing, or ink and wash.[citation needed] Normally only one or two colours of wash are used; if more colours are used the result is likely to be classified as a full watercolor painting.

The classic East Asian tradition of ink wash painting uses black ink in various levels of dilution. Historically associated with the four arts of the scholar-officials, the technique was often applied to landscapes in traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean painting.

  1. ^ Slive, Seymour; Rijn, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van (2009). Rembrandt Drawings. J. Paul Getty Museum. pp. 121–. ISBN 9780892369768. Retrieved 23 August 2014.