Inside a Wang Xisan bottle

[wgeoff]

Has anyone dreamed of seeing the inside of a Wang Xisan bottle?

Regrettably, I can give you a chance. The only Wang Xisan I own had a large crack down one side - the reason I was able to buy it. One night it just shattered inside my display cabinet. Here are both sides of the two largest pieces remaining - in all these photos, the outside view is on the left and the inside on the right.



And here are more close-ups, outside and inside






Unfortunately, I didn't handle the inside well and managed to smear some of the paintwork as you can see. The paint must be some sort of oil paint which has not dried.

One thing which struck me, how similar the outside and inside views are. I expected the inside to be quite fuzzy with the details obscured as the artist painted over the top of earlier brushstrokes. But not so.

This experience got me thinking - is there any way to view the inside of a bottle without breaking it? There may be. There are many cheap endoscopic cameras available these days - plumbers use them, amongst others, for looking into the corners or down pipes they cannot see. Anyone care to give it a try?

Geoff

PS I read this bottle as 1980. Am I right?

[Steven]

Dear Geoff,

what a pity for such a beautiful bottle, have you tried to glue it back,if you have all the piece, it should be restorable.

Can I ask how much you paid for the cracked bottle? now, it might not have much resell value, but you certainly can still enjoy the painting.. Love the cows, also the trees.

I bet those endoscopic cameras won't do good, since the mouth of the bottle is too small, even you can get the camera hat in, you still have a trouble to turn it side way, also a big chance to damage the painting.

Yes, you were right about 1980.

Also I don't mind to buy it if you want to part it someday.

Steven

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Geoff

So beautiful and such a pity! Gosh... I feel bad.. for you and the bottle

I think our friend Giovanni can give some tips on experimentation he has done inside bottles. 

Giovanni

Over to you! 

[George]

So beautiful and yes, such a disappointment..

I hunted a while back for something that would let me see inside a bottle, and like Steven mentioned, nothing would fit.. 

Thank you for giving us a chance to see from the inside out Geoff..

I am a bit puzzled about why the paint would not be dry and still oily..

[Wattana]

Geoff,

I have several glass bottles which spontaneously cracked and disintegrated, so it's interesting to hear of someone else having a similiar experience. None of mine were cracked when I bought them, and luckily none were of any great value. But I still felt the loss, so I really understand how you must have felt when it happened.

I have now stopped buying glass snuff bottles as a result.

Tom

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Geoff,
      I felt SICK seeing those pictures. I'm so sorry for you. I know you bought it cracked, but you must have had hopes it would stay in one piece. It is tragic.
      Re.the paint being oil-based and not drying; the oil-based paints on paintings on canvas dry; has it still not dried after being exposed to air since the bottle broke?
Joey

[wgeoff]

Thanks for these messages of condolence at the passing of a great bottle.

However, I'm not too unhappy. The bottle was already badly cracked when I bought it (for a few thousand HK dollars I think) so it was not really so unexpected and I had the pleasure of looking at it for some time.
And it now gives me a chance to see inside, which in some ways is more interesting.

Look here at this photo of the inside of the leaves on the tree



You can see the leaves in the upper part and the lower part are 'painted' by applying a blob of paint of the right shape and then patterned by drawing lines through the paint (using a hard tool?, not a brush). From the outside, it gives the leaves a pattern.
It also forces the paint into thicker lines on the inside which stand up a bit from the glass. It's these thicker lines which have not dried and which I smeared accidentally when wrapping the broken glass - a smear can be seen coming from the top right hand corner leaf.

Is this a known technique?

Geoff 

[George]

You can see the leaves in the upper part and the lower part are 'painted' by applying a blob of paint of the right shape and then patterned by drawing lines through the paint (using a hard tool?, not a brush). From the outside, it gives the leaves a pattern.

That is interesting....

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

It is interesting, but I don't understand why it wouldn't dry, unless the humid weather in Hong Kong is somehow to blame.
Joey

[wgeoff]

I think they may be dry now. I don't really want to experiment.
Maybe I smeared it soon after the break occurred about a year ago - I can't remember.

It's not really possible to re-assemble the bottle - too many small pieces (I may not have them all) and anyway there are still fractures in the pieces I have. So it will have to remain a two-sided bottle.

Geoff

[George]

You can see the leaves in the upper part and the lower part are 'painted' by applying a blob of paint of the right shape and then patterned by drawing lines through the paint (using a hard tool?, not a brush). From the outside, it gives the leaves a pattern.

Perhaps this technique is used more than we know when similar opportunities arise.

Got me to wondering if any time a larger area is blobbed or painted, and similar lines are needed as in these Chrysantheumum leaves for just one example. Perhaps the entire leaf area is completely painted followed with the same ( pointed hard ) tool used to get the veins..

Seems like actually would be a whole lot easier than patiently painting around those veins while initially painting the leaf..

[wgeoff]

I had better say, before I cause an eruption, that I think this is how it has been done - it looks like it to me.

[Steven]

Dear George,

Thank you for bringing this up, and yes, its an old painting technique done by hand pen, this technique was used a lot by Ye family on plants and leaves, also adopted by Ye Benqi's students, also Wang Xiansan's first tier students( have not seen any on his later students, might because they start to paint by using soft brush).

Attached please find  paintings from a Ye family bottle, also one of my Wang Xisan bottle. you should be able to see the similarity.

Steven 

[George]

Very interesting Steven..

Prior to these comparisons, I would have thought the leaves on that Ye bottle to have been outlined.. Like the old Shandong leaves..

This technique is not talked about in "The Tao Of Painting" book that myself and a couple other members just got, and it is extremely descriptive on ancient painting techniques...

[Fiveroosters aka clayandbrush]

Dear Pat, all,
for what I know it is perfectly possible to look inside a bottle, the only problem is the cost. But I am convinced that it will not be anymore a problem in near future.
There are three ways. One is thanks to boroscopes, see this post:
http://snuffbottle.smfforfree.com/index.php/topic,1139.0.html
My boroscope has a wide angle view which axis of view is angled about 45 degrees in respect to the axis of the device. But there are models angled 90 degrees too, so one can look at the side of the bottle. This is an expensive device to buy new, so almost not worth to consider I think.
The second way is camera connected to specific, high grade fiber optic, the same way used for gastroscopy. Extremely expensive, not viable.
The third way is camera sensors of extremely small dimension, so small that allow to directly insert the camera within the bottle. This technology is already possible, still very expensive by now, but when the matter is related to electronics, prices drops very quickly. Think about Google glasses (in my humble opinion, something that should be forbidden): there is a micro camera in there. I don't know its real size, but size is not a problem speaking about electronic, and price too, it is only matter of time.
Kind regards
Giovanni

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Originally the  IPB   painters  used a  hard , sharp  bamboo   stick to  paint  inside the  bottle

This carried  on  into the  beginning   of the  MIPB  generation until  Wang Xisan  ( and  others  contemporaneously ?)  invented the  tiny   right- angled   brush

This  is  all  displayed   at the   WXS  museums  in  Hengshui,  Shijiazhuang and   BJ

Cheers
Peter

[Pat - 查尚杰]

Peter

Sorry but this information is incorrect.  The Shandong school invented this in the 40s. I believe it was Zhang Wentang.

[Peter Bentley 彭达理]

Hi  Pat

I  stand  corrected   

I   did not  check my   facts  on this

But  if  I'm correct   WXS  did  pioneer the  thin  brush strokes  for    animal   fur  and   hair

Anyway....  back to  school for  me   

Cheers
Peter

PS:  When  do you  next pass   through  HK  ?  Will you  join   the   2014  convention ?

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Pat, 
   I didn't know the Shandong School invented the brush in the 1940s. Thank you for sharing that.
When did it go into widespread use in the other Schools?
Shabbat Shalom,
Joey

[Pat - 查尚杰]

The story goes that this goes back to the late 50s and that the Ye brothers and the first batch of their students (Wang Xisan,  Liu Shouben. Ding Guiling, Ye Shuying) were shown this by Zhang Wentang and another who's name escapes me). This is mentioned in the CIPMA book as well so endorsed and told by Wang Xisan himself.