Volumetric cloud generation using a Chinese brush calligraphy style

Includes bibliographical references.Clouds are an important feature of any real or simulated environment in which the sky is visible. Their amorphous, ever-changing and illuminated features make the sky vivid and beautiful. However, these features increase both the complexity of real time rendering and modelling. It is difficult to design and build volumetric clouds in an easy and intuitive way, particularly if the interface is intended for artists rather than programmers. We propose a novel modelling system motivated by an ancient painting style, Chinese Landscape Painting, to address this problem. With the use of only one brush and one colour, an artist can paint a vivid and detailed landscape efficiently. In this research, we develop three emulations of a Chinese brush: a skeleton-based brush, a 2D texture footprint and a dynamic 3D footprint, all driven by the motion and pressure of a stylus pen. We propose a hybrid mapping to generate both the body and surface of volumetric clouds from the brush footprints. Our interface integrates these components along with 3D canvas control and GPU-based volumetric rendering into an interactive cloud modelling system. Our cloud modelling system is able to create various types of clouds occurring in nature. User tests indicate that our brush calligraphy approach is preferred to conventional volumetric cloud modelling and that it produces convincing 3D cloud formations in an intuitive and interactive fashion. While traditional modelling systems focus on surface generation of 3D objects, our brush calligraphy technique constructs the interior structure. This forms the basis of a new modelling style for objects with amorphous shape

A study of how Chinese ink painting features can be applied to 3D scenes and models in real-time rendering

Past research findings addressed mature techniques for non-photorealistic rendering. However, research findings indicate that there is little information dealing with efficient methods to simulate Chinese ink painting features in rendering 3D scenes. Considering that Chinese ink painting has achieved many worldwide awards, the potential to effectively and automatically develop 3D animations and games in this style indicates a need for the development of appropriate technology for the future market. The goal of this research is about rendering 3D meshes in a Chinese ink painting style which is both appealing and realistic. Specifically, how can the output image appear similar to a hand-drawn Chinese ink painting. And how efficient does the rendering pipeline have to be to result in a real-time scene. For this study the researcher designed two rendering pipelines for static objects and moving objects in the final scene. The entire rendering process includes interior shading, silhouette extracting, textures integrating, and background rendering. Methodology involved the use of silhouette detection, multiple rendering passes, Gaussian blur for anti-aliasing, smooth step functions, and noise textures for simulating ink textures. Based on the output of each rendering pipeline, rendering process of the scene with best looking of Chinese ink painting style is illustrated in detail. The speed of the rendering pipeline proposed by this research was tested. The framerate of the final scenes created with this pipeline was higher than 30fps, a level considered to be real-time. One can conclude that the main objective of the research study was met even though other methods for generating Chinese ink painting rendering are available and should be explored

Impact of Ancient Chinese Painting on Contemporary Art

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

Written Stūpa, Painted Sūtra: Relationships of Text and Image in the Construction of Meaning in the Japanese Jeweled-Stūpa Mandalas

This dissertation contextualizes the twelfth- and thirteenth-centuries Japanese jeweled-stupa mandalas as some of the most striking examples from the early medieval period of innovative elaborations on sutra transcription. The project proceeds from a methodology grounded in visual analysis and religious studies. I begin with basic questions of semiotic inquiry about the prominence and privileging of sacred text in the form of the central dharma reliquary, a characteristic distinguishing the mandalas from nearly all other paintings made before them. I seek to understand the reasons behind the privileging of scripture on the picture plane and the inventive manipulation of the sutra text into the form of a stupa, both novel choices in the context of their early medieval Japanese production. At their root, the jeweled-stupa mandalas are an elaborate sutra transcription project revealing anxieties about death and power expressed through the belief that devotion to sutra can save souls, cure illnesses, grant tremendous authority, and much more. After investigating the continental origins of the mandalas and the culture of sutra transcription during the eleventh through thirteenth centuries and conducting an analysis into the particular histories and formal qualities, the project approaches the mandalas using a three-part collaborative analysis. The first part examines visual, textual, and archaeological evidence from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, which testifies to the understandings and capabilities of text as well as the power of sacred word expressed repeatedly and profoundly in early medieval Japan. This exploration of sutra text lays the critical basis for the second part's investigation into the notion of body underpinning the innovative construction of the mandalas. The indivisibility of sutra, stupa, dharma, relic, and body in the paintings visually manifests the conflated nature of these seemingly independent concepts in religious practice and doctrine. Combining the first two parts facilitates a reading of the mandalas through what I call a salvific matrix of text and body. The third part concludes the dissertation by returning to an explicit discussion of semiotics, further exploring the construction of meaning in the mandalas through their imbrication of text and image

Redefining Female Talent: Chinese Women Artists in the National and Global Art Worlds, 1900s - 1970s

This study examines the art practices of three generations of Chinese women who were active between the 1900s and the 1970s. Its conceptual focus is on the reassessment of female talent and virtue, a moralized dichotomy that had been used to frame womens social practices and cultural production for centuries in China. The study opens in the period when female poetic practice was harshly vilified by reformists of the late Qing era (1890s-1911). It questions why womens art production was not directly condemned and examines how womens increasingly public displays of artistic talent were legitimized through the invocation of long-standing familial norms, the official sanction of new education, and the formulation of various nationalist agendas. Most importantly, this study demonstrates how women artists joined female writers, educators, and political figures in redefining gender possibilities in the early Republican period. Women artists discussed in this study practiced both Chinese-style and Western-style art. It examines their participation in several different public contexts, including art education, exhibitions, art societies, and philanthropic organizations. Representatives of the first generation, Wu Xingfen (1853-1930) and Jin Taotao (1884-1939), advanced the artistic legacy of their predecessors, the women of the boudoir (guixiu), while at the same time expanding the paradigm of traditional womens art practices. In addition to their emerging visibility in the local art world, they also exhibited works in international expositions, engaged with foreign concessions, and traveled abroad. Members of the Chinese Womens Society of Calligraphy and Painting (Zhongguo nzi shuhuahui) who represent the second generation, embraced new institutional possibilities by studying, teaching, and forming a collective to reaffirm womens position in the traditional-style art milieu. Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) and her cohort of Western-style artists who formed the third generation, contributed to modern art reform in China in the early twentieth century. Pans distinct life trajectory and subsequent career in Paris illuminate the ways race and gender figured in transcultural artistic representations from the 1940s to the 1970s. These artists public presence in both the national and global art worlds redefined and repurposed female talent as both a patriotic virtue, and new expressions of gender subjectivities

The Chinese practice of Yi Jing (意境) and its application to animation

This practice-based research examines the relationship of traditional Chinese ink animation and the philosophical notion of Yi Jing. Traditionally, Yi Jing has been regarded as the aesthetic essence of traditional Chinese art and culture. Within that culture, it is highly regarded that traditional Chinese ink animation is influenced by Chinese ink paintings and the use of Yi Jing, which results in a unique form of animation. Early Chinese animation successfully presented the use of Yi Jing, but many traditional Chinese animators (Tang, 2011) believe that the excessive dependence on traditional techniques and materials has led to its demise. Over the decades, essential knowledge and skills, such as the use of ink work used in Chinese animation, are not being passed down, and digital media are replacing the use of celluloid and other materials. In some respects, one could argue that traditional Chinese animation is becoming redundant. This research has specifically analysed and identified the traditional Chinese philosophical notion of Yi Jing and how it is applied to traditional Chinese animation. It includes the analysis of three aesthetic principles that stem from Yi Jing and interpreted its theories into English that might benefit other scholars. These principles are: ‘Tian Ren He Yi’ 天人合一; ‘Yin-Yan’ 阴 阳 and ‘Chi-Yuen-Sheng-Tun’ 氣韻生動. In order to illustrate these principles being used in Chinese animation, a new painting software called ‘Expresii’ (Chu, 2015) was used. It replaces the need to use traditional ink on celluloid and at the same time speeds up the process. The practical research also explores the traditional Chinese techniques of ‘PoMo’ 泼墨 and ‘Rubbing Ink’ 拓墨. These restoration techniques may not be exactly the same as those which are historically documented (historical documents just recorded the existence of these two techniques, without describing the actual processes). This research also applied these two techniques to the background of ink animation. The purpose is not only to enrich the aesthetic forms of traditional Chinese animation, but also to re-discover and re-develop techniques so that they may be disseminated to future generations

The hyphenation of the void: from eastern ecology to western architecture

This thesis explores the cultural cross-fertilization between the orient and the occident by studying the eastern concept of the void that brings all components of the universe into a fluid continuous whole. This void is not in binary opposition to the full as in western dualism but rather co-exists with the full in a dynamic balance and complementary position following the Taoist philosophy. It is thus essentially characterized by its perpetual mutation, its transience. In this perspective, the oriental void emerges as a set of connections that incessantly evolve through time: the hyphenation of the void. My research proposes to incorporate this interpretation of the oriental void into the occidental architectural approach. Therefore, it develops the idea of conceptual and material hyphens that are familiar images to western culture and that also provide tangible and material expressions to the hyphenation. Conceptual hyphens serve as a sensible metaphor for the elusive principles of the void while material hyphens give materiality and palpability to the abstract notion of the void. These definitions are not mutually exclusive so that a hyphen can be both conceptual and material at times. Hyphens are then used as design devices in the architectural practice of the void. Their combination generates the architectural projects’ narratives, material substance and, affects their visual representations. The subsequent architecture of the void appears as an organic entity which grows and decays through its endless interactions with the surrounding environment. The latter is not restricted to the usual urban and architectural conditions but expands to socio-cultural, economical and political parameters. This architecture is thus always in the process of becoming amid a wide ecosystem and prompts the awakening of its users to the present moment in the current situation. In consequence, it generates an ecology of the void where architecture is experienced in the Heideggerian sense as a built thing that enables its users to dwell in unison with the universe. The issue of hyphenation is in fact a reflection on my own status an inbetweener drifting in the east–west intercultural flow of our nomadic contemporary society. The thesis represents, therefore, an investigation into my personal way of life

A critical survey of the materials and techniques of Charles Henry Sims RA (1873-1928) with special reference to egg tempera media and works of art on paper

This thesis collates and provides new knowledge about the working practices and dissemination of materials and techniques of a leading Edwardian painter. Charles Sims RA (1873-1928) represents a neglected body of British artists who were responding to and assimilating certain new tendencies within early modernism yet at the same time were conscious and respectful of traditional practices and training methods. The study makes consistent reference to the extensive studio archive at Northumbria University whose existence has provided a unique opportunity to map Sims’ own informal working notes and observations, against the retrospective account Picture Making (1934) by his son, and instrumental and technical analyses performed on some works. The significance of this specific period in relation to the development of new materials and techniques, and the role instruction manuals and teaching played in developing Sims' stylistic and at times thematic approaches to practice are also discussed. Of particular interest are those which focus on drawing, watercolour and egg tempera techniques, media which perfectly suited Sims' temperament and arguably featured in and formed his best works. The thesis also aims to compare Sims' working practices with those of his better known contemporaries such as Augustus John, Philip Wilson Steer, William Orpen (all from the Slade) as well as members of the Tempera Revival movement. by crossreferencing reports held in national and international collections with hitherto unseen material. As a consequence the research will have a much wider application beyond the field of conservation, and will illuminate early 20th century artistic inheritance and intent

Arts Integration in Elementary Curriculum: 2nd Edition

This open textbook was revised in 2018 under a Round Eleven Mini-Grant for Revisions. Topics include: Arts Integration Music Visual Arts Literary Arts Performing Arts Physical Education and Movement A set of lecture slides for the textbook are also included as an additional file. Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/education-textbooks/1002/thumbnail.jp