Beijing

Xie He is best known for his Six Principles of painting which became a central theory in the history of Chinese painting. In this theory Xie He deals with all the major aspects of the art of painting according to importance.

The Six principles are:

1) Rhythm and Breath: A painting must have a sense of rhythm and motion in it. A painting that lacks this attribute is lifeless and therefore bad art.

2)  The Bone Method: the brush work in a painting must display the painters character and spirit through the stokes' structure and personality.

3) The relationship between the object and form: This is generally aiming at a kind of coherence between structure, line and general form to the object depicted by the painter.

4) Color correspondence: application of color and tonality should be done with correspondence to real image in front of the painter.

5) Management of composition: Here Xie He stresses the importance of a composition which will enable the painting to become a work with rhythm and breath.

6) Transmission and accumulation through copying masters: A painter must return to the great model paintings of the past in order to reach real quality. Art is not a secluded human endeavor it is related to an ongoing tradition and cultural dialogue.

In Chinese:

气韵生动是也；二、骨法用笔是也；三、应物象形是也；四、随类赋彩是也；五、经营位置是也；六、传移模写是也。

The Six Principles are laid out in his book Gu Huapin Lu, or Classified Paintings of the Past , which rates 27 painters into three classes of merit each class divided into three.

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