Ed's Scroll Work:  An Explanation

"Scroll-work" is an art form that I have developed, which combines the modern transparent watercolor technique of the West with the design of the traditional Japanese scroll.   The Japanese scroll was developed in Japan well before the fifteenth century.  Scrolls were designed to decorate home interiors and are the equivalent of framed paintings of the West. The modern watercolor approach is expressed through the form of "action painting" that was introduced by New York painters of the mid 20^th century.  It is to me a surprise that the art from these two very different cultures should come together so effortlessly.  I will describe these two aesthetics first and then show how I have brought them together in the form of scroll work.

Kakemono--Japanese scroll painting

 

The traditional Japanese scroll, called kakemono, is the form in which graphic art was displayed in the Japanese home. The scroll is a refinement of Chinese wall decoration that was imported in the 10th century CE. It consists of a sheet of artwork and a flexible backing, which is attached by a cord to the wall. The artwork began as calligraphy and the pictorial content evolved over the centuries into Japanese brush painting, sumi-e. Sumi-e is technically painting with brush and ink on a silk or rice paper surface. Originally only black ink was used, with colors suggested by gradations in value. Now, this art form can be expressed in colored inks and watercolor pigments. The subject matter of Japanese scroll painting was taken from three major sources: nature (landscapes, flowers, etc.), religious iconography (Buddhism and Shinto in Japan), and human action (history, theater, warfare, etc.). The technique of sumi-e is one of the many ways1 in which the Japanese have transformed their worlds through their sophisticated aesthetic. The philosophic foundation of this Japanese art-form can be seen also in the other arts of Japan., as in flower arrangement (ikebana), theater (noh and kabuki), miniature tree culture (bonsai), martial arts (judo, kendo, sumo), and so on.

Example of Japanese scroll

Abstract Expressionism-- "Action painting"

America's first unique contribution to the graphic arts is abstract expressionism. It was a logical continuation of the European artistic movement in the late 19th century to redefine and recreate art in a modern context. A variety of "schools" of modern art sprouted across the European landscape, beginning, perhaps, with Impressionism of the late 19th century, followed by the major forces of Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, Expressionism, and culminating with Dada. Dada proclaimed the end of European art,

Example of a drip and drop painting by Jackson Pollock

as we had known it. By giving a urinal bought from a second hand store the name, "R. Mutt", and "installing" it in an art gallery², Marcel Duchamp showed that art could be literally anything. Art with a capital "A" was no more. Duchamp, along with Man Ray and Francis Picabia, brought Dada to New York during WWI.

But even though art created with paint and brush was thought to be dead, some painters in the U. S. just kept on going. Meaning and content had been repudiated. Stimulated by Mark Tobey, who decorated the surface of the canvas with brushstrokes that pointed to no other image, a few painters in New York exploited the surface qualities of paint on canvas. The leader of this group, called the "abstract expressionists", was Jackson Pollock. Not all of the abstract expressionists painted abstracts or were expressionistic. But Pollock was both. He applied paint to the canvas by a variety of means, including pouring, dripping, smudging, scrubbing. This was the abstract aspect of his art. There was no discernable "subject" or content. It was just paint on the canvas. It was his physical involvement in applying the paint that was expressionistic. His canvases were usually huge so that great physical effort was required to cover them. It is as if the artist were a dancer, leaving a visual record on canvas of the performance. This sort of involvement of the body in creating a painting has come to be called, "action painting".

The emergence of my Scroll Work

I have been caught, ever since I began as an artist, in the conflict between representational and abstract art. During my early training as an artist, I was utterly contemptuous of non-representational art and artists. Not only did I not like what I saw, but also I really thought the whole thing was both prank and a cop-out. I considered Picasso to be the greatest con artist of the 20^th century. I thought to myself, smugly, "If you don't have the talent to draw handsome representations of the world, then you might as well do anything you want and call it 'abstract'". With time my perspective has changed. On the one hand, as a consequence of my explorations in art in literature, museums, galleries and on-line, I have come to enjoy immensely many, many instances of abstract art. On the other hand, I have become increasingly unsatisfied with my own attempts to paint like the traditional professional watercolorists, as glitzy and slick as they might be. In other words, I realize the value of innovation in art. I think that innovation includes experimentation with new techniques, subjects and attitudes.

The Tao in art

Currently I find myself in the Yin/Yang dialectic: moving here and there between one pole of art and the other. These polarities are manifested in different ways: East vs. West; abstract vs. representational; controlled vs. spontaneous; elegant vs. natural; and so on. I believe that both poles are artistically equally valid. In addition, I think that the third option--the marriage of opposites--is not only valid but the creative way³. Regardless, it is one arena of exploration that I have followed and which I invite the viewer to appreciate.

"Scroll Work" Described

The scroll in my experience has come to be a rectangular sheet of art paper that is meant to decorate an interior wall of a home. My adaptation of the scroll is illuminated with either lettering or with abstract or semi-abstract designs. The design is taken from action painting and the writing is inspired by sumi-e.

The design: I have explored a number of different design-options. The most satisfying to me has the following characteristics--

1. The design is restricted to "transparent" watercolor pigments.
2. The design is a pattern that covers the surface of the paper except for the margins, which are left relatively bare.
3. There are colors in the design, composed of primaries (red, blue and yellow), where secondary and other shades are created from the mixing on the paper of the primary colors.
4. The design can be either "Pollockish" , "Tobiesque" or "wet-in-wet"
   1. A Pollockish design is created by dripping, dropping, splashing, spraying, pouring, or running, the pigment on the paper.  The agent of image formation is gravity.
   2. A Tobiesque design is created with a paintbrush--usually one that is small and has a sharp point.  The paint is applied by the brush as it is allowed to find its way over the surface in a repetitive pattern.  The elements of the pattern can be a meandering line, curly-cues, concentric circles, or parallel or crosshatching lines.
   3. Wet-in-wet is the technique of plopping or scrubbing the paint on the paper without much deliberate control, encouraging one area of one color to mix somewhere with another color in another area.  I use a much larger brush for this and will squirt watercolor wash into an area with an eye dropper.

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