Vehicle of the subtle sentiment to be expressed in form, the brush must be so fashioned as to receive and transmit the vibrations of the artist’s inner self. Much care, much thought and skill have been expended in the manufacture of the brush.
In China, the art of writing preceded painting, and the first brushes made were writing brushes, and the more writing developed into a wonderful art, the more attention was bestowed upon the materials composing the writing brush. Such brushes were originally made with rabbit hair, round which was wrapped the hair of deer and sheep, and the handles were mulberry stems. Later on, as Chinese characters became more complex and writing more scientific, the brushes were most carefully made of fox and rabbit hair, with handles of ivory, and they were kept in gold and jeweled boxes. Officials were enjoined to write all public documents with brushes having red lacquer handles, red being a positive or male (YO) color. Ogishi, the greatest of the Chinese writers, used for his brushes the feelers from around the rat’s nose and hairs taken from the beak of the kingfisher.
In Japan, hair of the deer, badger, rabbit, sheep, squirrel, and wild horse all enter into the manufacture of the artist’s brush, which is made to order, long or short, soft or strong, stiff or pliable. For laying on color, the hair of the badger is preferred. The sizes and shapes of brushes used differ according to the subject to be painted. There are brushes for flowers and birds, human beings, landscapes, lines of the garments, lines of the face, for laying on color, for shading, et cetera.
A distinguishing feature in Japanese painting is the strength of the brush stroke, technically called _fude no chikara_ or _fude no ikioi._ When representing an object suggesting strength, such, for instance, as a rocky cliff, the beak or talons of a bird, the tiger’s claws, or the limbs and branches of a tree, the moment the brush is applied the sentiment of strength must be invoked and felt throughout the artist’s system and imparted through his arm and hand to the brush, and so transmitted into the object painted; and this nervous current must be continuous and of equal intensity while the work proceeds. If the tree’s limbs or branches in a painting by a Kano artist be examined, it will astonish any one to perceive the vital force that has been infused into them. Even the smallest twigs appear filled with the power of growth—all the result of _fude no chikara._ Indeed, when this principle is understood, and in the light of it the trees of many of the Italian and French artists are critically viewed, they appear flabby, lifeless, and as though they had been done with a feather. They lack that vigor which is attained only by _fude no chikara,_ or brush strength.