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GLOSSARY

Gongbi [kung-pi]

"Elaborate execution and rich coloring". Chinese art style Gongbi is a technique in Chinese painting. The name is from the Chinese Gong chin meaning tidy (meticulous brush technique). The technique uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimits details very precisely and without independent or expressive variation. It is often highly coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects. The term gongbi is also used to refer to paintings that are more descriptive than interpretive.

Gongbi paintings are considered to be the opposite of more freely and quickly sketched paintings called Xieyi, or "“sketching [one's] thoughts."

See also Xieyi

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