India Ink: Part One

India ink has a long (looong) history, impacting art styles, art industries, cultures, history, and more. Basically, it’s severely underrated. 

This first blog post in a series of three on India ink will cover the history of the medium, and hopefully also shed some light on the name and how it is used today. Let’s get into it!

India Ink’s Beginnings -

India ink, confusingly, did not actually originate in India. Civilizations have been using ink for art, tattoos, and documentation since ancient Egypt and Greece. There is actually a surviving Greek document from  40-90 A.D. written by the scribe Dioscorides with a recipe for ink. However, India ink as we know it today  actually began in ancient China, roughly five thousand years ago. 

The Chinese discovered that if they took extremely fine lamp soot and mixed it in water (and later, binders like animal glue) it created a rich, deep black pigment. The thing that made it special/different from natural dyes was the extremely fine particle size of the soot. The small size  allowed the particles to stay suspended in the water, which is why India ink does not separate when sitting still for a long time. They were so incredibly 

 

Eventually, the medium made its way to Europe. The English quickly began calling it “India ink” because they imported it from India, although it was still the traditional Chinese pigment ink. 

India Ink’s Influence over ChineseCulture -

When people think of Chinese ink, they probably immediately think of the distinctive style of mo-shui art. The simple, entrancing landscapes did eventually become one of the main uses of India ink. However, you may be surprised to know that the very first people to use India ink were actually bureaucrats and politicians. 

China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was obsessed with creating and adopting a fixed, unified, written Chinese alphabet (plus a lot of other things - special guy, to say the least). This enabled him to build his Empire into the large country we know today. He commanded the bureaucrats of the land to organize all of China’s territories, and in a day sans internet, it was the use of India ink and the newly standardized Chinese alphabet that allowed them to communicate and succeed. 

India Ink Throughout Art History -

As was said before, the Chinese art form of mo-shui began with India ink. Aside from looking lovely and being very distinctive of Chinese culture, did this art form have any other impact? 

Yes. Kind of. 

Chinese artists, using mo-shui, were the first people to paint landscapes without people. The entire focus was simply on the nature in the painting. In Europe, it would be quite a long time before painters would begin to experiment with people-less landscapes. Well done landscapes are lovely to look at, but I personally hate painting them myself, so I get it. 

"Landscape of a Winter Night," by Li Gongnian

Drawing of Santa Maria Della Neve, by Leonardo Da Vinci

 

The Chinese eventually brought this art form to the Japanese in the 14th century, and the Japanese gave it the term, sumi-e. 

Finally, India ink made its way over to the West, and the rest is history. Artists have been using India ink for sketching with fineliners and nib pens for decades thanks to the development of waterproof India ink. It is essential to comic book art, which is a cultural staple that really began to kick off back in the 40s. It is an excellent medium for dramatic, expressive portraits. 

India ink has had a large impact on art, history, and art history! And in a couple weeks, I’ll share the best tools and brands, and what I consider to be the absolute essentials for getting started in this medium. 

Until next time!

Lydia