Line And Similarities Between Dai Jin And Sesshu

The use of line drastically changes the way Dai Jin of Sesshu portray their ideals and skill. In Dai Jin’s painting, his mastery of painting is clearly evident in his use of line quality. He uses jagged lines for the rocks, dotted lines for foliage, and shading, thick lines for darker areas, ink wash for the inside of the cave and other areas for shading, and dropped-in ink for the trees. He uses his skillful painting abilities to enhance the realism of the scene, to fully illustrate the realness of the story. Dai Jin isn’t just focused on the scene, however, and instead uses smooth, elegant, lines to outline Bodhidharma's body, and very curvy nervous lines for Huike’s body and clothes. This use of line demonstrates Dai Jin’s understanding

In Dai Jin’s painting, he uses several dark tones to create a much more realistic feel to the piece. For instance, small holes along the mountainside along with ridges in the cave have much darker undersides and tones and shading to create a greater sense of volume and reality. The rockside closest to the viewer (left corner) has an extremely light tone, hence lending to the overall sense of depth and realness. In Sesshu’s painting, he focuses less on using tone to create a real microcosm and more to emphasize Bodhidharma. Sesshu’s painting is almost entirely made up of gray tones and drastic dark lines and darker tones to emphasize the sharpness of the cave as well as create a sense of depth (he most likely looked at Dai Jin’s painting for this sort of inspiration). The one thing that really stands out is Bodhidharma’s extremely lightly toned body, which greatly contrast against the darker tones surrounding him. This use of tone reflects the idea of Bodhidharma enlightened state amidst a world full of sharp rocks and imperfections. While Bodhidharma has very light tones, Huike appears almost faded with not much tone variation; this shows Bodhidharma’s importance and stance as a key figure refusing Huike's desperate cry for