Xuan paper "began in the Tang Dynasty and was produced in Jing County." Because Jing County was under the jurisdiction of Xuanzhou Prefecture in the Tang Dynasty, it was named Xuan Paper after the place. It has a history of more than 1,500 years.
It is durable and not brittle, and has unique penetration. It is tough and moisturizing, making it the calligraphy and painting paper that best embodies the Chinese artistic style. It is smooth but not slippery, and does not cause damage when folded. Chinese painting paper is mainly rice paper. In addition, it is resistant to aging, white and dense, and will not fade, while rice paper is easy to preserve, leather paper and silk, does not change color, has a pure texture, and has strong ink wetting properties. It is good for writing with both bones and spirit, and painting with high spirits and fewer insects. It has good lubricity, long service life, and is known as "the king of paper, the thousand-year-old paper". Therefore, rice paper is commonly used in traditional Chinese paintings.
Xuancheng, Anhui Province is the main producing area of ??rice paper. Jing County, because Jing County is a county under the jurisdiction of Xuanzhou, and Xuanzhou has been a distribution center for the paper industry since ancient times, the paper produced there is called "Xuan paper".
The so-called "raw" and "cooked" are different in the production process. Cooked Xuan has more procedures than raw Xuan, which requires brushing a layer of alum and peach gum on the paper. (or bone glue) to make the paper no longer seep. So whether it is better to use water-permeable or non-permeable paper for calligraphy and painting?
For painting, it is better to absorb water. Generally speaking, if you need to show the rich shading effect of the picture, raw Xuan is better than cooked Xuan; cooked Xuan is more suitable for the creation of delicate fine brushwork.
For calligraphy, because Shengxuan is very easy to absorb water, so it is easy to bleed out when you write it. It is not suitable for expressing details such as silk threads and tapes (so if you want to learn Jin and Tang calligraphy such as "Lanting Preface", you cannot use Shengxuan. It is suitable to use cooked xuan); because the brush strokes will produce greater resistance when crossing the raw xuan, and the pen force will penetrate deeper into the paper, so in order to express the thickness and strength of the pen, many calligraphers also like to use raw xuan. Summary:
Strictly speaking, rice paper refers to rice paper produced in Jingxian County, Anhui and surrounding areas, using Shatian rice straw and green sandalwood bark as the main raw materials, and refined through multiple traditional processes. However, along with "rice paper". This name is widely used, and the calligraphy and painting paper produced in Sichuan, Zhejiang and other places is also named "rice paper".
For professional calligraphers and painters, they prefer to use more than just rice paper. Strictly speaking, rice paper is an old paper with considerable history. We can still see rice paper produced hundreds of years ago. These old papers are very valuable and have become more and more collectibles.