Three Little Fish Postcard

Three Little Fish is a brush painting in traditional Chinese free style technique (Xie Yi) with ink on rice paper. In traditional Chinese culture, fish is the symbols of fertility and wealth. Fish images are also often to given as wedding gift as fish multiply rapidly and they often swim in pairs. In China, fish and jade are homonymic words (all sound "yu"), so fish represents affluence and abundance. The XieYi technique, also called "Free Style", is painted fresh from the hand and the design of the image is subject to few restrictions. Xie means to write and Yi the meaning. A famous Master of Chinese painting, said that Xieyi indicated the fact of drawing the spirit of the beings. Painting Xieyi uses many techniques of calligraphy which privilege the spontaneity of the line. Free style paintings are thus very quickly carried out. In the style of calligraphy, the image should not be painted, but written.