十竹齋書畫譜 不分卷 五止
A Ming-dynasty Chinese painting manual by Hu Zhengyan, printed in woodblock form, showing scholars' rocks and ink studies for artists. The four pictures render perforated and eroded garden stones in grey ink washes, some with pale green moss or sparse grass at their bases and red seal stamps at the margins. A designer could take their soft tonal gradations, irregular organic silhouettes and negative-space holes as reference for natural form and sparse ink-wash composition.
