How do we categorize brushes？

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Traditionally a brush pen，an ink-stick，paper，and an ink-stone are indispensable to traditional Chinese scholars who call them the“four treasures of the study .”

There are several ways to categorize Chinese brushes.One category depends on the type of hairs on the head of a brush.As for an ancient-styled brush，its hairs may be the hairs of a rabbit，goat，wolf，fox，rat，horse，deer，pig，chicken or other animals.Some of those hairs are listed as hard hairs，and the others as soft hairs.Therefore，there exist a hard-hair brush，a soft-hair brush，and a brush with mixed hairs .

The handle of a brush is usually made of bamboo，wood，sandalwood，nanmu wood，or pear-wood.The other materials include ivory，rhinoceros horn，ox horn，jade，crystal，silver，and porcelain.Some individual calligraphists enjoy having brushes inlaid with precious materials like mother-of-pearl inlay，ivory and jade.

As for traditional Chinese painting，brushes are subdivided into landscape-painting brushes，flower-and-plant painting brushes，figure-painting brushes，ribs-of-leaves drawing brushes，clothing-line drawing brushes，color-drawing brushes，etc.

What is ink-stick？

The ink-stick is the unique pigment of Chinese traditional painting and calligraphy.Legend says that King Yi first invented the ink-stick about 2，800 years ago，yet archaeologists have detected ink marks on the back of inscribed bones or tortoise shells dating back to the Shang Dynasty.It was during the Han Dynasty that artificial ink was produced.“Yumi-mo”ink-stick was considered the most famous ink-stick at that time.It was produced at the present site of Qianyang County ，Shan’xi Province .Its raw materials consist of pine，oil and lacquer.Before the Five Dynasties，the ink-production center was located in North China.Then，it gradually moved to the South.At present，the most well-known South ink-stick is“hui-mo ，”produced in Huizhou ，Anhui Province.

This ink-stick，being made of burnt pine soot，is as hard as stone and does not deteriorate during at least ten years.Generally，ink sticks fall into three ma jol categories based on the main materials which used in ink production：1）the pine-soot ink-stick，2）the oil-soot ink stick，3）the oil-soot and pine-soot ink-stick.