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University of Sydney mechanical engineering student Wenzheng Zhang has programmed a robot that can produce a traditional Chinese ink painting, a style known as guóhuà.

Chinese ink painting robot that can create works from scratch created by university student with flair for art and mathematics

  • The mechanical engineering student has programmed a robot that can produce a traditional Chinese ink painting in a style known as guóhuà
  • The program can create a piece of art instead of simply copying existing works
Art

There’s no point asking Australian student Wenzheng Zhang whether he favours the creative right side of the brain or the logical left side. He’s mastered both.

To prove it, Zhang, who attends the University of Sydney, has combined his passion for art and robotics to create a program that produces a traditional style of Chinese ink painting known as guóhuà.

The artistic purist trying to save traditional Chinese ink painting

The mechanical engineering student created a robot that – armed with two paintbrushes, a pot of ink and art paper – is programmed to paint small chickens, the traditional elementary subject that apprentice artists must master before progressing to more complex images.

Zhang, who has been drawing and painting with ink since he was five years old, started experimenting with a robotic arm at university. It was during a mechanical engineering class that the idea to combine his two passions struck.

“What I’ve achieved is the framework of a painting process which uses a program that allows the arm to paint in a similar way to a human,” says the 29-year-old. “Instead of using image processing to determine the image’s trajectory, a mathematical and geometrical relation is used.”

“The purpose is to try to replicate the human thought process, such as getting the robot to focus more on how the painting starts rather than how it finishes. The robot must contemplate the canvas and effectively work out the drawing on its own.

“I’ve created a program which can be developed with the end goal being ... to create a piece of art instead of simply copying existing works.”

The robotic arm in action.

The robot is an important step in marrying two very different disciplines, says Paul Brizzo, who was supervising Zhang’s work from the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.

“Zhang’s work is of great significance because it is an exciting initial example of the fusion between two traditionally opposing fields, engineering and fine arts,” says Briozzo.

“The robot is moving to a set of commands from a predefined, compiled database of motion that considers factors traditionally of importance to a painter, for example brush size, ink, water and paper.”

Qi Baishi's Twelve Screens of Landscapes. Photo: Felix Wong

However, robots could one day be programmed to think for themselves, using figurative styles and an understanding of form to create entirely new works.

Qi Baishi paintings fetch record US$141 million at auction

China is famous for its ink and paper works depicting landscapes and native animals by masters including Song dynasty (960–1279) painter Ma Yuan and painter Qi Baishi, whose notable works Twelve Landscape Screens (1925) sold at Poly Auction Beijing for a record US$141 million in December 2017.

“Art has long been a passion but I also believe robotics is an important field because it can help people complete tasks previously unachievable,” he says.

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