The Hand’s Hand

When people are talking on the phone, their hands often begin drawing in the margins of a sheet of paper. One line winds around another; a shape is repeatedly darkened; the tip of the pen moves back and forth during pauses in the conversation. There is no composition and no predetermined subject. Yet by the time the call ends, a set of relations has already been left on the page.

Only after one mark has been made does the next acquire a reason.

Such casual doodling can sometimes come closer to painting than a solemn, self-conscious act of creation. The hand takes a small step forward; the eye then sees the trace it has left, and judgment begins to work. The image is not prepared in advance in the mind and then transferred onto paper. It gradually becomes clear through the alternating movements of the hand, the eye, and the marks themselves.

We have grown too accustomed to the maxim that “intention precedes the brush.”

Before making a mark, one first decides what to paint, why it should be painted, how it should be arranged, and what effect it should ultimately produce. The subject, composition, colours, form, and even the explanation can all be designed beforehand. Once the canvas has been set up, the hand merely has to carry out the plan. The more accurately it works, the more technically accomplished it appears; the more obediently it follows instructions, the closer the work comes to what was originally imagined.

The hand still holds the brush, but it has lost its own initiative. It becomes an agent dispatched by consciousness, responsible for transferring an already complete intention onto the canvas. Such work may be highly skilful and may also be beautiful. Yet the unknown that painting could have brought into the work has already been cleared away. The work resembles a pre-prepared meal: its ingredients, flavour, and presentation have all been arranged in advance, leaving only the final task of reheating.

Yet the principle that “intention precedes the brush” was never as firmly established as it later came to seem. Another line of thought had already appeared within the tradition itself.

In Siming Shihua, Xie Zhen discusses Li Bai, who was said to produce a hundred poems after drinking a measure of wine. How, Xie asks, could Li Bai possibly have formulated all those intentions one by one before beginning to choose his words? Xie therefore writes: “Intention arises with the brush; it does not depend on prior arrangement.” [1]

The statement concerns poetry, but it touches upon a general problem in artistic creation. Intention does not necessarily exist independently of action, waiting in a complete form before the action begins. Often, it is only because the first word has been written that the second word is called forth. Only when a sentence reaches a certain point does the writer realise what they actually want to say.

The brush does not begin working only after thought has ended. The movement of the brush itself changes thought.

Xie Zhen does not deny that a writer begins with experience, feeling, and a particular state of mind. What he questions is the excessively orderly sequence of first establishing an intention and then finding the words to express it. Creation often refuses to follow such a sequence. What has already been written forces the writer to think again and may even lead them somewhere they had never initially imagined.

Zheng Banqiao makes this still clearer.

He describes looking at bamboo early in the morning, as mist, sunlight, and dew move among the branches and leaves. From this, the intention to paint bamboo arises within him. Yet he immediately adds that the bamboo in his mind is already different from the bamboo before his eyes. Then, when he grinds the ink, unfolds the paper, and puts down the brush, “its form suddenly changes.” The bamboo produced by the hand is different again from the bamboo in the mind. [2]

Zheng Banqiao acknowledges that “intention precedes the brush” is an established principle, while simultaneously showing us that the principle becomes far less secure when the brush actually touches the paper.

If the hand were responsible only for execution, the bamboo in the hand should be identical to the bamboo in the mind. Yet they are not the same.

The bamboo before the eye is already changed when it enters the mind. When the bamboo in the mind passes through the hand, it changes once more. Putting brush to paper is not the final stage of transportation. Once the brush touches the paper, speed, density, pressure, rhythm, and the resistance of the material all intervene. An image that had seemed clear may begin to disperse, while a feeling that had remained vague may suddenly find its place. The small choices made by the hand in motion alter the bamboo already held in the mind. They also alter the painter’s understanding of bamboo.

The fissure was therefore already present within traditional theories of painting. What we need to do today is continue further into it.

My criticism of the idea that “intention precedes the brush” does not mean that nothing can be thought before the act of painting begins. Nor does it require the painter to empty themselves of experience. No one can become a blank sheet of paper before a canvas. Everything previously seen, every movement practised, every bodily habit, and every feeling of the moment has already entered the hand.

The problem is that we often mistake these vague, fluid things, which have not yet acquired a form, for an already completed “intention.” We then demand that the hand faithfully realise it.

Yet intention in painting must pass through painting.

While a thought remains in the mind, it can possess countless forms at once and avoid every concrete consequence. Once the brush touches the canvas, the thought acquires a direction, an area, a speed, a weight, and a texture. The first mark occupies a position, destroys the original blankness, and makes demands upon everything that follows.

Only after the brush has moved does that impulse become intention.

To say that “the brush comes first” does not mean that the brush precedes all consciousness. The painter still approaches the canvas with feelings and inclinations. It means only that the intention that truly belongs to painting has not yet been completed. The hand first gives it a concrete situation. The eye confronts that situation and makes a judgment. The next mark then proceeds from the newly altered conditions.

The concept of the “diagram,” which Gilles Deleuze develops in his discussion of Francis Bacon, offers another way of understanding this process.

The diagram comes first from the painter’s hand: random marks, sweeping gestures, erasures, spots of colour, and paint sprayed or projected from different angles. At first, these traces do not carry a definite narrative task, nor are they responsible for depicting an already determined object. They enter the painting, disrupt its existing images and habits, and allow the possibility of another image to become visible. [3]

Here, the hand no longer waits for a complete answer. It first creates a situation within the canvas.

This situation exceeds what had originally been imagined. The painter has to look again and decide which traces should remain, which should be covered, and which accidentally discovered direction deserves to be continued. For the first time, the brush acquires the ability to pose a question.

The diagram is usually used to explain how a new image can emerge from disorder. Yet what it brings forth is not merely a new image. The situation produced by the hand also forces the painter’s intention to change. A broad and indistinct impulse can enter painting only through an actual line or an actual area of colour, where it must undergo the examination of material and space.

At this point, the brush has already begun to participate in thought.

It does not merely serve thought, nor does it replace thought and act alone. The brush explores the ground ahead, with judgment following close behind. A distance of roughly half a step remains between them.

In their analysis of the diagram, Zhuge Yi and Wang Haiyue describe it as a generative mechanism within painting. Unintentional marks disrupt the first formation of the image. The painter then returns to the visual whole and, through those traces, discovers a new image. Art cannot unfold entirely according to plan. Creation must preserve an opportunity for an encounter with the unknown.

In Zhao Tianrun’s essay for Zhu Xinyu’s 2025 exhibition A Thousand Plateaus, he writes that the small scale of the works brought about “the liberation of the hand,” allowing “the continuous movement of the hand to precede visual judgment, and action to move ahead of consciousness.” [4]

This description captures a temporal gap within the creative process: the hand has already made the mark before the eye has had time to organise it completely into a judgment. It is precisely this brief interval that gives the painting an opportunity to depart from its predetermined programme.

What is delayed, however, is not consciousness in its entirety. It is complete judgment—the form of consciousness that attempts to control the whole in advance. The hand does not enter a darkness devoid of experience. It carries the memory of prolonged training and remains continuously influenced by the eye.

The hand reaches forward a little, and the eye catches up. Judgment responds, and the hand deviates once again. Creation proceeds through this alternation.

When the eye controls everything, the hand becomes a tool. When the hand expands without limit, the painting can easily slide into an accumulation of gestures. The freedom of the hand requires judgment, just as judgment requires a hand willing to move first.

Basquiat’s paintings make this alternation especially clear.

A word is written down and then crossed out. Once crossed out, it does not disappear. Instead, it becomes more conspicuous.

The first mark writes the word; the second redefines its weight within the painting. The line crossing through it is both a concealment and an emphasis. It resembles a denial, but also a renewed confirmation. The later mark does not simply modify the earlier one. It changes its meaning.

Basquiat once explained that he crossed out words precisely because doing so made people want to see them more clearly. By partially concealing the words, he intensified the desire to look at them. [5]

Throughout his paintings, words, numbers, skulls, crowns, arrows, and scattered lines continually pass through one another. Just as one image begins to establish itself, another mark cuts into it. It is difficult to draw a clear boundary and say at what point intention became complete, or at what point the hand began merely to execute it.

Words and crossings pull at one another. Affirmation and cancellation remain simultaneously present within the painting. Once an original idea enters the image, it no longer remains unchanged. It is covered, interrupted, and awakened again. What finally remains can no longer be reduced to a sentence prepared in advance.

Such a hand has its own temporality.

It allows a mark to remain temporarily unresolved. It allows a shape to lead the painter away from the original direction. It also allows what has already appeared to turn back and contradict the painter’s plans.

This is not easy.

Every mark leaves consequences. The painting’s centre of gravity may shift. An existing space may become blocked. A single area of colour may suddenly invalidate everything that came before it. Once the hand has left a trace, the painter must take responsibility for it. One mark opens several paths while closing many more. The next mark cannot return to a point of absolute freedom. It can only confront the painting that has already been changed.

The freedom of the hand contains both limitation and responsibility.

Work carried out to fulfil an order can follow the principle that intention precedes the brush. The objective is clear, the dimensions are clear, and the desired effect is clear. The more accurately the plan is executed, the better. Creation cannot easily follow the same order. If the painter already knows what the finished work will look like, the canvas is reduced to a site of fabrication.

Creation is closer to the doodles made in the margins of a page during a telephone call. The hand moves first. Lines pursue one another, and a certain order slowly begins to emerge. The painter has not withdrawn. The painter continues to look and continues to judge, but does not rush to dominate the image.

What I mean by “the hand’s hand” is a hand that no longer works solely on behalf of consciousness.

It meets resistance within the painting, deviates from its course, and finds a new direction. It also carries the painter towards a place the painter does not yet know.

Intention has not been abolished. It has simply lost the right to pretend that it is complete before the first mark has been made.

The intention that truly belongs to painting must pass through the first mark. It must endure the revisions introduced by the second. It must gradually acquire its form through repeated advances, retreats, and interruptions.

The brush must first move forward before the hand can become free.

And only after the brush has moved does that impulse become intention.

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## Notes

[1] Xie Zhen, Siming Shihua, vol. 1, in Wang Yunwu, ed., Congshu Jicheng Chubian, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936, p. 12. For discussion of the relevant passage, see Wang Junjun, “‘Intention Precedes the Brush’: A Historical Study Centred on Theories of Painting,” Tunghai Journal of Chinese Literature, no. 36, December 2018, p. 82, note 39.

[2] Zheng Xie, Collected Works of Zheng Banqiao, Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1962, p. 161. See also Wang Junjun, “‘Intention Precedes the Brush’: A Historical Study Centred on Theories of Painting,” Tunghai Journal of Chinese Literature, no. 36, December 2018, pp. 73 and 82–83.

[3] Zhuge Yi and Wang Haiyue, “‘The Diagram’: The Central Concept in Deleuze’s Phenomenology of Painting,” Contemporary Artists, no. 1, 2024, issue 148, pp. 116–120. The article offers an extended discussion of the relationship between the diagram, the movements of the painter’s hand, random marks, erasure, sprayed or projected paint, and the re-emergence of the image.

[4] Zhao Tianrun, “A Thousand Plateaus,” exhibition essay for Zhu Xinyu’s solo exhibition of the same title, TONG GALLERY, 2025. The exhibition ran from 24 January to 9 March 2025.

[5] Whitney Museum of American Art, “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Hollywood Africans,” collection entry. Basquiat’s remarks on crossing out words appear in the museum’s description of the work.

## References

Wang, Junjun. “‘Intention Precedes the Brush’: A Historical Study Centred on Theories of Painting.” Tunghai Journal of Chinese Literature, no. 36, December 2018, pp. 69–100.

Xie, Zhen. Siming Shihua. In Wang Yunwu, ed., Congshu Jicheng Chubian. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936.

Zheng, Xie. Collected Works of Zheng Banqiao. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1962.

Zhuge, Yi, and Wang Haiyue. “‘The Diagram’: The Central Concept in Deleuze’s Phenomenology of Painting.” Contemporary Artists, no. 1, 2024, issue 148, pp. 108–120.

Zhao, Tianrun. “A Thousand Plateaus.” Exhibition essay for Zhu Xinyu’s solo exhibition of the same title. TONG GALLERY, 2025.

Whitney Museum of American Art. “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Hollywood Africans.” Collection entry.