China produces a wide variety of brush pens of fine craftsmanship, with the best quality coming from Hunan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces. By usage, brushes are generally classified into purple-hair (zihao), mixed-hair (jianhao), water brushes, weasel-hair (langhao), sheep-hair (yanghao), large brushes, and painting brushes.
Qualities of a Fine Brush
The shaft should be straight and evenly rounded. The bristle tip should be cleanly shaped, straight, and centered — no off-center bias. In use, it should not shed hairs or split, with a balanced mix of firmness and softness. The tip and shaft should be firmly bonded.
Brush Hair Types
1. Sheep-Hair (Yanghao). Made from goat hair — the most common type. Aged yanghao has had its natural oils dry out over years of storage, making it absorb ink readily. Mature yanghao has some stiffness. Fine-tip yanghao is delicate with a transparent point. Pure yanghao has no impurities. Sheep-hair brushes are generally soft.
2. Purple-Hair (Zihao). Made from the black-tipped hair on a mountain rabbit's back. Relatively stiff, it is well suited for running script (xingshu) and cursive script (caoshu).
3. Weasel-Hair (Langhao). Made from the tail fur of the yellow weasel. Slightly less stiff than rabbit hair.
4. Rat-Whisker Brush. Made from house-mouse whiskers. The bristles are pure, smooth, and sharply pointed, producing writing that combines softness with inner strength.
5. Chicken-Feather Brush. Made from chicken breast feathers — extremely soft. Difficult for beginners to control, and therefore not recommended.
6. Hog-Bristle Brush. Made from processed and steamed hog bristles, used for writing large plaques.
7. Mixed-Hair (Jianhao). A blend of different animal hairs in varying proportions, achieving a balance of firmness and softness. For example, purple-hair mixed with sheep-hair: the more purple-hair, the stiffer; the less, the softer. Choose according to your needs.
The Four Virtues Revisited
The quality of a brush is judged by Pointed, Even, Round, and Resilient. Pointed means the tip is sharp when bristles are gathered. Even means when the bristles are pressed flat, they form a level edge like the teeth of a fine comb, with no uneven lengths inside or out. Round means the brush writes smoothly in all directions — the entire head should be like a plump bamboo shoot fresh from the earth, full and rounded with no hollows or bumps. Resilient means strong springiness: twist open a new brush, moisten with a little saliva, and draw circles on your thumbnail — the tip should move smoothly without stray bristles, and when lifted, the tip should naturally gather back to a sharp point. Taken together, choose a brush with full, thick bristles rather than sparse, thin ones — that is how you get strength in writing.