Listen to this articlenóngdàn 浓淡
Denseness and Lightness
浓淡可用于形容颜色、气味、滋味等的深浅、强弱程度。在文艺领域中，浓淡可指绘画色彩的浓淡，文学语言的华美与简淡，艺术风格的浓艳与清淡以及抒情方式的强烈与平淡等含义。“浓”与“淡”是辩证的存在，比如，中国画的笔墨一向有浓有淡，浓不至于浊秽，淡不至于虚缈，尤其水墨画更注重墨色的浓淡，以表现阴阳、向背、虚实、疏密、远近等。理想的艺术境界是浓淡得宜，其他艺术形式对于浓淡的要求与此一致。
This term is used to describe varying degrees of denseness with regard to color, smell or taste. In the fields of art and literature, it refers to the denseness or lightness of a painting’s color, ornateness or plainness of literary language, boldness or restraint in artistic style, or to directness or opaqueness of emotional expression. Denseness and lightness are relative to each other. In traditional Chinese painting, for example, the colors chosen can either be dense or light, but they should not be so dense as to be crude or so light as to be insipid. Ink wash painting pays particular attention to the denseness or lightness of color, aiming to achieve a balance between the two. This implies a harmony between the bright and the shady, the front and the rear views, the tangible and the intangible, density and sparsity, and the long- and short-range views. An ideal painting expects denser and lighter hues to set each other off beautifully. This requirement applies also to other genres of art.
引例 Citations：
◎篇章户牖（yǒu），左右相瞰。辞如川流，溢则泛滥。权衡损益，斟酌浓淡。芟（shān）繁剪秽，弛于负担。（刘勰《文心雕龙·熔裁》）
（篇章好像门窗，左右相互配合。文辞好像河流，水满了会泛滥。衡量内容如何减少或增多，斟酌文辞如何加浓或减淡。删去多余剪除杂乱，使文章减少负累。）
A piece of writing is like the shutters on a window, with the left and right sides balanced and well matched. Wording is like a river – if too full, it will flood. We must weigh to see if it needs abridgements or additions, or if it is too ornate or too plain. Any superfluous part should be deleted and any jumbled mass cleaned up so that the composition may not be weighted down. (Liu Xie: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons)
◎此卷寂寥简短，不过数笔，而浅深浓淡，姿态横生，使人应接不暇，盖是其得意笔。（尤袤《跋米元晖〈潇湘图卷〉》）
（这幅画意境静谧萧索、尺幅短小，不过寥寥数笔，但是用墨和着色有浅有深、有浓有淡，云雾、山水等各种姿态纷纷呈现，让人目不暇接，应该是他的得意之作。）
The artistic conception of this painting is tranquil and detached. Although small in size and sketchy, it intersperses stronger and milder hues, and heavier and lighter patches. Clouds, mists, mountains, and rivers present themselves in a variety of ways, keeping the eye busy taking it all in at once. It must be the painter’s own favorite piece of work. (You Mao: Postscript to Mi Youren’s “Landscape Painting of Hills and Rivers in Hunan”)
