This article, the first part of a two-part study, examines the concept of bifa (笔法), “the art of the brush”, in the Bifaji attributed to the tenth-century painter Jing Hao, and its significance for mountains-and-waters painting (shanshui hua). The author first notes the methodological difficulty of comparing Chinese and Western painting, arguing that each must be kept within its own philosophical and cultural context, and that key terms such as shen or qiyun shengdong resist direct translation. Comparing the renderings of Kiyohiko Munakata and Maurizio Paolillo, and contrasting Kandinsky’s view of form as the vessel of spirit, the article shows that in Chinese painting brushwork is far more than technique. Among Jing Hao’s Six Essentials (spirit, resonance, thought, scene, brush and ink), the brush is the organ through which the others reach organic unity, conceived “as movement” rather than as substance or form. Read alongside Zhang Yanyuan, Zhu Jingxuan and Shitao, bifa appears as a cosmic, generative act in which brush and ink enact the interplay of yin and yang. The study concludes that bifa has a dual nature: mystical and transcendental on one side, rational and technical on the other, attainable only through disciplined learning.