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The constant care of the Chinese artists is: Leave something for the imagination! |
A subject for picture in ancient China: Bamboo covers a wine-shop by the bridge. Many competitors tried to concentrate on the wine-shop as the center of the picture. There was one man, however, who painted only a bridge, a bamboo grove by its side, and hidden in that grove, only a shop-sign bearing the character 'wine,' but no wine-shop at all. And this picture won because the wine-shop was hidden in the imagination.
- Lin Yutang |
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Meditaewall, great wall in the soul. For its enlargement, click here.
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Crane is the symbol for longevity in China. subjects relating to it are therefore supposed to be dealt with that in which it is to creat a fairy world, such as these four images: the thicksets, the imagery and huge leaves, the plot lands in the form of nothingness that are never set trampled by man, are but engaging one into it, and the unspeakable calm posture of the cranes thus revealing.
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F1-2
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Another subject, At the deserted ferry, a boat drifts across by itself, a winning picture by a Chinese artist is one which conveyed this feeling of silence and desolation by drawing a bird resting on the boat, and another one about to perch on it. The presence of the birds near the boat suggests that the boat was deserted and no human beings were about.
- Lin Yutang
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F2-1
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A story - interpreting of F2-1
"Listen to the utterance of my two peers," said the rooster to the hen manly,
"You know that, finally they departed, and since then they have fought with each other in one increasingly bloody battlefield or other, fighting for establishment of their kingdoms."
" 'Look, I have fairly stewed a bowl of flesh of your father,' intending to defeat the psyche one said to the other, standing on their battlefronts facing each other in a distance."
" 'Well done,' despite the fact that he was an adopted son and the father was the actual father of the one himself who so said to him and was holding up a cup of the flesh over his head,
" 'I should very much like to enjoy it," continued he, "give it to me now and I want to empty that cup!' he in a triumphal voice that echoed in the boundless wilderness of the valley,"
A sudden bolt of lightning crackled throughout the sky and turned to a heavy rain. It completely abandoned the spirit of the storytelling of the rooster.
"Hurry up to the shelter as under the leaves," cried out the hen, (continue to the left section)
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(-continued) "We should not have gossiped and, moreover, it's none of our business." she continued in a comforting voice, "isn't it here warm enough to ward off the ferocity."
This is such a happy family of the three, the rooster, the hen, and their chick. It is at a corner of a world of their own family courtyard, walled on the four sides, and the wall is as high as that of a typical Peking courtyard, namely Peking Si-he-yuan. (Si means the number four, he refers to being walled, and yuan courtyard.)
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Sliding doors - a move of the mystery.
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Meditation Furniture
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A happy moment in China:
"I am sitting alone in an empty room and I am getting annoyed at a mouse at the head of my bed, and wondering what that little rustling sound signifies - what article of mine he is biting or what volume of my books he is eating up. While I am in this state of mind, and don't know what to do, I suddenly see a ferocious-looking cat, wagging its tail and staring with wide open eyes, as of it were looking at something. I hold my breath and wait a moment, keeping perfectly still, and suddenly with a little sound the mouse disappears like a whiff of wind. Ah, is this not happiness?"
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A1-2
Meditation Furniture
The top is Japanese Shoji and the main body sided with the painting pieces, which makes it fully an eastern item that breathes the mystery. Read about it.
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"... it would be unfair to judge the Chinese as a nation without an understanding of their art. There are certain hidden, innermost recesses of the Chinese soul that can be known only through its reflection in Chinese art, for, like Cyrano de Bergerae, the extreme sensitiveness and fine feeling of the Chinese soul are hidden behind a somewhat unprepossessing exterior. Behind the Chinese flat, unemotional face is concealed a deep emotionalism, and behind his sullen, decorous appearance resides a carefree, vagabond soul....
... and from the almond eyes behind the high cheek-bines shines a tender light that dwells fondly on forms of exquisite beauty. From the Temple of Heaven to the scholar's letter-paper and other products of artcraft, Chinese art shows a taste and finesse and understanding of tone and harmony that distinguish the best products of the human spirit."
- LYT |
The sage Laozi, the author of Tao Te Ching, written around the 6th century BC, fundamental to philosophical Taoism, fundamentally shapes the soul of the Chinese.
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Painting, calligraphy and poetry in China are "triplets", for a poem in China is supposed to be like an expression of a lyrical flow of romance that draws up something of a scene; a painting, a work of brushstrokes, which are not scattered in random without purpose but constituting something poetic in details. So the Chinese saying, 'there is a poem embedded in a painting, the same as there is a painting in a poem.' As to the calligraphy, Wang Hsichih (321-379), China's "prince of calligraphists," spoke about the art of it in terms of imagery from nature:
Every horizontal stroke is like a mass of clouds in battle formation, every hook like a bent bow of the great strength, every dot like a falling rock from a high peak, every turning of the stroke like a brass hook, every drawn-out line like a dry vine of great old age, and every swift and free stroke like a runner on his start. (translated by Lin Yutang)
So an interpretation of one fits also the other two, in generally speaking.
In the sanctification journey as in the ascent of art, it leads us to a consideration of "atmosphere," otherwise called "rhythmic vitality" which has been the highest ideal of Chinese painting for the last fourteen hundred years. For the Chinese brush, which is more subtle and more responsive than the pen, makes the conveyance of every type of rhythmic movement possible.
Now, let's look at the J1-1, the sketches of the segments and the seemingly haphazard arrangement of them. Of what avail is it to paint the slightly scattered imaginary leaves, unless it guides us to think that it sweeps away the infertility of the rocky and matches up to the conquerors the starlings standing on the top. The mountain demonstrates not only its wilderness, but leaves room by itself for the imagination of a battlefield.
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J1-1
Meditation Furniture
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