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.
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 (1895-1976)
Meditation Wall
F1-3
F1-2
F1-1
F1-4
Crane is the symbol for longevity in China. Therefore subjects relating to it are often supposed to be dealt with by creating a fairy world, such as in these ones: the thicksets, the imagery and huge leaves, the plot lands in the form of nothingness that are never set trampled by man, are engaging one into it, and the unspeakable calm posture of the cranes revealing.
One of China's thirty-three happy moments:
It has been raining for a whole month and I lie in bed in the morning like one drunk or ill, refusing to get up. Suddenly I hear a chorus of birds announcing a clear day. Quickly I pull aside the curtain, push open the window and see the beautiful sun shinning and glistening and the forest looks like having a bath. Ah, is this not happiness?
"I remember that when I was a child, I could stare at the sun with wide, open eyes. I could see the tiniest objects, and loved to observe the fine grains and patterns of small things, from which I derived a romantic, unworldly pleasure. When mosquitoes were humming round in summer, I transformed them in my imagination into a company of storks dancing in the air. Continu
J1-1
The sided panels is J1-1. Read about it.
Meditation Furniture (3)
A1-2
The sided panels: A1-2. Read about it.
Meditation Furniture (2)
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.
Sliding doors - a move of the mystery.
Meditation Furniture (1)
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?"
F2-2
J1-4
J1-5
J1-6
