5/14/13

Tranditional and contemporary art 山中隐者

The following piece of Yue Min Jun is part of the Labyrinthe series:



Note: in the top left hand corner is noted "寻仙问道" : if you seek spiritual immortality, ask the way".

When considering this painting, we need to consider the ideas of:
1. Nothing (Xu 虚) and Having (You 有) in Taoist thinking, corresponding to
2. Space (Xu 虚) and Fill (Shi 实)  in artistic representation

1. Having (You 有) and Nothing (Xu 虚)

In  淮南子 "Huai Nan Zi", we can find:

道始于虚霩,虚霩生宇宙,宇宙生气,(气有涯垠)。
"The origin of the Path is from Nothing, Nothing is born from the Universe, from which is born the Vital Breath, Qi."
We see the link that exists between the Path and Nothing. Sometimes the path represents the Origin, and sometimes it represents all the universe.
According to Baidu, the meaning of this is that the Path is the Path of Nothingness, the road of One, and in the final analysis, the Path of Things. This makes an alteration to "from the path is born Things" view of pre-Qin Taoist thinkers, explaining instead that "Things have a path", clearly bending towards the philospohical doctrine of materialism i.e. reality is formed by physical matter.


 In the XXV chapter, Laozi describes the Path as a manifestation of  Nothing:
"有一个东西混然而成,在天地形成以前就已经存在。听不到它的声音也看不见它的形体,寂静而空虚,不依靠任何外力而独立长存永不停息,循环运行而永不衰竭,可以作为万物的根本。我不知道它的名字,所以勉强把它叫做“道”。/ "There is something arising from a mixing, existing before Sky and Earth, that is silent and invisible, impalpable, independent from any other power and unstoppable,always in motion and never tiring, and is at the origin of all Things. Not knowing what name is has, we can call it "Path/Dao道".

On the matter of the Universe, in the 天文训 section, we can read a phrase that should be often recalled when viewing Yue Min Jun's work:

"The Path engenders One, which is the Original Qi, One is the origin of Two (the Two: Yin and Yang), Two produces Three, Three produce the Ten Thousand Beings. The Ten Thousand Beings lean on the Yin and embrace Yang. "

 "道生一,一生二,二生三,三生万物, 万物负阴而抱阳".

François Cheng in "Vide et Plein" explains that in Taoiste thinking, between the Yang (as active) and the Yin (as receiving), emerge the many vital breaths of the Ten Thousand Beings. The Three represents the combining of the vital breaths of the Yin and the Yang and of the force between the two, also a vital breath. Without the intermediary force, the Three, the Yin and the Yang would be in opposition, static and undynamic. And it is from this Three that proceed the Ten Thousand Beings.

In Chinese cosmogonie, there is a double mouvement which can be represented by two axis, with the vertical axis representing the interaction between the Fill and the Space and a horizontal axis reprresenting the interaction, the core of which takes place in the Fill, of the two complementary sides Yin and Yang.

ZhuangZi in the Sky-Earth chapter writes :
"泰初有无,无有无名。一之所起,有一而未形。物得以生谓之德;未形者有分,且然无间谓之命;留动而生物,物成生理谓之形;形体保神,各有仪则谓之性;性修反德,德至同于初。同乃虚,虚乃大。合喙鸣。喙鸣合,与天地为合。其合缗缗,若愚若昏,是谓玄德,同乎大顺"/ "The original universe existed in "Nothing", and had no name; Chaos then arose at this time but had no form. Then Ten Thousand Beings came from the Chaos in that the Yin and the Yang were already by this point separate, interlocking but separate, and called the span of life, these two produce Ten Thousand Beings  from Ten Thousand Beings comes the mechanism of life, this has a physical shape, the body that houses the spirit, each with their own trajectory and rules, which is the essence of each individual. Individuals who work on themselves will become spiritually harmonious, and when this harmony attains perfection their entity will revert back to the original state. In this state, the mind is completely clear and without limits. At this moment of being at one, is like birdsong, having no relation to negative and positive, or hate and love, and with no difference to a bird, existing in harmony with the earth and the sky. This state leaves no trace, like a savage being or the dusk itself, this is also called the mysterious road, in which one returns to the original state and returns to nature."



2. Fill and Space

The esthetic necessity of fill and space are evident: the one cannot exist without the other. 

Note the human element present in the traditional Chinese representation of a Fill and Space landscape, whereas in the Yue Min Jun painting, no human trace is to be seen. This may also remind us of paintings such as in the reinterpretation series, in which human elements in the original painting are eliminated in the Yue Min Jun version.

The beauty of the original traditional Fill and Space landscapes proceeds from the infinite possibility offered to the eye in suspension between the black ink pictoral representations and the predominantly white or entirely white regions of the canvas.

Shi Tao evokes the "sea of ink which carries and nurtures, and the mountain of the brush that stands up and dominates". François Cheng in "Vide et Plein" mentions the link between Yang, mountain and brush / Yin, water and ink.

In the fifth chapter "笔墨章第五", the painter Shi Tao 石涛 says that a human has the power of creation, since he can create a reality using the paint and the brush. Shi Tao calls the Original Chaos "waves of stone" (incidentally, the words of his vey own name). Amongst these stones caught up in a hurricane of dynamism, can be found a human presence, represented by the hermit in the mountain.










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