Wen Fong

The Timeless Landscape

Summer Mountains

aybüke

For Kuo Hsi the secret of being a painter—and understanding painting —lay in 

, a serious and respectful attitude. “In order to grasp Creation, nothing is more divine than love for the subject,” he said; “nothing enables one to concentrate better than diligent study, and nothing is grander than to wander about and satiate one’s eyes with landscape scenery.” He expanded on these in the language of a Sung Confucian scholar:

In depicting scenery... a painter must be severe and serious in his work in order to give it dignity; if he is not severe his thoughts will not be profound. He must be diligent and respectful in order to make his work complete; without respectfulness, the scenery will not be complete.

How delightful then to have a landscape painting rendered by some skillful hand! Without leaving the room, a person may find himself sitting among streams and ravines; the cries of the monkeys and birds faintly reach his ears, light on the hills and reflection on the water, glittering, dazzle his eyes. Is this not “to make others happy will satisfy my own desire?”

Summer Mountains The Timeless Landscape

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