landscapeofthesoul-ppt.pptx

[excerpt from ‘Landscape of the Soul:
Ethics and Spirituality in Chinese
Painting’, slightly edited]
https://akilasenglishclass.blogspot.com/

A Presentation
by
Mrs S Akilandeswari
PGT English
DAV Public School,
Sreshtha Vihar, Delhi

Nathalie Trouveroy, wife of the
Belgian Ambassador to India, is an art
historian.
Recently she and her friend Agnes
Montanari translated William
Dalrymple’s masterpiece on Delhi,
'City of Djinns' in pictures.

The Tang Emperor Xuanzong
commissioned a landscape by
Wu Daozi to decorate a palace
wall.

Wu Daozi (680 – c. 760), also
known as Daoxuan, was a
Chinese artist of the Tang
dynasty. Only some of his
works survive;
The image of stepping into a
painting is a symbolic
representation of an inner
event, the withdrawal of
one’s self from the world into
a kind of secular, aesthetic
paradise

Landscape painting, also known
as landscape art, is the depiction of
landscapes in art—natural scenery
such as mountains, valleys, trees,
rivers and forests, especially where
the main subject is a wide view—
with its elements arranged into a
coherent composition. Sky is almost
always included in the view,
and weather is often an element of
the composition.
LANDSCAPE is an expanse of
scenery that can be seen in a single
view

Confucius once heard two of his pupils quarreling. One was of a gentle nature
and was called by all the students a peaceful man. The other had a good brain
and a kind heart, but was given to great anger. If he wished to do a thing, he did
it, and no man could prevent; if any one tried to hinder him, he would show
sudden and terrible rage.
One day, after one of these fits of temper, the blood came from his mouth, and,
in great fear, he went to Confucius. "What shall I do with my body?" he asked,
"I fear I shall not live long. It may be better that I no longer study and work. I
am your pupil and you love me as a father. Tell me what to do for my body.”
Confucius was a Chinese
philosopher and politician
… stories played an important part in China’s classical
education. The books of Confucius and Zhuangzi are
full of them; they helped the master to guide his
disciple in the right direction

I want to ask you some questions:—
"How many teeth have you?"
"I have thirty-two, teacher."
"How many tongues?"
"Just one."
"How many teeth have you lost?"
"I lost one when I was nine years old, and four when I
was about twenty-six years old."
"And your tongue—is it still perfect?"
"Oh, yes."
"You know Mun-Gun, who is quite old?"
"Yes, I know him well."
"How many teeth do you think he had at your age?"
"I do not know."
"How many has he now?"
"Two, I think. But his tongue is perfect, though he is
very old.”

"You see the teeth are lost because they are
strong, and determined to have everything they
desire. They are hard and hurt the tongue
many times, but the tongue never hurts the
teeth. Yet, it endures until the end, while the
teeth are the first of man to decay. The tongue
is peaceful and gentle with the teeth. It never
grows angry and fights them, even when they
are in the wrong. It always helps them do their
work, in preparing man's food for him,
although the teeth never help the tongue, and
they always resist everything.
"And so it is with man. The strongest to resist,
is the first to decay; and you, Tsze-Lu, will be
even so if you learn not the great lesson of self-
control."

Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as Zhuangzi, was an influential
Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BC
“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a
butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all
intents and purposes a butterfly. I was
conscious only of my happiness as a
butterfly, unaware that I was myself.
Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably
myself again. Now I do not know whether I
was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I
am a man.”

What is an anecdote?
An anecdote is a short and
amusing Or interesting
story about a real incident
or a person.
You probably use
anecdotes every single
day when you are talking
to your friends or family
Integrating anecdotes into
your writing helps to engage
the reader.

Once upon a time, there was an extremely talented artist by the name of 张僧
祐 (Zhang Sengyou). He was famous for painting lifelike dragons. However,
he never painted the eyes of his dragons, for he feared that if he did, the
dragons would come to life and fly away. One day, he painted four dragons
on the walls of a temple.
Passersby stopped to gawk at his artwork. Many people asked for the where
the eyes were and demanded that he paint them. When Zhang Sengyou told
him that the dragons could come to life if he did, they laughed at him and
would not believe him for a second. https://akilasenglishclass.blogspot.com/

The idiom “dotting the eyes of the painted dragon” has been used
metaphorically by later generations to mean: When speaking or writing, it is
imperative to be clear at crucial points, to make the details more vivid and
lively. The idiom is also a metaphor for making the main point standout.
Soon after, Zhang Sengyou gave in to their pressing demands and painted the
eyes. As he painted the eyes of the dragons, a wind swept across the temple.
The sky darkened, clouds gathered, and thunder and lightning followed. The
eyes of the dragons on the wall flickered. The onlookers then gasped in awe
as the dragons drifted away from the wall and towards the sky.

Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one
of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium.
However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones
related to culture, language, politics and history, and sometimes
involving neighbouring countries. https://akilasenglishclass.blogspot.com/

Quentin Metsys (1466–1530) was
a Flemish painter in the Early
Netherlandish tradition and a
founder of the Antwerp school.

DELICATE REALISM :It refers to the alluring quality of
the art which makes it seem real. It is an interest in or
concern for the actual or real as opposed to abstract.

illusionistic likeness: It
refers to an adjective of the
technique of using pictorial
methods in order to
deceive the eye. The
reference is to an illusion
created by the semblance
of something.

Chinese landscape painting
Western landscape painting

painting
• Conceptual Space refers to relation with the
abstract than the factual representation. This is the
incalculable dimension of the understanding of
concepts.

When someone tells you to look at a painting, you will think of an
image on the wall, But in Chinese the traditional scroll painting
presents a painting in a different way. The Image is painted on a roll
of paper or silk and unrolled for viewing.
There are two types of scroll painting: handscrolls, and hanging or
landscape scrolls. Neither stays on the wall all the time. The scrolls are
lightweight and mobile, and meant to be enjoyed for a while and then
put away, to be brought back out and viewed on special
occasions. https://akilasenglishclass.blogspot.com/

Hand scrolls are painted in a horizontal format. They're usually
long and continuous. One famous 12th century work by artist
Zhang Zenduan, titled ‘Along the River’ during the Qingming
Festival is more than seventeen feet long! Here's a section of that
scroll:
Imagine the rest of this scroll, all done with the same level of fine
detail in the rendering of sailing ships, buildings and the life of
this community during the festival. https://akilasenglishclass.blogspot.com/

Each scroll is mounted on a wooden roller with a protective silk wrapper
around the outside, and stored in a special wooden box. When you want to
view one, you unroll it by hand while it's flat on a table. The image, which
often involves a scene or story, unfolds before you. Think of it as an
illustrated book that tells a story as the pages are turned.
Unlike hand scrolls, hanging or landscape scrolls tend to be vertical. They
are unrolled, can be hung on a wall and viewed all at one time. But they are
still lightweight, portable and on the same silk or paper as handscrolls.

YANG
Mountain —
reaching vertically
towards Heaven,
stable, warm,
and dry in the sun
YIN
Water–horizontal
and resting on the
earth, fluid, moist
and cool.
•This concept is expressed as shanshui, literally
‘mountain water’ which used together represent the
word ‘landscape’.
•More than two elements of an image, these
represent two complementary poles, reflecting the
Daoist view of the universe.

Some of the common associations with yang and yin, respectively, are:
Male and Female, light and dark, active and passive, motion and
stillness.
The yin and yang symbol represents the philosophy of balance, where
two opposites co-exist in harmony and are able to transmute into each
other.
In the yin-yang symbol there is a dot of yin in yang and a dot of yang
in yin. This symbolizes the inter-connectedness of the opposite forces.
Therefore, the independent principles of yin and yang are actually
dependent on one another for each other's distinguishable existence.

In a landscape painting
empty space often indicates
cloud, mist, In Chinese
landscape paintings, painters
always embed their personal
feelings and emotions into the
image, rather than just depict
the details and exact
appearance of the object. As a
result, viewers can see a lot of
white spaces and broad
strokes on Chinese landscape.

What is often overlooked is an
essential third element, the
Middle Void where their
interaction takes place. This
can be compared with the
yogic practice of pranayama;
breathe in, retain, breathe out
— the suspension of breath is
the Void where meditation
occurs.
Void = suspension of breath
Interaction between yang and yin = meditation

Man is in the middle of nature and exchanges with her. Man is
the center of life. The entire creation plan is incomplete without
him. Man plays the key role in linking heaven and earth; he is
the channel of communication between both the worlds. As
human body is incomplete without the eye, so the entire
creation is incomplete without man. Hence, he is ‘the eye of the
landscape’.
François Cheng born 30 August 1929 in
Nanchang, Jiangxi, is a Chinese-born French
academician, writer, poet and calligrapher. He
is the author of essays, novels, collections of
poetry and books on art written in the French
language.
Man is, in Francois Cheng’s wonderful expression “the eye of the landscape”

Art Brut: literally translated from French
means "raw art"; 'Raw' in that it has not
been through the 'cooking' process: the
world of art schools, galleries, museums.
Outsider art is art by self-taught or
naïve art makers. Typically, those labeled
as outsider artists have little or no contact
with the mainstream art world or art
institutions. In many cases, their work is
discovered only after their deaths.

Nek Chand Saini (15 December 1924 – 12 June 2015) was a
self-taught Indian artist, known for building the Rock Garden of
Chandigarh, an eighteen-acre sculpture garden in the city of
Chandigarh.

The Rock Garden of Chandigarh is a
sculpture garden in Chandigarh, India.
It is also known as Nek Chand's Rock
Garden after its founder Nek Chand
Saini, a government official who started
the garden secretly in his spare time in
1957. Today it is spread over an area of
40 acres (161874.25 m²). It is
completely built of industrial and home
waste and discarded items.
The Rock Garden of Chandigarh

The nature of Nek Chand’s contribution to art
“All the stones have a soul... They are alive... The stones are like
gods and goddesses: there is life in them." -Nek Chand.
Anything and everything from a tin to a sink to a broken down car
could be material for a work of art.
Materials used in the construction of the rock garden range from
concrete and steel drums to light switches, broken bathroom sinks,
terracotta scrap and bicycle frames.
Highlights include a legion of dancing girls made from broken
glass bangles and a graceful arcade of towering arches with
dangling rope swings.

landscapeofthesoul-ppt.pptx

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