Look, See

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML, 540 x 460 pixels

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML 600 x 500 pixels

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML, 540 x 460 pixels

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML 549 x 489 pixels

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML, 420 x 460 pixels

The Sleeping Spinner

The Sleeping Spinner, 2004, HTML, 380 x 390 pixels

Tao-chi: About a leaf from An Album for Taoist Yü

"About a leaf from Tao-chi's "Album for Taoist Yü" was written for and published in the latest issue of Rudolf's Diner: Search.

About a leaf from Tao-chi's Album for Taoist Yü

In a deep sleep, my eyes sunk into their sockets, hands palm-down by my side, my deep, loud breathing powered by a heaving chest moves me forward, climbing over crags, peering over rough edges, pulling myself up through the cold air, looking for a place to rest, to live, to leave behind my life of schedules, chores, conflicts, things.

I am driving a busy street, and at a red light my mind wanders to a foggy mountain retreat. I inhale the crisp, moist air, smell the dirt at my feet, peer across a valley, look at my legs crossed before me, hear nothing but the wind, maybe a bird.

Standing at the sink washing dishes, I am alone in my actions, step after step, thinking of the mountains, of a place that is whole and perfect. The light late in the day lingers, fades slowly. I sit, my thoughts turn inward, I am far away, I am small.

I cannot stop looking at a small landscape by Tao-chi. It is one of twelve small paintings made in in the late 17th century and collected in an album called An Album for Taoist Yü. It is an astonishing painting. Roughly eleven inches square, it is made using a very small amount of water, ink, and color that is dabbed and brushed onto paper. Pale liquid red and blue freckles of paint give the painting atmosphere, and dry, scratchy black strokes, almost crudely built up over two or three passes, give the painting structure and texture.

As my eye wanders over the painting I feel as if I have found a place of contemplation and purpose. I look at and around the rocks, and I feel their rough edges, and the spaces in between. I look out over the edge, down into the canyon, feeling the distance. I look at the stack of horizontal rocks piling above the small retreat building, and feel their shelter.

My eyes are continually drawn to the lines, dots, colors, spaces, and light. I marvel at how contemporary an image this seems by its few dots and lines all over the surface. The rocks aren't really solid at all, they're just outlines over a bunch of almost random dots of color.The faceless figure sitting in the pavilion is barely there, insignificant, merging with the mountainside. The red peaks in the left background show us just how far away and isolated this place is, yet I am startled to realize that this painting is three hundred years old; it seems so contemporary, and speaks to me across all these many years.

I see the blacker lines- squinting helps them stand out a bit- that curve around and support the small pavilion in the middle of the painting. I notice how these darker lines form a staccato snaky chain that starts faintly in the top middle of the sheet, lazily drops down and arcs over to the left, then at the midpoint bumps up and down back across to the right of the painting, finally spreading out in veins like roots to the bottom center.

This densely woven line of black shapes is like the spine of an animal, and the outcropping to the right, darker and sharper than any other single part of the painting, heavily hangs off the side of the mountain, like a hand or foot grasping or pointing the way, but also leaning and vulnerable, as if it could fall away at any moment, a reminder of time and impermanence.

The color is applied so casually, and the dry, craggy, feathery brushstrokes build up through repetition into black lines that seem almost living. The entire mountainside itself is a large figure; there is an aspect to it that is something of a multi-limbed, multi-fingered being that wraps its fingers around the hut, cradling the sitter. Or, the mountain also resembles a large head tilted back with a wide-open mouth carefully holding a small shack and sitter: this is either an affirming or terrifying situation to be in..

Tao-chi (1642-ca. 1708)- also known as Daoji, Shih-tao, Shih-T'ao, Shitao, and Yuan Ji- was born into a family of royal lineage during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), but the family's fortune turned with political overthrow and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). Tao-chi was forced to hide, entering a Buddhist monastery. He became a bit of a nomad before settling in Yangchow in 1687. He is known for his varied, wild, individual style, and for incorporating past painting styles as he desired and saw fit. Tao-chi wrote a treatise on painting, the Hua Yu Lu; he emphasized the concept of "i hua," or one line, which is translatable as line, unity, or a sense of oneness with nature[1]. In one oft-quoted statement, Tao-chi said:

I am myself because my Self naturally exists. The whiskers and eyebrows of the Ancients cannot grow on my face, nor can their entrails exist in my stomach. I have my own entrails, and my own whiskers and eyebrows. Even when there may be some point of contact with another master, it is he who approaches me, and not I who seek to become like him. I have been taught directly by Heaven, how could I learn from antiquity without transforming it?[2]

This example of the painter's work, with which I am most taken, is the result of a profound self-recognition and decisive action, as evidenced by a sure hand and strong composition. It is also a work from someone fully aware of history and their own time. I am awed by the power of this compact image and dazzled by its abstract quality; no matter how much I look at it I cannot quite take it all in, I can't fully understand it. I keep walking through the landscape, crawling over the rocks, peering over the edges and into crags, and trying to look beneath the surface. I keep looking to see how it is made. And I can't get over how something so complex as this painting, such an enthralling little world, is made using a little pigment and water, a piece of paper, and some hairs attached to a stick.

Pictured: Tao-chi, (1642-1708), Leaf from an Album for Taoist Yü, Ink and colors on paper, 23.75 x 27.5. C. C. Wang Collection, New York. View larger version.

[1] http://www.bartleby.com/65/sh/ShihTao.html
[2] http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0422/is_4_84/ai_95679867