https:/.../2020-07-02_arh303_poet-on-mountaintop.mp4

Now let's look at another example
of Chinese literati painting.

And this is Shen Zhou, and
this is his "Poet on a Mountaintop"

from the Ming dynasty,
and this is ink.

We have just a little bit of color,
just a little bit of you know grey color

and, of course, the red
of the seal over here.

And that's part of what
we call a handscroll, okay?

So, this is now-- is not a
longitudinally oriented scroll,

but is more of a horizontal and is read
more like what you would think of

as a scroll, okay?

And so this is not that large.
It's two feet by a foot and half or so.

So from about the same
period of time, a little bit earlier.

You can see here that Shen Zhou
also created works that are perhaps

more typical of the sorts of
things that we saw earlier.

And these, you know large hanging
scrolls with this very dramatic landscape

and, I'm going to say some
of this is quite exaggerated.

I mean, we have seen
some of this landscape.

But, it's interesting because,
when you look at these,

you can really see that they're
very very differentiated

even though they are,
many of them landscapes.

But this particular one
we're looking at today,

"Poet on a Mountaintop" I think is
one that has captured people's

attention and interest for a long time
because it is so evocative

of literati painting.

Handscrolls, so what we think
of with the handscroll is it's

rolled up and, again,
other cultures that use scrolls,

this is probably something
that is a little bit--

if you think of the Egyptians or
some of the ancient Jewish monks,

the Dead Sea scrolls,
those types of things.

These are more of that kind of scroll,
that you're reading it almost like a book.

So this is how this was set up.

I want to go a little bit further
into this idea of the literati

and the painting and one of the things
about Chinese painting in general

this literati tradition but even
the court painting, to some degree,

is this idea of you follow
the three perfections.

And the three perfections are
calligraphy, poetry, and painting.

And, we've talked about this
in the earlier painting.

And, we've talked about how calligraphy,
you know, the beautiful writing here

is very important-- it's almost the act
of inking this and making these marks

is almost an act of
meditation and devotion.

If we look at Islamic manuscripts
oftentimes that sense of writing

the Quran in calligraphy
is actually a devotional act,

and we can think of this
as something sort of similar.

And the fact that you
would both paint this

and write poetry about this event,
and all of this is sort of reflecting

the inner life of the artist is
very typical of literati painting.

This portrait of a literati painter
that I showed you before

is actually thought to be
a portrait of Shen Zhou

who was an artist for
a very long period of time.

He paints this image here,
"Poet on a Mountain Top"

fairly late in his career, in his life,
but he was one of the most prolific

of the literati painters
during the Ming dynasty.

So, and this is in your book,
so there is--

there's something about
the intimate look of this.

the smaller scale, it's not
a massive scale or scene

river all the way up
to the mountain,

it's much more man,
person, human being scale.

And that is, it much more encompasses
what you can see in one view

as opposed to that idea of your eye
traveling for some time through a view.

And so here you can see the
poem that is written over here

and this is the translation:

"White clouds, like a scarf,
enfold the mountain's waist."

So first of all, oh yeah
there are the clouds.

I mean (laughs)
this is paper and ink.

You know, this is just, notice how just
the smallest amount of gray tone here

gives us the sense that we've
emerged on this mountain top

above the clouds,
it's really remarkable.

"Stone steps hang in space,"
you know this idea that, again,

you sort of emerge up here
and you're hanging in space--

"a long narrow path.
Alone, leaning on my cane,

I gaze intently at the scene. And feel
like answering the murmuring brook

with the music of my flute," okay?
And so this is, you know, as I said

this is towards the end of his life,
so he's got a cane and he's going up here

and he's taking in all the world
and he enfolds not only the art

and the poetry and the scenery,
but also the music into this.

And so, this is in so many ways the
epitome of this kind of literati painting.

I want you to also
notice the composition

and in this case, sometimes it seems as
though the poetry is tagged on at the end

but in this case, the poetry is
part and parcel of the composition.

And, it's almost as if this little figure
here is facing off towards the poetry.

And you have this massive
rock here in the center,

and then the sort of fading away
of the mountain and the clouds.

It's beautifully,
beautifully composed.

It's not symmetric,
but we would call this balanced.

And so, we have these various diagonals,
that are here and here and here.

But, there is a sense of symmetry,
there's a sense of balance,

there's a sense of some of
these compositional elements

repeating each other and
giving this overall organization.

Oftentimes we celebrate in art
the big and showy and the big dramas

and the battles,
all those sorts of things,

but art also captures these
very small, very intimate,

very quiet moments, and this is certainly
one of the most sublime of them all.

In the next segment, we're going
to follow through on this

and look at how this manifests
itself in garden design.