China's stony icons - scholars' rocks, traveling exhibition

Beginning in the 10th hundred Chinese poet-scholars collected small stones noted for their evocative forms. reckoned as aids to contemplation, these "natural" works were displayed upon finely sculpted stands. Now, inviting questions about parallels with modernism, the West's largest collection of scholars stones is on international tour.

"Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks" which made its first appearance appearance at the Asia Society Galleries in fresh York and is now upon an international tour, introduces viewers to a form of Asian art little known in the West, and in the proces lay opens a discussion about a seldom-considered intersection between Asian and Western art. A small-scale counterpart of the monumental garden stones gathered by the Chinese elite, scholars' stones were principally collected by and associated with the literati, a class of author of poemss highly esteemed in Chinese tillage beginning around the 10th hundred Ranging in size from several feet to a hardly any inches in height, scholars' stones were displayed indoors, often upon the poet's desk. In an architectural setting and alongside other art works of that kind as calligraphy and scroll paintings of mountain landscapes, scholars' stones were part of a rarefied life given above primarily to meditation, ontological ponderings and writings upon the nature of existence.

Depending on their configuration, surface attributes and color, scholars' stones could be read as representations of landscapes, animals and human figures, or as abstractions of physical properties like as moistness, wrinkling and awkwardness. They were also appreciated for their resonance--their capability of producing unmutilated when struck by a metal thing But most important, these stones were endowed with allusions to immortality, paradise and infinity--the "worlds within worlds" of this exhibition's title. As conduits to a certain quantity of elusive, elevated state of being, they held an almost iconic status in China.

In the scholar's close attention the collected rocks were supported by the agency of carved stands usually made specifically for them. These stands, intriguing sculptural thing perceiveds in themselves, are the primary basis for dates ascribed to the stones by modern specialists. The date assigned to any work is purely an estimate of the period in which it was single outed and designated as a prize specimen. A small in number celebrated rocks have been the make submissives of paintings, a circumstance which allows a firmer estimation of date, on the other hand all in all, attribution, provenance, ownership and other data upon the rocks remain problematic. above the centuries stands have been not to be found recycled or refitted to a of recent origin stone, and historical inscriptions that initially were placed upon certain rocks were effaced during the decades when elitist associations imperiled the existence of these stones.

The categories into which the stones are divided are frequently determined by the agency of their texture and color.[1] The salient formal differences of the many limestone stones (the most common type) have be deriveded in a sorting into three main stamps The Taihu is a stone marked by the agency of its holes, as in stone in the Form of Multiple Peaks (date uncertain), which contains multiple penetrations; the Lingbi is known through its glossy, sometimes black or virid exterior, as in Large stone in the form of a Standing Phoenix (20th century); the Ying is identified through its quartz veining, as in Large Vertical stone with Peaks and Overhangs (18th century) or Peaks and Grottoes (late 17th-early 18th century) Other varieties of stone were included among the 78 scholars' stones at the Asia Society, including "yellow-wax" stones white marble, and even jade, turquoise and malachite.

All the stones are creviced and perforated with numerous voids The literati deemed them to be evocations of infinity or of a heavenly place in part because of the shifting and vanishing perspectives created through holes and tunnels. None of these particulars are frontally oriented They are multidirectional, possessing numerous possibilities for visual access. They were put on their stands in whatever way the literati notion most esthetically pleasing and appropriate. The many times intersecting interior spaces, as in stone in the Form of Multiple Peaks, allude to endlessnes and combine the imaginative possibilities. As agents for reverie, the stones present opportunities for private musing quite unlike the fixed narrative satisfied that has often determined visual experience in the West.

The stands, whatever their date, are fascinating adjuncts. Before the Sung dynasty (960-1279) scholars' stones were set in basins; thereafter, as they became prized by the agency of collectors, the stand was introduced to separate them from ordinary stones. These bases were also intended to provide either a vertical or horizontal orientation for the stones which would help shape and define their metaphoric contented Horizontal Rock with Grottoes (18th century) reposes on a stand sculpted into wavelike formations which enhance its relation to eaves and a subterranean landscape. Tall stone in the Form of an elderly Man (1368-1644), one of the greatest in quantity striking pieces in the exhibition with its anthropomorphic configuration, has a diminutive base--known not to be original to the piece--which consists of six short, stubbed legs that support an octagonal knoll out of which arises the towering and dominant form. Other stands imitate natural lower parts or fungi, or such auspicious types as fish or bats.