Page 49 - BSAM 2015 Q4

Figure 2, “A Noble Scholar,” Five needle pine. Designed by Zhao Qingquan. Figure 3, Drawing of pine from the Mustard Seed Garden Painter’s Manual.
Figure 4, “Out of Mountain Passes.” Sargent’s juniper. Designed by Zhao Qingquan.
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nobility, and simplicity are characteristic of literati culture. ese same characteristics are o en found in literati penjing and inform the present work. e centrality of literati virtues is su ciently important that the penjing chosen for the cover photograph is named “Sharp Sense of Integrity.” e penjing depicted in Figure 2—“A Noble Scholar” is also expressive of the literati ideal. In his lecture, Eno goes on to observe:
“Literati painting was conceived as a mode of painting through which the Confucian junzi (noble person) expressed his ethical personality. It was much less concerned with techni- cal showiness. Literati painters specialized in plain ink paint- ings, sometimes with minimal color. ey lay great emphasis on the idea that the style with which a painter controlled his brush conveyed the inner style of his character—brushstrokes were seen as expressions of the spirit more than (they) were matters of composition or skill in realistic depiction.”
Consider the simplicity of the rendering in Figure 3. It depicts a pine and was taken from the culturally iconic Mustard Seed Garden
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