Page 196 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 189
Landscape

shan-shui

Literally translated, the Chinese words for ‘landscape’ mean ‘mountains and water’.
Nothing could be more appropriate: in fact, the great majority of Chinese landscape
pictures show exactly that – mountains and water.
However: ‘It is not a mountain in itself and by itself that is understood here and
represented. Rather, it is the mountain with everything around it, woods and waters,
clouds and mists, and a thousand other details drawn together in one indissoluble unity.
“Mountains without clouds are bald, and without water where is their charm?” (Guo Xi).
And so the mountain is joined by the second of the primeval elements – water’ (Otto
Fischer, Chinesische Landschaftsmalerei).

Mountains and water

The flat Chinese plain is hardly ever depicted: the plain was regarded as an object of
more interest to the farmer than to the landscape painter. Here and there the mountains
may indeed level out into flat areas, but these are not fields but ‘gardens’ and what grows
in them is not corn or rice, the staple foods, but fruit and flowers.
Human beings are often shown in Chinese landscapes. They are confined to the lower
third of the picture and they are very small. Here, nature seems to be tamed by the hand
of the artist. We know that, like our ancestors in Europe, the ancient Chinese feared
nature in the raw, the uncultivated wilderness, and tried to avoid it as far as possible.