The Ark

Those grotesque rocks found in Chinese gardens are imitations of the legendary heavenly grottoes of China's five sacred mountains. Heavenly grottoes are the realm of the immortals, and Dr. Liu Yang of the Art Gallery of NSW explains their importance in the literature and art of China.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

THEME

Rachael Kohn: If you've ever wondered why Chinese gardens usually contain a strange looking, grotesque rock, the answer lies in today's program.

Hello, this is The Ark and I'm Rachael Kohn.

Those strange rocks are imitations of the famed sacred mountains of China that contain heavenly grottoes, the legendary realm of the immortals. It's a motif that's central to an exhibition curated by Dr Liu Yang at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is called Fantastic Mountains.

Dr Liu Yang The worship of great mountains as the embodiment of mysterious power has a very, very long-standing history in China. Actually you can go back to texts written during probably Western Zhou Period or dates back to 15th century to 13th century BC.

Rachael Kohn: That's a long time for an idea to get into the consciousness of a people.

Dr Liu Yang That's true, yes.

Rachael Kohn: Now the idea of heaven associated with mountains is quite interesting from a Western perspective, because one might get the impression you could actually take a knapsack and trek to heaven.

Dr Liu Yang There was also such ideas of so-called celestial deities living in the sky, in heaven, and also there are heavens hidden inside mountains, so those are called the terrestrial immortals.

Rachael Kohn: Terrestrial immortals?

Dr Liu Yang That's correct, yes.

Rachael Kohn: So they live inside the mountains or somewhere in some place, within, below?

Dr Liu Yang They are living in the place so-called Grotto Heavens. These kind of ideas of grotto heavens actually came into fashion from a very early time, probably around the 3rd of 4th century AD, but has not been systemised until the Tang Dynasty around 8th to 9th century with the writings by two great Taoist scholars of that period.

Rachael Kohn: Well one does get the impression that this is a Taoist idea, or was it that the Taoists simply took it over?

Dr Liu Yang I think it was just taken over by Taoist theorists. Worship of great mountains as the realm of immortals began from a very early time. For example, during the Han dynasty which was about 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD, about 400 to 500 years. Many writings, even the artworks depicting the mountains as the realm of immortals, you can see on the mountains various spiritual creatures engaging in various activities, inside or outside the caves.

Rachael Kohn: Now given that mountains are real and are located in space, were heavenly grottoes actually identified as associated with specific mountains on a map?

Dr Liu Yang Well in China, gradually there are five great mountains as the primary mountains to be worshipped by imperial houses and by the ordinary people. Those five, so-called Five Sacred Mountains, located in each cardinal direction in the east, north, west and the south, and in the centre. These five mountains define, control and protect the Chinese sacred territory.

Rachael Kohn: I would imagine that emperors who were constantly fighting with each other, would have wanted to make sure that those mountains were in their territory.

Dr Liu Yang Well the emperors changed through different dynasties, but the Chinese territories always there.

Rachael Kohn: Now are these mountains actually identified today on tourist maps? Do people make sure that they take a pilgrimage to at least one of these mountains?

Dr Liu Yang Oh yes. Through the centuries, different peoples, including emperors, ordinary people, intellectuals, they went to the mountains with different motivations. Some went there to seek personal immortality, probably to seek elixirs, magic mushrooms, but others just wanted to go to there to witness the greatness of the mountains, communicate with the mountain spirits for the inspirations of writing poems, and even today if you go to these mountains, you see many, many people, pilgrims, because another reason is that these mountains are the centres of religions, both Buddhist and Taoist monks built their temples on these sacred mountains. So these temples actually also attract great numbers of visitors or pilgrims.

Rachael Kohn: Now these sacred mountains or heavenly grottoes in them, were they ranked at all in terms of importance? Were there some that were more important than others?

Dr Liu Yang This ranked idea is actually come into being with the Taoist theory of great mountains as the immortals' realm. According to Taoist sacred geography, there were ten great sacred mountains, or ten great so-called grotto heavens. And another 36 lesser grotto heavens, and in addition there were another 72, so-called blessed land, which are smaller or less important mountains.

Rachael Kohn: I gather that you would go to the one which is in accordance with your own status?

Dr Liu Yang Yes, actually for me, I have been to a number of these mountains. Of course I'm not a religious practitioner, but just want to go there to witness the greatness of these mountains and the sacredness of these mountains and it is to learn and try to understand why those mountains attracted attention of Chinese.

Rachael Kohn: Well one of the ways that they attracted attention was through the artistic depictions, and of course you have brought together here at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a wonderful collection from the Shanghai Museum of these depictions of heavenly grottoes and sacred mountains. Now the thing that struck me first on seeing them, was the sense of proportion in which the human beings, if they are depicted at all, are mere specks, they're almost invisible. They are completely overwhelmed by the mountains.

Dr Liu Yang This is a very interesting fact actually. The great mountains, the sacred mountains are always depicted in greater distortion. In contrast, the human figures, the architecture, bridges, the boats, the ricefields, they were always depicted in quite a realistic way, thus to form a very sharp contrast with the strangeness of the mountains, and to express the idea that mountains and the immortals reign, where people can seek refuge.

Rachael Kohn: Now there's a way in which Chinese folk tales or traditions come into this genre of painting. Can you tell the story about the peach blossom spring, and how that's related to these paintings?

Dr Liu Yang This story of peach blossom spring, is very influential in Chinese art history and literary history. The story was written by a 4th century poet, Tao Qian-ming. It's about a fisherman in the lost paradise. The story tells that one day this fisherman was fishing along a river, or a mountain stream probably. He saw a beautiful grove of peach blossom trees. This actually encouraged him to row upstream, then discovered small opening or small cave. He went into the cave and discovered in his great astonishment, that lost paradise. The story is not very clear whether the lost or hidden world is actually outside of the cave or just inside the cave. And in this sense, it actually related to the Taoist idea of grotto heavens.

But anyway, he discovered this lost world where people lived in harmony without rulers. After returning home he actually told somebody about this lost world, so together with others, they tried to find this cave again, but never found.

Rachael Kohn: Of course, that's always the way. Now I'm interested in the fact that the vision of paradise is not only a natural paradise, but it seems also a social one, of people living in harmony.

Dr Liu Yang That's true. This idea, this story was so influential partially because it actually related to many ideas, many philosophic ideas. For example, a world where people live in harmony, is actually associated with Confucianism, but a lost paradise was discovered through a designated cave, that's actually also related to the Taoist grotto heaven idea. So that's why it's so influential.

Rachael Kohn: Well one particular story that really grabbed me was the one about watching chess playing in the immortal land. Can you tell that story?

Dr Liu Yang Everybody in China knows this story I think. A woodcutter went into the great mountain. By coincidence he saw several old men, or in a different version, a young boy, playing chess. So he stopped and watched. After a while he remember his duty, but in his surprise he discovered that his axe handle was decomposed. Upon returning home, he was even more shocked to find that actually several generations had passed.

Rachael Kohn: So in effect, he had entered a different time zone, not only a different place, buty also a different time?

Dr Liu Yang Well according to Taoist sacred geography, we think these grotto heavens have their own sun, their own moon, or in other words it has its own time and space. Even today, and the Chinese say that if it's only one day in the immortal realm, it could be 100 years pass in the mortal world.

Rachael Kohn: Now the paintings themselves are remarkably uniform in their style, and of course you have some very famous who are represented here, like Wang Wei, many people in the West know that he was a great poet, but perhaps not everyone knows he was a great painter as well.

Dr Liu Yang That's probably true. Actually in traditional China, I think most of the painters do painting, calligraphy, and a poem. Actually the best paintings are always the combination of these three elements, called Three Perfections.

Rachael Kohn: Was the execution of these paintings ever done in a ritualistic fashion?

Dr Liu Yang Well probably when a painter painted a painting, there's some consideration of how to represent the subject matter in the best way. Sometimes they chose the so-called hanging scroll, which is a vertical, to depict high, lofty mountains. Then there's a horizontal format which is called hand scroll, which is also popular. Sometimes it can be over 10 metres long. One of the paintings in this exhibition actually is over 8-1/2 metres long.

Rachael Kohn: Finally Yang, which of these paintings are your favourites, or which are the most important?

Dr Liu Yang It's very hard for me to answer this question, because I have selected 79 paintings from the holding of some 7,000 paintings in Shanghai Museum, so to me they are all best.

Rachael Kohn: They are, too, and many are reproduced in a gorgeous catalogue. The exhibition is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales till the 9th May. Just go to our website for details.

Next week on The Ark, God's Wife. Who knew God had a wife? The ancient Israelites did, but what happened to her? Find out next week on The Ark, with me, Rachael Kohn.

THEME

Guests

Dr Liu Yang
is Curator of Chinese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Further Information

Fantastic Mountains
An exhibition of Chinese Landscape painting, including hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, album leafs and fan-shape works of art from the Ming and Qing dynasties (14th-19th centuries). At the Art Gallery of NSW from 12 March to 9 May 2004.
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/current/fantastic_mountains