- 28
Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat (B. 1943)
bidding is closed
Description
- Master of the Water, Pine and Stone Retreat
- A Procession of Stone Sages
- ink on arches paper, in four panels
signed, titled, dated Spring of 2012, with three seals of the artist, and inscribed
Once in a gorge in the Kunlun mountains, in the early autumn when the snow-melt had long since dwindled reducing the raging torrent of early summer to no more than a series of ribbons of water running through the boulder-strewn river-bed, I stumbled across the entrance to a cave.
Caves and other enclosed spaces have always had mystical meaning. Like the Daoist stepping through the mouth of his gourd into an infinite realm of wonder; like the old fisherman climbing through the Peach Blossom Spring to discover Arcadia, the cave resonates with other-worldliness. Even travellers to the West on the long and dangerous road between the sands and towering peaks carved their images of Buddhist deities into caves at Dunhuang before they left our lands so that the gods might look kindly on their endeavour.
The cave I found was no less magical. I was living alone for a long period of time, enjoying the solitude of the high gorge in the summer months and returning to lower ground and the warm desert oases for the winter. I searched for strange stones, as was my habit, but what I found in the cave was beyond anything I had ever discovered, and quite beyond transportation. Chamber after chamber of the riddled mountain was carved by aeons of fast flowing water carrying with it its little drilling pebbles to sculpt entire walls into a myriad strange stones. Who knows how deeply the ancient waters had drilled perforations beyond the limits of my tiny lamp? I returned day after day, with brush and inkstone, drawing the images I saw in the flickering light. Here were sages and demons; strange creatures half human half beast; here were birds and animals no human eye had ever seen, and a thousand other wonders.
I could not put down my brush, barely eating or sleeping for days on end, week after week. As winter beckoned I had a hundred or more sketches on scraps of paper I had brought with me from the Capital and on other paper I had made myself from local bark. Rolled in bundles upon my back, I set out for the nearest town with its supplies and mounting shops so I could transfer my sketches onto fine paper and have them mounted as albums and scrolls.
Returning the following summer, I found that some large boulders had been dislodged by the spring torrent, blocking the gorge further downstream and raising the water level by several times my own height. The entrance to my magical cave was lost beneath the water. Only then did I understand my urgency and madness in trying to record it all the previous summer.
I immediately set about making a large box from a single tree trunk to hold all the paintings, then sealed it, and left it in my high-gorge home, for it was time to move on. One day I shall return, perhaps they will still be there safely; perhaps my cave will, again, be accessible, but in the meantime I recall with clarity every image as if standing in front of it still, and paint again the wonder of the walls.
One frieze was particularly intriguing. I began to sketch it before realizing what it was I was painting. Leaving out the background darkness, as my brush urgently danced, a procession of stone sages emerged as if on their way to a symposium of Stone Fools. Perhaps it is again time to host one.
Inscribed by the Master of the Water Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe in the Spring of 2012, in an unusually cold Hong Kong, as if sympathizing with the loss of my cave in the high cold mountains, as I recall the delights of days and nights spent with Stone Fools whether of flesh and blood or otherwise.
Once in a gorge in the Kunlun mountains, in the early autumn when the snow-melt had long since dwindled reducing the raging torrent of early summer to no more than a series of ribbons of water running through the boulder-strewn river-bed, I stumbled across the entrance to a cave.
Caves and other enclosed spaces have always had mystical meaning. Like the Daoist stepping through the mouth of his gourd into an infinite realm of wonder; like the old fisherman climbing through the Peach Blossom Spring to discover Arcadia, the cave resonates with other-worldliness. Even travellers to the West on the long and dangerous road between the sands and towering peaks carved their images of Buddhist deities into caves at Dunhuang before they left our lands so that the gods might look kindly on their endeavour.
The cave I found was no less magical. I was living alone for a long period of time, enjoying the solitude of the high gorge in the summer months and returning to lower ground and the warm desert oases for the winter. I searched for strange stones, as was my habit, but what I found in the cave was beyond anything I had ever discovered, and quite beyond transportation. Chamber after chamber of the riddled mountain was carved by aeons of fast flowing water carrying with it its little drilling pebbles to sculpt entire walls into a myriad strange stones. Who knows how deeply the ancient waters had drilled perforations beyond the limits of my tiny lamp? I returned day after day, with brush and inkstone, drawing the images I saw in the flickering light. Here were sages and demons; strange creatures half human half beast; here were birds and animals no human eye had ever seen, and a thousand other wonders.
I could not put down my brush, barely eating or sleeping for days on end, week after week. As winter beckoned I had a hundred or more sketches on scraps of paper I had brought with me from the Capital and on other paper I had made myself from local bark. Rolled in bundles upon my back, I set out for the nearest town with its supplies and mounting shops so I could transfer my sketches onto fine paper and have them mounted as albums and scrolls.
Returning the following summer, I found that some large boulders had been dislodged by the spring torrent, blocking the gorge further downstream and raising the water level by several times my own height. The entrance to my magical cave was lost beneath the water. Only then did I understand my urgency and madness in trying to record it all the previous summer.
I immediately set about making a large box from a single tree trunk to hold all the paintings, then sealed it, and left it in my high-gorge home, for it was time to move on. One day I shall return, perhaps they will still be there safely; perhaps my cave will, again, be accessible, but in the meantime I recall with clarity every image as if standing in front of it still, and paint again the wonder of the walls.
One frieze was particularly intriguing. I began to sketch it before realizing what it was I was painting. Leaving out the background darkness, as my brush urgently danced, a procession of stone sages emerged as if on their way to a symposium of Stone Fools. Perhaps it is again time to host one.
Inscribed by the Master of the Water Pine and Stone Retreat at the Garden at the Edge of the Universe in the Spring of 2012, in an unusually cold Hong Kong, as if sympathizing with the loss of my cave in the high cold mountains, as I recall the delights of days and nights spent with Stone Fools whether of flesh and blood or otherwise.