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Painting without a frameTHE JINGTING MOUNTAINS IN THE FALL, SHITAO,SEVENTEENTH CENTURYIn Chinese painting, the human silhouette islost in the vast landscape. Size is often re l a t e dto status rather than to the laws ofperspective. The painter deciphered nature ashe would an ideogram: behind the image’sp o e t ry lies a philosophical choice.Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-GuimetThe contrast between Eastern and Western ways of thinkingabout man and the universe is readily summed up inpainting. For the Chinese, landscape was an elevated genre.The viewer was projected into it as an integral part of nature.Brush and ink painting date back to 1000 b.c. Standardsin China were set as early as the sixth century a.d., when sixlaws, which governed painting until re c e n t l y, wereestablished. They instructed artists on how to hold and use abrush, and how to select appropriate colors, set down rules ofcomposition and training, and listed those subjectsconsidered worthy of the painter’s art.Academies were founded, whose principles were widelyrespected throughout the Far East. The canons were carefullypreserved, yet within the canonical form, there was abundantroom—as in Byzantine style—for subtle experimentationwith detail, color and feelings.Painting was a spiritual exercise in which the artist’s maingoal was to create a focus for meditation. The time the artistdevoted to studying nature’s details was carefully balancedby the effort made to actually executing the work.The Chinese, who were the first to regard painting as ahigher art form rather than merely a craft, pursued it byscrutinizing nature, almost like scientists. The philosopherand painter Guo Xi (eleventh century) wrote, somewhatanthropomorphically: “Water courses are the arteries of amountain; grass and trees its hair; mist and haze itscomplexion.”Far Eastern painters knew about linear perspective butsince the viewer was considered to be “inside” the painting,this illusory effect was irrelevant. They tended to employaerial perspective, making distant objects look increasinglyblurred. Their painting suggested a sense of depth eventhough linear perspective was not used.T h roughout the East, original styles developed. Forexample, Persian painting depicted exquisite decors on flatsurfaces. In the sixteenth century, the Japanese opted foruniform flat color planes, a style called ukiyo-e. They reliedmainly on the size of overlapping “floating” forms to suggestspace, a teaching that would greatly inspire Degas,Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin.142
PAINTING AND COGNITIONNearly one century before Cézanne painted his multipleviews of Mount Sainte-Victoire, Hokusai (1760–1849) paintedthirty-six different views of Mount Fuji. In his own way, oneof the most popular of Japanese painters questioned theprinciple of a unique viewpoint.As we reach the third millennium—with the West, socalledguardian of science, meeting the East, holder ofancestral values—aesthetic and philosophical convergence isfostering new creative forms.DETAIL OF A JAPANESE PAINTING, NINETEENTH CENTURYThis educational picture re p resents diff e re n tfetal positions during pre g n a n c y. TheJapanese theater of life portrays intimatescenes, in which nude bodies appear asnatural subjects of contemplation.National Library of Medicine, BethesdaSTAR MANDALA, EDO PERIOD, JAPAN, 1615–1867Asian artists re p resented the mandala, a Sanskritword meaning “magic circ l e ” — w h o s eshapes are spherical or radially oriented. Suchdiagrams of the cosmos included concepts ofg e o m e t ry, geography and numero l o g y.Analogous re p resentations exist in Christiana rt through Christ and the four apostles; thec ross, indicating the cardinal points, had acosmological function. The Swiss psychiatristCarl Gustav Jung found the mandalasymbolism in his patients’ dre a m s .Philadelphia Museum of Art. A Gift of the Friends of thePhiladelphia Museum of Art143
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Page 5 and 6: ContentsThe art and science dialogu
Page 7 and 8: A DYNAMIC HISTORYTHE BEGINNINGS OF
Page 9 and 10: Science in architectureTHE JONAS SA
Page 11 and 12: SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTUREPLAN OF THE
Page 13 and 14: Decoration: a path to hi-techFULLER
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Page 17 and 18: DECORATION: A PATH TO HI-TECHSELF-P
Page 19 and 20: Painting and cognitionCHILD’S DRA
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