Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

Typological Features of Chinese Culture in the Ming Dynasty (1398-1644)

 

 

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“sentences” by thrashing slow-witted students.

14

 Hence, the mystique and 

illogic of such dialogues is followed by realisation of their simplicity. The 

only complexity in Gongan duality is that it represents ambiguity both for 

the master and the disciple. There is no such thing as a correct answer: it is 

only correct in that particular situation and for those interlocutors. The 

criteria for truth and the reflection of purity of consciousness involve a 

deep personal sense of reality, the manifestation of personality and inner 

experience. For example, consider two answers to the question: “What is 

the Dao, expressed in one word?” The answer of Master Yunmen was 

“Annihilation!” but the answer of Wenzhou was different: “This is I, an old 

monk, hidden at the bottom of a alms bowl.”

15

 Both answers are equal and 

mean the annihilation of illusions and delusions, as well as the possibility of 

the most modest man to symbolise the whole fullness of reality. But mere 

repetition of these famous answers in response to that same question would 

entail a negative assessment of any disciple. 

The masters and thinkers of China drew attention to the conditions 

on which mastery depends, primarily to such components as qi, that is, the 

fullness of life and energy. Qi, in their interpretation, is the source of all 

movement both in nature and in the human body. Chinese doctors 

emphasise the pulse, on the beating of which the flow of blood depends; it 

is the cause of movement in the body. Taoist alchemists saw in the world 

body-crucible three modi: the life-giving force, jing; qi energy; and Shen 

spirituality - the incarnation of the dynamism of Dao.

16

 

The paradigm of the Chinese plastic arts is based on certain 

requirements of form. It is understood by Chinese artists not as a closed 

volume, but as a channel visualised through the circulation of qi energy; 

perceived not as a mass, but as a dynamic configuration of a unified space-

time continuum. Representation of movement in visual art was developed 

by increasing the detail in a picture, by creating series of images, and 

through the use of “sliding perspectives” in paintings which allow the 

viewer to consider the subject from different angles simultaneously. 

Through such transformations, Chinese artists expressed both the energy of 

natural, material existence and their own creative will, the activity of their 

spirit, as if merging these opposites into a single unit. 

This aspiration to saturate the senses and integrate multiple elements 

is expressed especially vividly in the art of garden design. The philosopher 

and writer, Master Ji Cheng, author of the first treatise in Chinese tradition 

                                                 

14

 Ibid., p. 31. 

15

 Ibid., p. 30-31. 

16

 Malyavin 2003, p. 248. 

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R. K. Bazhanova, D. E. Martynov, Y. A. Martynova 

 

 

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on landscape architecture, Yuanye (garden arrangement), written in the 

sunset years of the Ming Dynasty (mid-17

th

 century) gave instruction on the 

creation of a special object of pleasure: the garden. He describes one of his 

works to a wealthy provincial official: 

“I looked at the highest places, examined the depths of springs. Trees were 

reaching to heaven, curved branches swept the ground. I said: to arrange a 

garden here, you need not only to raise the hills, but also to deepen the 

lowlands. Let the flank of the hill peep from behind tall trees; let stones cut 

into the twisted roots; let there be pavilions and terraces scattered on the 

surface of water; let soaring galleries be thrown over channels, twisting like 

figures on antique stamps - here’s a picture to strike the imagination! When 

construction was completed, the owner was overjoyed. He said: if you 

measure the distance between the entrance and exit, it is just 400 steps, but 

within is gathered all the beauty of Jiangnan.”

17

 

The intention towards multiplicity in the culture of China was refined 

to unthinkable perfection and framed in a set of special aesthetic and artistic 

techniques. Plurality was intensified and undermined simultaneously by 

means of the “one feature” technique. In professional arts, this represented 

the synthesis of the single and multiple, unifying single, separate and 

invisible elements. Chinese calligraphers were particularly committed to that 

technique. Chan mentors used extreme methods of education, causing 

moments of “sudden realisation” in students through the strike of a cane or 

a loud cry. Following this lead, martial artists and lawyers talked about the 

rule of “one law,” military strategists of “one motion.” According to the 

rules of the “one feature” technique, a single source is scattered and 

concentrated in a multitude of actions: there are not many techniques, but 

only one, movement, and here the impulse of life, the dynamism of life, is 

always actualised. 

Chinese masters worried about the maximisation of pure expression, 

about reaching the limit of expressiveness where substantial and formal 

elements become indistinguishable from the decorative. Vladimir Malyavin 

notes that they realised such expression in the “spontaneous non-duality of 

secret-internal and external-decorative components.”

18

 It developed in 

various ways, namely: where the boundary between the background and the 

image of the whole continuum is relative and changeable; where form is 

harmonised by the balancing of polar qualities and opposing vectors of 

motion; and when the energy of elements in a composition is dominated by 

                                                 

17

 Ji Cheng 2012, p. 228-229. 

18

 Malyavin 2003, p. 172. 

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