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The first impression one gets of the sculpture, "Jade Mountain Illustrating the Gathering of Poets at the Lan T'ing Pavilion" is likely to be very different than the way one sees it after becoming more familiar with it. One will at first see that it is a massive stone of a light green hue which indicates that it is jade, and that it is very intricately carved to depict a mountain landscape containing trees, houses, people, and some wine cups floating on a stream. While this will be enough to impress most viewers, there is much more there to be appreciated. A deeper appreciation can come from understanding the most important formal elements of this work: repetition & rhythm, time & motion, and space.
Repetition & rhythm play a part in the placement of every person, tree, leaf, rock, crevice, line, etc. The rhythms of the natural world are infused into every detail. This is what makes this sculpture so obviously Chinese in origin. The famous writer Lin Yutang once said, "All problems of art are problems of rhythm (My Country and My People, 290)." The repetitive and rhythmic patterns in the rocks and trees make the whole mass seem to vibrate with life energy. The tiny human figures that are repeated throughout are grouped together here and there, providing focal points that urge the eyes to keep scanning. Nowhere is this element more obvious than in the arrays of characters etched into the front and back and carved to imitate calligraphic brushwork. Even though one may not know what each individual character means, or remember that they tell the story which inspired this work, their rhythmic beauty is apparent. This stone looks stationary and timeless at first glance, but upon closer observation one can see just how much motion it actually contains. The wavy lines and shifts in the light reflected off of the stream cause its surface to roil. The changes in elevation and direction cause the water and your eyes to be pulled by gravity and follow the contours flowing along and around the whole mountain. A few of the tiny stone men walk around the mountain, and you follow them on their paths. Some sit and converse, and you sit and join their conversation. The time that they are feeling is the same as you are feeling; you are in a peaceful and powerful time, poetry time, mountain time. In this way, one can feel the time and motion of the sculpture. In the gallery where this jade mountain resides, it has a formidable presence which draws attention, even though it is not in the center of the hall. When one approaches the sculpture, it seems to grow larger than it actually is. The peak recedes into the distance, perspective is created, and the mountain becomes big enough to live on it. This visual element of space is related to scale & proportion, because this effect is created through the differing sizes of similar objects throughout the sculpture. A structure near the foot of the mountain is about four inches tall, and people are visible in it. A tree hangs over it, and individual leaves are discernable. Halfway up the mountain, a similar abode is only two inches tall, and fewer details are visible. The tree near it shows only bunches of leaves. Near the top, a house is less than an inch tall, and the trees there are suggested by simple blobby objects with a few lines etched into them. The various sides have different progressions in size and differently angled normal planes, and so each exhibits a different sort of space. This illusion of a great space within the sculpture provides the final element to stimulate the viewers' imaginations enough to transport them into the work, to ancient China, to a vast realm that is both far away in time and place, and simultaneously right there before them as a sculpture in a museum. These three visual elements make the experience of this sculpture unique and enthralling. The use of space draws one into it, the use of time & motion draws one around it, and the use of repetition & rhythm makes the scene - and the story - come alive. |