Chapter ‘Landscape of the Soul’ by Nathalie Trouveroy is about art. The chapter consists of two parts. The first part has been taken from ‘Landscape of the Soul: Ethics and Spirituality in Chinese Painting’; and the second part is from ‘Getting Inside ‘Outsider Art’, an article written by Brinda Suri in Hindustan Times.
The first part deals with the art of painting. There is mention of two stories in it. The first story is about Wu Daozi, a famous Chinese painter, who lived in the eighth century. He was a master painter and had been commissioned by the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, to decorate a palace wall. He made a beautiful painting with high mountains, forests waterfalls, clouds floating in clear, big blue sky, men walking and working on hilly paths, birds in flight, and a cave situated at the foot of the mountain, where dwelt a spirit. As the painter was showing the painting to the emperor, he clapped hands; the entrance to the cave opened, the painter got in; the painting vanished and Wu Daozi never came out.
The disappearance of the painting from the wall signifies the knowledge of the spiritual inner world. Only the masters know the way within and can go beyond any material appearance.
In another famous story, a famous Chinese painter refused to draw the eye of a dragon he had painted for he feared it would fly out of the painting. The third story in the first part is about Antwerp, a master blacksmith called Quinten Metsys fell in love with a painter’s daughter. The father would not accept a son-in-law in such a profession. However, Antwerp had to accept Quinten Metsys as his son in law because he painted a fly on his panel with such delicate realism that it looked real one.
The author also talks about Chinese philosophy shanshui, which means ‘mountain water’. The mountain represents ‘Yang’, the male principle; and water signifies Yin, the female principle.
In the second part the author writes about the concept of ‘art brut’, which means ‘the art of those who have ‘no right’ to be artists as they have received no formal training, yet show talent and artistic insight. They are artists who think out of the box. Their works are totally different from those of their predecessors. In simple terminology this art can be called ‘unorthodox art.’ In this section the author talks about Nek Chand’s creations. His creation of Rock Garden at Chandigarh is an expression of art brut.