A bit of artistic insight | What were the Chinese of Song Dynasty doing when the Vikings were curing salted fish?

Does China have no art?
This question was answered many years ago when I shared the “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains” painting with my old Nordic friends. When the layers of mineral pigments formed the mountainous scenes that left them in awe, saying, “This is not an ordinary painting; it is a poetic reconstruction of nature by a civilization,” I saw the unique value of Chinese art.

During the Viking Age, which was roughly contemporary with the Song Dynasty, the Nordic ancestors still relied on fishing and hunting for a living. When survival needs dominated, the Song Dynasty had already established a mature artistic aesthetic system. The “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains” uses ochre, azurite, and malachite to depict the “impression of thousands of miles within a narrow space”, not adhering to the Western realistic framework. This is a characteristic of Chinese art that places greater emphasis on expressing the artistic conception.

The artistic conception is not only reflected in paintings. The glaze color of Ru Kiln like “rain over the sky turning blue, clouds breaking apart”, the architectural rhythm contained in the eaves and arches, and the “reverence for artistic conception” style reflected in Su Shi’s calligraphy all confirm the height that ancient Chinese aestheticshad reached, directly refuting the fallacy that “China has no art”.

Today, there is a gap in contemporary aesthetics, but this gap does not prove that there is “no art”. When the Vikings used wood carvings to record their fishing and hunting daily life, the Chinese of Song Dynasty had already used ink and brush on silk to construct a spiritual universe of “harmony between heaven and man”. Chinese art has never been empty. It is hidden in the artistic conception of thousand-year-old paintings and in the genes of traditional aesthetics. What we need to do now is to regain this aesthetic confidence. When using IKEA furniture, why not also try some Nordic salted fish!

The tea for today is all gone. Next time, I’ll brew a fresh pot and enjoy art with you again.