The French scholar Rolf Stein stated that early Chinese believed that somewhere in the highest mountains there was a cave that was an exact representation of the world outside. In its center was a stalactite that gave off the milk of contentment. Any rock that suggests a mountain, cave or stalactite became symbolically important. This idea is reinforced by the Chinese notion that in addition to north and south, east and west, the most important orientation was ‘in’. it is because of this inward focus that Chinese culture looked for paradise inside of things, just as western culture looked upward and outside. in Chinese art, this orientation caused a search for ‘a world within a world’, for imagery in surprising and unpredictable places.
Let’s imagine that early Chinese lived in limestone caves. We know that karst limestone caves are common in China, and that among their characteristics are endlessly winding tunnels. They have underground streams and lakes, skylights, even fish. The geography of this world was so complex, that people would not be able to explore and map them in a dozen lifetimes. Paradoxically, when they emerged from these caves, they could readily see and walk around the small mountains that contained these ‘worlds within worlds’.
This is connected to one of the strangest facts about Chinese culture. it is widely thought that they are the only people who began their history without a creation myth; such myths were later developments. We can speculate that because the Chinese were familiar with a world that is larger ‘inside’ than it is ‘outside’, and that it has no end, they were not preoccupied with explaining the world’s beginning.
Another connection between caves and Chinese art is the garden. Nothing seems stranger to westerners than the fact that in Chinese gardens, rock, water, and buildings predominate over flowers and trees. Above all, gardens are built in such a way that you can never see the whole panorama, only its parts. This evokes the interior worlds of karst limestone caves.
The unparalleled significance of scholar’s rocks in Chinese art arises in large part from the fact that it is the representation of the mountain, the cave, and the garden. It carries the full weight of this unique aesthetic and spiritual symbolism.
The following excerpts are from Richard Rosenblum’s essay ‘An Artist Collects’ which appeared in the catalogue World Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholar’s Rocks.
“The power that particular works of art have over us is difficult to define, but for me, as an artist, it is almost always connected to my work. The rocks influenced my sculpture immediately, and eventually changed my work completely. Part of their attraction was that they held a strange puzzle. They were much like modern abstract sculpture; I wondered why they had been so thoroughly and unaccountably omitted from modern-day encyclopedic museums and from the contemporary art world, which actively tried to be receptive to and inclusive of all art.”
“A rock is also transformed by its mounting. When it is removed from its stand, it converts back into a natural object. When it is replaced on its stand, it is transformed from stone to art. A rock can have more than one mounting, changing its character entirely.”
“For me, the most powerful presentation of the idea is in rocks that have holes within holes, which I call ‘infinity stones’. Varying in size and orientation, these holes create the sensation of an ever-changing and infinite world within a finite object. Transformation, not miniaturization, is the key to the magic of ‘a world within a world’.”
“I believe that Chinese scholar’s rocks are finding their place in contemporary sensibilities, in part because we now have a context for understanding them on their own terms. Modernism was driven to create an art form commensurate with the science and technology of the time.”
Richard Rosenblum is an American sculptor and outstanding contemporary gongshi collector. Richard has the sensitivity of an artist, great intelligence and an idiosyncratic passion for rocks. He is uncompromising in his pursuit of artistic quality. In addition to writing books on Scholars’ Rocks, Richard’s wonderful collection has toured museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.
This Essay was written for Kemin Hu’s book The Spirit of Gongshi: Chinese Scholar’s Rocks