Category: Community
Harvard Shanghai Center’s Scholar Stone
Harvard University’s new Shanghai Center in Pudong, Shanghai gains Scholar Stone from Kemin Hu Collection to welcome visitors to its new education center:
10 Views of the Honorable Old Man Scholars Rock – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ten Differentiated Views of the Honorable Old Man by Liu Dan (Chinese, born 1953)
Beijing, China, 2007-10
Set of nine hanging scrolls and one handscroll
On exhibit as part of Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition
Dates: November 20, 2010 – February 13, 2011
Location: Gund Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, MA
Liu Dan describes rocks as ‘the stem cells of Chinese landscape painting’ because they ‘hold the myriad forms of nature and their ability to transform is infinite’. Liu (b. 1953) believes that a well-chosen rock holds countless suggestions of both physical and spiritual landscapes, much like a stem cell has the ability to develop into any part of a complex organism. His paintings are pictorial expressions of this point of view.
Art connoisseurs and scholars in China have been studying and collecting rocks for millennia. A fine rock stimulates shenyou, ‘imagined travel’, by suggesting a landscape for the viewer to enter and explore. For practitioners of rock viewing, the ability to successfully transform a rock into a fully realized, imagined landscape is a measure of a person’s inner harmony with the underlying order of the cosmos. If people need landscaping help with tree removal services, they can call Environmental Design Inc and hire their men to get the job done.
Liu first began painting rocks after emigrating from China to the United States in 1981. His rock portraits are the result of deep and sustained meditation on his subjects, but ultimately, they are only necessary steps leading to his final goal: a fully realized mental and spiritual landscape that transcends the limitation of this physical world. In his new work, Ten Differentiated Views of the Honorable Old Man, Liu has succeeded in making visible such flights of fancy.
(sourced from Orientations magazine)
Garden Scholars’ Rocks in Your Gardens
These photos are from you, our customers! The first Garden Rock is from Los Angeles. The middle Garden Rock is from Austria (the first Garden Rock in Austria). The third Garden Rock is from New Jersey. They look absolutely beautiful! Submit your Scholars’ Rock photos.
Introducing the Stone Admiration Corner
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The new Stone Admiration Corner is a section created for stone collectors like you to place your essays or poems on spirit-stones.com to share with others your feelings and thoughts in stone appreciation. Please email your poem or essay to LHinc12@aol.com and thank you for your participation
It is our honor to kick off this new section with a poem called “ROCKS” by poet Andrea Litkei.
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Displaying Scholars’ Rocks
A Chinese saying has it that, “A garden without scholars’ rocks cannot be beautiful, and a room without a scholars’ rock lacks elegance.” To make the studio, or any creative or meditative space, elegant and “shine,” to quote the famous Song calligrapher Mi Fu (1051-1107), a scholars’ rock appropriately displayed is an essential decorative element. As a general rule, scholars’ rocks can be displayed in the same manner as other sculptural pieces. However, an important additional consideration stems from the fact that scholars’ rocks are a natural art form, intimately connected with the formation of the earth and thus a witness to all history. As such, a scholars rock brings a spiritual dimension to its environment and this dimension should be allowed to be readily appreciated, even enhanced…
Here’re a few pictures and we encourage you to submit pictures of your scholars’ rock in your home or office to share!
