Abstracts I

NORDIK 2009: MIND AND MATTER

Jyväskylä 17.–19.9.2009

session: ”Spiritual Landscapes”

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Minna Törmä

Adjunct Professor of Art History

University of Helsinki

mktorma@gmail.com

AUSPICIOUS FURNISHINGS FOR THE DREAM ENVIRONMENT

This paper focuses on the use of landscape representations as a way of escape from the mundane world. The starting point for my discussion is a painting by an unidentified Academy painter called Palace Banquet (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) which has been associated with the Five Dynasties period (907–960) and the court of the Southern Tang dynasty (937–975). In this painting we have an illustration of a palace compound and the architecture is depicted in such a way that it offers glimpses into the interior quarters of the palace. Most importantly, it features screens and wall paintings with landscape images in the inner quarters where the inhabitants spent their leisure time and slept.

The Chinese have a long tradition of paying careful attention to the way they furnish their living quarters. Images – in the format of wallpaintings, hanging scrolls and screens – played an important part in creating a harmonious and auspicious environment. The mind could be set at ease also by gazing at images in portable formats: album leaves, fans and handscrolls. Their gardens were created as microcosmoses which provided proper settings for reclusion.

The Chinese have a expression woyou which literally means ”travelling while lying down” and which is a kind of contemplation. The most important types of screen paintings in this respect were couch screen and pillow screens. Both kinds of screens surrounded a person when resting or sleeping: a perfect moment for mind-travel. The main reasons behind mind-travel were: old age, sickness, relaxation in general, and meditation. Li is one of the basic concepts in Chinese philosophy and it can be translated as ”constitutive principlte”: it determines how things are structured. Paintings provide help in visualization. Therefore, paintings must follow and manifest the same li as is found in real landscape. Then, it is possible to relive the actual experience of wandering in one’s own mind. How this was understood to function in practice is discussed with the help of specific examples of screen and handscroll paintings.

Landscape Experience as Visual Narrative: Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127) Landscape Handscrolls in the Li Cheng – Yan Wengui Tradition

Minna Törmä

Ph.D., University of Helsinki

This study focuses on two landscape handscroll ”Luxuriant Forests and Distant Peaks,” in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, attributed to Li Cheng (919–967) and ”Pavilions and Mansion by Rivers and Mountains,” in the Osaka Municipal Art Museum, attributed to Yan Wengui (ca. 967–1044). The investigation of the relationship of these scrolls raises two related issues toward a better understanding of the history of the landscape handscrolls in the Northern Song period.

First, the Liaoning picture includes a colophon stating that the painting was originally mounted as a small folding screen. It has been argued that we must account for the specific characteristics of handscrolls, i.e., they were intended to be viewed section by section, but landscape screens like the Liaoning picture were clearly intended so that the entire composition should be on view. This habit of changing the format, which was common in China, should be taken into account in the structural analysis of these paintings.

The second issues concerns the functions of these paintings. A small folding screen could be a screen framing a bed or a pillow screen. Both kinds of screens were used in private quarters when resting or sleeping, the original context for woyou, ”mind-travel” (literally ”travelling while lying down”). A landscape handscroll could be used for the same purpose.

The study concludes by considering this relationship between sleep and dreams and the function of landscape paintings as environments for mind-travel. Analysis of the narrative structure of these scrolls in comparison with other Northern Song scrolls shows that in order for a composition to function well in this context, it should be structured so that it absorbs the viewer’s attention and recalls impressions of experienced wanderings.

Published by Academia Scientiarum Fennica:

Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennica, Humaniora 318 (2002)

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