nature in microcosm

On Sunday, my parents treated my husband and me to The International Asian Art Fair at the Armory on Park Avenue. It was a treat for my eyes, brain and soul. As Japanese art was my previous life, I felt like I reconnected with an old friend. Me! One piece that I really wanted to bring home, though, was Chinese. A Scholar's Rock (gongshi, in Chinese). Kemin Hu Asian Art from Boston had a booth display completely devoted to the wonderful sculptural rocks mounted on swirling hand-carved wood bases. To me, these rocks represent nature in the microcosm (much like my mini-lawn), and thus can be used as a meditative tool to help conceive of the macrocosm. I only know a bit about these rocks from my studies, so I thought I'd write a blog entry about them, and see what more I could learn.

Here are some useful links while I go off and do more research:

Connoisseurship: shou, zhou, lou, tou

Connoisseurship: xing, zhi, se, shen

Brief History

More treasures of Chinese Scholars

a good example of tou