Landscapes of the Mind

SHETLAND WAR RUINS PROJECT

Looking at the work of Zhao Mengfu (1254 - 1322), ‘The Mind Landscape of Xie Youyu’ ca.1290. Handscroll, ink and colour on silk (27.4  117cm). See image at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4_Zhao_Mengfu_Mind_Landscape_of_Xie_Youyu,_ca._1287_(27.4_x_117_cm)_Princeton_University_Art_Museum..jpg

This painting, another I had been looking at as part of research into space in Chinese landscapes, has an other-worldly feel. It almost seems that we look on at a landscape the centre figure has invented for himself, a ‘mind landscape’. In ideas of landscape painting embodying nature’s force, as well as depicting it, there are ideas of images as expressive of beyond simply what is visible.