I can’t move away from this composition, even though I dislike it, as it, instantly, resembles Sugimoto’s Seascape. Nevertheless, I started my shooting. Sky and star have always been fascinating to me. I like to look into the sky, gaze to the infinity. I love clouds, and I can easily look at clouds slowly moving forever. I consider the sky and clouds myself, I look into myself, the unknown self, the changing self, and the mysterious self. Now, I would like to carry on, I will use sky and cloud as the metaphor for China Zeitgeist.
Sky and clouds could be anything. It has the intrinsic universality within it. It is people’s mind that projected into the sky and cloud, and the sky and cloud, to them become their thoughts, perceptions and feelings. Maybe I shouldn’t narrow my image narratives to this China Zeitgeist, to let the meaning expand and melt into viewer’s mind. However, it means something to me personally and probably to Chinese nationally. The East philosophy is dominated by the Tian Ren He Yi (天人合一). It literally means sky, human, unity, one. The immanence and unity has been the essence of China for thousands of year.
For western, it more concentrates dualism which lead to an opposition between man and nature. You easily spot the difference between a Chinese painting (especially landscape) with a western one. The human figures in Chinese landscape painting (I say Shan Shui, 山水) is always tiny melted into the mountain and water. The Chinese believes in nature, while the western always try to conquer and plunder from nature with its increasingly highly advanced technologies. Probably globalisation today does not make this any more, with China accomplished San Xia and western more tends to preserve the nature. Nevertheless the spirit inside Chinese should be always there not be carried away by the sudden outrageous economic development, it will come back, as this is something there for thousands of years, and will be there of eternity. The other things is Zhong Yong, based on this Tian Ren He Yi, Chinese tends to find the balance in everything in lives. The balance is called Zhong Yong (Doctrine of the Mean) The people dislike the drastic and extreme thoughts and behaviors. Actually the name Zhong Guo (China) not only literally reflects the then thought that the country is in the middle, but more importantly Chinese believes in Zhong (the balance). Under such contexts, I found my planned composition hard to change, as I see the skyscape split in half, idealised the above concepts, TianRenHeYi, ZhongYong, and Zhongguo.
So why sky? I planned the photography to be taken from the sky above China. The sky to China is nature in general and the highest principles and governance. I choose the sky as it idealised people’s dream, embodies thousands of years of philosophy and history free from the noise and change in the society anytime, something eternal and invariable. The sky is from China, but above it, idealised and cristilised by the time.
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