Summer Mountains
Qu Ding
QU DING, c.1050. INK AND COLOR ON SILK.
In traditional Chinese culture, the proper appreciation of an artwork is expressed with the phrase du hua, or "to read a painting." There is a literal interpretation of this; from right to left, these artworks become visual, narrative poems, with unfolding detail telling aesthetic and plotted stories. In Qu Ding’s Summer Mountains, we can see figures, dwarfed by the scale and majesty of their landscape, moving across the work on a pilgrimage to a mountainous retreat. These figures are not obvious at a first look, they only appear when we practice the art of reading the works, exercising a skill of deep looking. And in this, the more metaphorical interpretation of du hug becomes clear; to truly read a painting is not just to see the details deeply but to see past them, through the outer appearance of the subject and into its inner essence.