Worlds within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks
May 10 - July 20, 1997
The special exhibition Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks will be on display at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from May 10 through July 20, 1997. This traveling exhibition is organized by Robert D. Mowry, curator of Chinese art, who is also the principal author of the fully illustrated catalogue. The exhibition, which will be shown at the Seattle Art Museum from September 5 through November 16, 1997, and at the Phoenix Art Museum in early 1998, has already been well-received in New York City, where it previewed at The Asia Society from March 28 through August 18, 1996. It will tour in Europe in 1998, and again in the United States in 1999.
The first major exhibition and study of its kind in the West, Worlds Within Worlds includes eighty rocks of diverse types. They date from the Song (960-1279), Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, with a few coming from the twentieth century. In reference to collected rocks, "date" refers not to geological age but to a rock's date of first appreciation as a work of art.
Although Western scholars have long acknowledged the importance of the rock in Chinese art, little scholarly attention has been devoted to the rock as art. "Few, if any, Western museums have significant holdings of scholars' rocks," states Robert Mowry. "The Rosenblum collection featured in this exhibition is the premier assemblage of Chinese scholars' rocks in the West, and probably anywhere in the world." James Cuno, the Harvard Art Museums' Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, notes that in presenting this exhibition and catalogue "we are not only introducing the subject to the public and advancing understanding among specialists, but legitimizing a whole new field of intellectual endeavor."
Chinese connoisseurs had recognized the special aesthetic and spiritual qualities of rocks at least by the Tang dynasty (618-907)-long before "found art," "environmental art," or "ecological art" gained recognition and acceptance in the West. Numerous references to scholars' rocks and their aesthetic merits appear in the writings of Su Shi (1036-1101) and Mi Fu (1051-1107), the quintessential literati statesmen who typified the Northern Song period (960-1127); in addition, at least one book on rocks had appeared by early Southern Song times (1127-1279). The rocks selected by Robert Mowry for inclusion in Worlds Within Worlds illustrate the full range of scholars' rocks, in terms of size, material, aesthetics, and stylistic evolution.
Most of the art-historical research on Chinese rocks to date has focused on garden rocks, often in connection with research on gardens themselves. As their name implies, garden rocks are placed in gardens, where they are often grouped to suggest a series of mountain peaks, though an especially large or handsome specimen might be set against a whitewashed wall to give it pride of place. Garden rocks appealed to the scholars' love of mountains and, when placed in a garden, brought the mountains into an urban setting.
Scholars' rocks are more highly regarded by traditional Chinese connoisseurs. Scholars' rocks tend to be much smaller than garden rocks; they range from miniature examples no more than an inch in height to large ones that may stand five feet tall. By Song times, these smaller, favored rocks were taken into the scholar's study: some were occasionally used as brushrests or inkstones; those in soapstone and jade sometimes functioned as seals; but most served as vehicles for contemplation, appreciated more for their aesthetic merits than for their functional possibilities. Like a landscape painting, the rock represented a microcosm of the universe on which the scholar could meditate within the confines of garden or studio. More than anything else, however, it was the abstract, formal qualities of the rocks that appealed to the Chinese literati; in that light, the taste for rocks finds kinship in the taste for calligraphy.
The most prized scholars' rocks are of limestone so densely structured that it is capable of emitting a bell-like ring when tapped, a feature emphasized by traditional connoisseurs. They are displayed indoors on a desk, table, or bookshelf; regarded as "stand alone" items, they are shown individually and are characteristically presented on a carved wooden stand-like a fine bronze or porcelain-to support the rock and to distinguish it from the mundane. In color, scholars' rocks range from white to gray to black; the most prized are black stones from Lingbi (in Anhui province) and slate-gray ones from Yingde (in Guangdong province). In Ming and Qing times, jade, marble, malachite, and turquoise also came to figure among the rocks destined for the scholar's studio, as did Tianhuang, Tianbai, Shoushan and other soapstones; their presence attests to the growing love of color that found expression in all the arts of later dynastic China, from scholars' rocks to porcelains, lacquers, and textiles, among others.
Dating to the Ming dynasty and standing more than five feet tall, the most famous rock in the exhibition is a dark gray Ying stone known as the "Honorable Old Man" for its fancied resemblance to an early Chinese sage. The rock's smooth back once boasted an inscription linking the fate of the sage to the fate of a Ming-dynasty official who owned the rock in the sixteenth century. The inscription was apparently effaced in the late 1960s to save the rock from iconoclasts who might have destroyed it during China's Cultural Revolution (1966-76). In other words, a scholars' rock, treasured as art by generations of connoisseurs, was spared destruction because, stripped of its inscription and pedestal, it appeared to uninitiated eyes to be an ordinary rock.
While most scholars' rocks suggest mountainous landscapes, some resemble dragons, phoenixes, willows, or even dancing figures. A few of the mountainscapes recall specific peaks, such as Mount Jiuhua in Anhui province, while others evoke images of the Isles of the Immortals-the legendary islands Penglai, Fanghu, and Yingzhou that are believed to rise in the Eastern Sea, opposite the coast of Jiangsu province. Those who seek meanings often interpret both the perforations that enliven many rocks and the overhanging summits that crown a few as the abodes of the Immortals.
Although a few scholars' rocks were shaped and textured entirely by Nature, most show evidence of hand working with chisels, burins, and drills; the extent of such carving ranges from mere finishing, to substantial texturing, to full sculpturing. The creation of scholars' rocks has remained an anonymous tradition, as have most Chinese crafts–bronzes, jades, ceramics, lacquers, and textiles, for example. The names in the inscriptions that sometimes appear on rocks thus are usually those of collectors, not those of lapidary artists.
Since there are no artists' names associated with the creation of rocks, identification of the source of the stone has become a defining factor, as has determination of a rock's date of first appreciation as a work of art. Worlds Within Worlds and its accompanying catalogue shed light on the stones' sources and identifying characteristics, through physical examination of the rocks, through meticulous study of descriptions in Chinese texts on rocks and through scientific analysis of rock samples and comparisons of the results with data in the literature on the geology of China. The exhibition and catalogue also explore the aesthetics of scholars' rocks, and their meaning and dating, through detailed study of traditional Chinese literature on the subject.
"The Chinese taste for rocks might be compared to the modern Western interest in abstract sculpture and painting," states Robert Mowry. "Although one can read meaning into both rocks and abstract sculpture and painting, each is ultimately appreciated for the beauty of its form and texture. In rocks, connoisseurs typically admire such qualities as attenuated proportions that recall soaring peaks, textured surfaces that suggest great age, forceful profiles that evoke the grandeur of nature, overlapping layers or planes that impart depth, and hollows and perforations that create rhythmic, harmonious patterns. Many of those characteristics also inform Chinese landscape painting. In fact, Chinese literati paintings and scholars' rocks share a common vocabulary of forms and subject matters, as they reflect kindred aesthetic, theoretical, and philosophical goals."
Richard Rosenblum, the collector, is a talented sculptor and, more recently, cybermontage print artist. A friend who had just returned from a trip to China introduced him to scholars' rocks in 1972; in the twenty five years since that introduction, he has combed the world to assemble his collection, which now includes more than 250 examples. Because of its quality and diversity, the collection is regarded as the finest and most comprehensive assemblage of scholars' rocks in the world. According to Richard Rosenblum, "Chinese scholars' rocks represent the rarely examined conjunction where culture and nature meet."
"Thanks to Richard Rosenblum's keen eye and sensitivity to sculptural form, Chinese scholars' rocks have been saved from the oblivion to which the modern world had consigned them," comments Robert Mowry. "Associated with 'Old China' and with an aesthetic vision now remembered by only a surviving few, the appreciation of fine rocks had all but disappeared. In assembling the world's preeminent collection of scholars' rocks, Richard Rosenblum has revived enthusiasm for an important art teetering on the brink of extinction; in so doing, he has not only opened a new arena for museums and private collectors but has awakened art-historical interest in a field that, until he brought it to light, few scholars even realized existed."
Major funding for Worlds Within Worlds came from two anonymous donors; the Art Museums' Shumei Culture Foundation Fund, David A. Ellis Oriental Art Fund, and Peter Drucker Research and Exhibition Fund; and the Li-Ching Cultural and Educational Foundation, Taipei. Additional financial support has been provided by Diane H. Schafer; Mr. and Mrs. James E. Breece, III; the Chinese Porcelain Company, New York; and the Sydney L. Moss Ltd. gallery, London.
Rocks, Mountains, Landscapes, and Gardens: The Essence of East Asian Painting, a companion exhibition to Worlds Within Worlds, will be on display in the Sackler Museum's second-floor, Asian galleries through September 14, 1997. This exhibition explores the place of rocks in the greater context of East Asian art; it includes paintings on loan from outside institutions as well as numerous works from private collections which are being displayed publicly for the first time. Rocks, Mountains, Landscapes, and Gardens is also organized by Robert D. Mowry.
RELATED EVENTS
M. Victor Leventritt Symposium
The Rock in Chinese Art
Saturday, May 10
Sackler lecture hall, 9:45 a.m.–5:30 p.m., free admission
Including slide lectures by five prominent art historians, this one-day symposium will examine the role of rocks in Chinese art, not only distinguishing between scholars' rocks and garden rocks but addressing questions of meaning and symbolism. In addition, the symposium will look at Chinese rocks in the light of fractal and chaos theory, as it will view Chinese rocks in the contexts of abstract sculpture, found art, and environmental art.
The symposium speakers include Robert D. Mowry; Claudia Brown, Curator of Asian Art, Phoenix Art Museum; Laurie J. Monahan, Ph.D. Candidate in Fine Arts, Harvard University; Martin Powers, Associate Professor of Chinese Art History, University of Michigan; and David A. Sensabaugh, Assistant Professor of Chinese Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University.
For symposium schedule information, please call (617) 495-2397
Gallery Talks
Gallery Talks are free with the price of admission. Admission is free on Saturday mornings between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Hearing assists are available at the front desk.
Saturday, May 17 -- with Anne Rose Kitagawa, assistant curator for Japanese art. Sackler, 11:30 a.m.
Saturday, May 24 -- with Melissa Moy, research assistant, Department of Asian Art. Sackler, 11:30 a.m.