I began collecting rocks in my twenties, more than sixty years ago. Ever since, my interest has never diminished. Western painters use human bodies as models while we landscape painters prefer rocks. Human beings, despite differences in appearance, height, proportion and weight, are on the whole not much different from one another. Rocks come from nature, and they are God’s masterpieces, widely different in shape, material, color, texture, and, more importantly, in artistic conception and charm. To depict a rock in a landscape is to paint its bones and frame. A good landscape painter has a profound understanding of the shape and surface texture of a rock.
Chinese painting, both in past and present, focuses on texture and brushwork. Truthful depiction of landscape was valued in ancient Chinese painting from the Five dynasties (907-960) until the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) when Ni Zan shifted the focus to use of the brush.
It is a time honored practice to display rocks in outdoor gardens or indoors on pedestals for appreciation. The great calligrapher and painter Mi Fu loved rocks to distraction. Bowing to them nearly everywhere he encountered them, he became known as ‘Mi the Eccentric’. The famous poet Su Shi had a passion for rocks as well and composed many beautiful verses about them:
