III.6 THE SACRED LANDSCAPE

One of the earliest texts of religious Taoism, the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping Jing), teaches a profound respect for the Earth as a living body. This section of the exhibition catalogue explores the traditional Taoist concept of the natural landscape as sacred and reflecting the inherently divine structure of both the cosmos and the inner human body (i.e., macrocosm and microcosm). The divine correspondence between the outer terrestrial and Inner landscape of the human body is a fundamental aspect of Taoist techniques of visualizaton and inner Alchemy, and can be seen in such works as the Illustration of Inner Circulation (Neijing tu; cat. no. 133), a diagram that originated in the Six Dynasties period (420-589).

This concept of the Earth as a sacred body is often given visual expression in Chinese paintings. The earliest Chinese texts that discuss the theory and practice of landscape painting, for example, emphasize the importance of the artist capturing and conveying the dynamic movement of vital energy (qi) that defines and animates the dynamic forms of the earth. The concept of the Earth as sacred is explored here on several levels. First is the concept of the sacred mountain. Mountains are revered throughout Taoist history as places where adepts meditate, pursue alchemy, and encounter immortals and gods. In mountains can be found numinous cavern-heavens (dongtian), mysterious grottoes that are actually gateways to the spirit world. A direct extension of this concept of sacred space is the frequent siting of Taoist temples on or near mountains.

Examples of these concepts of sacred space as illustrated in Chinese painting include Juran's Seeking the Tao in the Autumn Mountains (cat. no. 138), Ni Zan's The Crane Grove (depicting an outdoor Taoist stone altar; cat. no. 139), Dai Jin's Seeking the Tao in a Cavern-Heaven (cat. no. 148), Wen Zhengming's The Seven Junipers (a painting of seven trees that are living symbols of the seven stars of the Northern Dipper; cat. no. 147), and a large topographical painting by Guan Huai, a Qing court artist, depicting the Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) sect temple complex at Dragon and Tiger Mountain (Longhu Shan) in Jiangxi province (cat. no. 151)

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