NTU HIGHLIGHTS

Distinguished Professor Shu-Chuan Tsao, Department of Chinese Literature

As one of the materials most commonly encountered in daily life, stones held a special place in the hearts of traditional scholars, who cultivated a deep emotional connection with them. Through poetry, prose, and painting, they rendered the rich experiences that stones evoked—experiences that moved between tangible sensory engagement and abstract reflections on life—thus constructing multilayered relationships between humans and stones.

First, stones possess no fixed form; their jagged, unusual shapes often reveal a beauty that is out of the ordinary. People perceive this beauty through a stone’s shape, color, texture, and even sound, experiencing the wild and free spirit of nature itself. Stones can even be regarded as embodiments of the natural world. For example, the poet Bai Juyi admired Taihu stones for capturing the autumnal interplay of mist and trees across open fields. Their veins seemed etched by the eternal wash of waves over millennia, evoking the impression of mountains and valleys gathered within. Observing a stone is like entering a miniature universe, allowing one to sense the grandeur and profound depth of nature.

Next, stones are firm, stubborn, and austere. In the vast wilderness, these unyielding stones serve no practical purpose and seem inert, appearing only occasionally in the human world. Yet they can summon people through their stillness or stand as witnesses to the fleeting and ever-changing nature of existence. For example, Su Shi, inspired by small stones along the Qi’an River, reflected on the contrasts between beauty and ugliness, the ordinary and the strange, skill and clumsiness, using these stones as offerings while verifying Chan Buddhist principles with Master Foyin. At Yangzhou, he saw a “single point of clarity” in the holes of paired stones, combining anecdote and memory to suggest a path toward transcendence. In his later years, when encountering the “Nine Peaks in a Jar,” he perceived the undulating peaks and fleeting beauty of the landscape as a reflection of life’s unfolding experiences (Fig. 6).

Stones also defy convention and challenge preconceptions. The appreciation of stones often goes beyond mere attachment to objects, combining poetry, prose, calligraphy, and painting to explore the principles underlying things and to reflect on the value of life. In Painting of Cloud-Like Stones, Ni Yuanlu inscribed, “Neither obsessive nor contrived, evoking clouds and water.” Amid the natural flow of change, the stone seems to spiral upward, taking on a lively, cloud-like, and water-like vitality. Mi Wanzhong and his circle of literati painted and inscribed Lingbi stones, producing works such as the scroll Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock (Fig. 7), which also reflects Mi’s study of the I Ching and his understanding of the interrelations among all things in the universe.