tang dynasty times

ai weiwei and "das ding" (物)

He really grabbed my attention when he dropped the Han dynasty urn. Before that, I guess I didn't think much about Ai Weiwei. I am not a huge fan of conceptual art, and I had thought that Ai Weiwei takes conceptual art too far into the realm of the uber-personal; the uber-narcissistic. It just isn't my cuppa tea and yet...   I must admit, I found the photographs of him smashing the antique urns to be utterly arresting. And so I lingered there...

Ai was, in fact, smashing his urns right about the time I was reading later Heidegger with Burt Dreyfus at Berkeley. Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought was a book that profoundly changed the way I looked at the world, and his essay, "The Thing" (Das Ding), was one of the most interesting to me. Even twenty years later, Dreyfus' lecture on the essay remains vivid in my mind.

Illuminating what is the "thingness of things," Heidegger holds up the potter’s vessel as an example of Das Ding --and the way "things thing". He suggested that all civilizations began using clay (earth) to pro-duce and bring forth vessels. But it is not the form of the vessel, but rather within its function in which being can be understood. 

A vase is a thing which is able "to hold" and "to receive" --and hence its essence is in its void:

The emptiness, the void, is what does the vessel’s holding. The empty space, this nothing of the jug, is what the jug is as the holding vessel. … But if the holding is done by the jug’s void, then the potter who forms sides and bottom on his wheel does not, strictly speaking, make the jug. He only shapes the clay. No – he shapes the void. … The vessel’s thingness does not lie at all in the material of which it consists, but in the void that hold.

Ai wouldn't have had to read Heidegger either, since 2000 years before Heidegger, Laozi said much the same thing when he identified the essence of the vase not in its form but in its function:

Fashion earth to make a vase from it: where there is nothing, there is functioning -use of the vase.

Ai Weiwei made a name for himself selling photographs of himself dropping valuable jars from the Han dynasty. Needless to say, antiquities collectors did not appreciate his activities. The critics, however, did --and they praised him for his iconoclastic sentiment, which they said “questions authenticity and value" (This is vis-à-vis the artist's own comment that the value of his photographs, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, has today exceeded that of the once-prized urn itself).

What would Heidegger have said about all this? Well, interestingly, Heidegger traces the German word for "thing" back to its original meaning of "to gather;" so that a thing can be said to gather meaning in the style of its shared understanding of function and use.

So, then what is Ai trying to do? If the meaning of the vase is in its void, by shattering the vase, is he not undermining its very being? Or maybe that is his point.

While not my cuppa tea, Ai gets more and more interesting.... for in addition to smashing old antique vases, Ai also took Tang dynasty urns and painted coca-cola logos on them or dipped them in cheap industrial paints in garish colors. Working in this manner, he transformed their traditional meaning and value as historical artifact turning them into contemporary fine art. And he does this basically by removing their historical value and treating them merely as a valueless materials for his contemporary fine art works.

Vandalism? --Or Homeric destiny?

In the end, as someone once said, without the stories we attach to the famous vases in our museums, they are after all just lumps of clay.

Heidegger insisted that the way works of art "work" is to articulate and illuminate the underlying understanding of being of a particular culture orworldview; and that this is the function of art--to reflect back to us our understanding of being (lichtung). And with that in mind, it was Ai Weiwei's final project with vases that really made an impression on me.

Called Dust to Dust, in this series, Ai took neolithic-age pottery and ground the ancient pots to dust. And then, recalling the way human remains were stored in funerary jars, Ai puts the dust of these old pots inside clear glass jars from Ikea--like someone keeping the remains of their parents in an old funerary jar in their garage, it somehow speaks so sadly about cultural and familial values unravelling (the ikea jars even standing as a strong symbol for the leveling tendancies of globalization where, Everything gets lumped together into uniform distancelessness). 

Jars, of course, have always stood at the crossroads of human life and death-- so this all really works, doesn't it? It is stimulating, though provoking and in much the way Heidegger demanded, his jars light up something very significant about the culture from which the art was born.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust: one cannot help to wonder--if Heidegger is right-- about what is says about the culture it is supposed to be reflecting? Neither personal nor narcissitic, I now think he might be one of the great artists of our time: Ai Weiwei.

Recommended: Dreyfus' Heidegger on Art. And, Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei? 

Being embodied with Master Wang (知行合一)

He doesn't know what he doesn't know, said my friend, the Brilliant Master Wang Yangming. He knows nothing about human nature and anyway, The Great Learning shows us what are genuine knowledge and genuine action. It asks us ‘to love the good as we love the beautiful color and to hate the evil as we hate the bad odor.’ Here seeing the beautiful color belongs to knowledge, while loving it belongs to action. However, at the very moment one sees the beautiful color one has already loved it; it is not the case that one decides to love it only after seeing it. Similarly, smelling the bad odor belongs to knowledge, while hating it belongs to action. However, at the very moment one smells the bad odor, one has already hated it; it is not the case that one decides to hate it only after smelling it.” All anyone can really know is the view out the window right in front of them. They may think they know more than that but they don't, do they?

My friend was indeed famous for his unusual epistemology. The unity of knowledge and action (知行合一says in a nutshell, “If you want to know bitterness, you have to eat a bitter melon yourself.” No other knowledge is possible. All we know is what we do. And what we do is all we can know. 

To approach the issue you would, I think, have to work well outside a Cartesian mind-body duality so that knowledge is always something *embodied* and therefore in this radical de-emphasis of the thinking-action divide, all knowledge is-- as embodied-- also an action. So, in this way, as the philosophers over at Warp, Weft and Way suggested, this pushes beyond Ryle's know-that versus the know-how dichotemy, to say that all Confucian knowing is a knowing-to.   

Hence, knowing affects or informs, influences. At the same time, though, this is saying that all we can know is what we do- or what we see. "Vision pours in through the eyes," says Dante, "straight into imagination." Even through our very breath, (or 気) we take inside (内）what is outside (外) and can thereby be affected by osmosis. In such an epistemology, what is then emphasized is a sensitivity or a receptive sensibility to the shared world around us.  

This is a partial rejection of knowledge ex nihilo with a strong emphasis on inter-relational and inter-subjective knowing. Knowing as doing. Doing as being.

Yes, the view out our window as we are in the act of looking.

It reminds me of the Renaissance idea of painting as a window on the world. As Leon Battista Alberti in the 15th century famously declared, painting should be like “a transparent window through which we look out into a section of the visible world.” Yes, the Venetians. In their exquisite subjective "eye-witness style chronicle of daily life," perhaps no one achieved this ideal like Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Carpaccio. Really, no wonder Ottoman Miniaturist Master Effendi was stunned-- so different were these paintings from what he was accustomed to back home.

The Getty Center in LA has a gorgeous and endlessly fascinating work by Carpaccio, Hunting on the Lagoon.

Painted by Carpaccio at the very same moment that my friend, Master Yangming, was writing down his unusual theory of epstemology on the other side of the world, Hunting on the Lagoon had puzzled art historians for decades. The painting shimmers in atmosphereic effects. Painted in azurite, lead white, ultramarine, with touches of vermilion used for the red on the Moor's jacket, it is one of the great views out a window.  

Hunting on the Lagoon. But, hunting water birds with a bow and arrow?

It was the Ming dynasty and the art of cormorant fishing had already arrived in Venice by that time. In Japan, you can still see this traditional way of fishing, called ukai. We saw it years ago by lamplight at night on boats that ply the Inuyama River, in Gifu Prefecture. The birds are trained to catch fish and deliver them back to their owners, the fisherman on the boats. Looking at the painting, while I spotted the cormorants without any problem, the practice was altered beyond recognition. The most fabulous lagoon in the world, during the Renaissance it must have been jam-packed with fish and mussels and clams and birds and, well, it must have been a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. And, these guys with their bows are clearly no fishermen.

I mean, I almost hate to draw attention to the big white lilies portruding from the water in the foreground of the painting. It surely must have driven art historians nuts for generations.

And, it wasn't until 1962 that a tentative answer to the mystery of the lilies was offered either.

You guessed it. There is another painting that has an empty vase.

An even more famous painting by Carpaccio, it hangs in the Correr Museum in Venice. Two Venetian Ladies  was described by 19th century art collector John Ruskin as, "the best picture in the world." And, until 1962, with that bored look in their eyes and the high wooden clogs tossed in the corner, it was long assumed and insisted upon that these two ladies were courtesans.

But as Brilliant Master Yangming insisted, it is almost impossible to understand the view out the window unless you are the one doing the looking. All your knowledge will be based on rather shaky presuppositions otherwise.

Do you see the pretty majolica vase sitting on the railing of the balcony? Well, finally someone put two and two together. Someone looking at the empty vase surmissed --and then tests later confirmed-- that the lilies of Hunters fit right in that vase. Yes, the two paintings (paintings painted on wooden panels) fit together one on top of the other!

You can see here how it worked.

Talking about a window on the world, these paintings are believed to have been painted on a shutter or panels for a cabinet (the other painting facing this side being missing). Like pieces of a puzzle, looking at the paintings as a set, art historians now believe that these "ladies"-- rather then bored courtesan-- are probably the wives of the "fishermen," who are themselves no longer believed to be fishermen but rather aristocratic Venetians out hunting water fowl for sport on the lagoon.

The ladies, sitting on their elegant altane, are waiting-- waiting for the return of their men.

So this window on a world affords a view of two patrician ladies awaiting--finely clothed and surrounded in luxery, they look extraordinarily bored, don't they? They do not seem interested --though we certainly are-- in the view out their window of the most beautiful lagoon in the world. La Serenissima.

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See Part 1: View from a Minaret

Highly recommended paper by Rebecca Norris: Hunting on the Lagoon and Two Venetian Ladies: A Vignette; and even better, Yvonne Szafran, 'Carpaccio's “Hunting on the lagoon”, a new perspective', Burlington Magazine, 1995

And "Is there something more than knowing-how and knowing-that?" by Yong Huang.  

Finally, this youtube video Carpaccio Vitorre 

♪♪♪♪♪♪  and if Venice is sinking, I'm going under   ♪♪♪♪♪♪

in epicurus' garden (with caesar)

 

A great friend of this blog, I used to call him Epicurus. Not that I knew all that much about the ancient philosopher; only knowing that Epicurean philosophy was dear to his heart. And as he is dear to my heart, I suppose it was only natural that my friend's interest would become somehow my own. With "my Epicurus" in mind, I have been utterly delighted to read about the ancient philosopher and his Garden School of Philosophy in Robert Harrison's Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. 

Many of You may have grown quite tired of my complaining about people who seem to be unable to do anything else but report the news. I like to call it the "what I did last weekend" syndrome. There is a whole lot of reporting, complaining and opinions being stated (but rarely argued)... But what about some old-fashioned storytelling? Sometimes I even begin to doubt whether real conversation even any longer exists....

This is what, of course, first drew me to Caesar-- the way he lingered in delight to tell me about a love affair. Robert Harrison's book too does this: lingering in great delight to tell a story. It meanders in rare sensuality and in great triumph too. And reading it is like being rained on by flowers. 

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A garden. To achieve this place of aesthetic pleasure and moral cultivation-- Harrison suggest that perhaps more than anything, it is "structure" that is the necessary ingredient. For no matter how natural the garden may aim to be, without some "form" it would never truly become a garden, would it? There must be "katachi" (form, design)-- and this is as true of tea ceremony, theater, dance, the arts, as it is with love, friendship, anything significant that we wish to cultivate in fact requires some kind of form, don't you agree?

So, then, what was the underlying structure of the garden of Epicurean philosophy? Well, rather than virtue or knowledge, Epicurean philosophy posited that the aim of our lives should be happiness or joy. But what is happiness? Epicurus insisted that human happiness is achieved through the attainment of a state of ataraxia (Ἀταραξία): serentity or an absence of anxiety→　安心. This is, a state which-- unlike Buddhist Enlightenment-- is a path with no arrival. And, therefore, it requires, in the words of one French scholar,

“an effort lasting every minute of one’s life"

Gernet, in in these words above, had been referring to the Confucian project and explained that,

"by control of the smallest details of conduct, by observation of the rules of life in society (i), by respect for others and for oneself and by the sense of reciprocity (shu)”

I wonder if something similar couldn't be said of Epicurean philosophy-- that the aim of achieving happiness, or ataraxia, required an effort which would last a lifetime; and demanded the cutivation of certain social virtues which included both the measure or limiting of one's own desires with a profound respect and consideration of others.

Like Confucianism, Epicurean philosophy is very this-worldly. And there was also a strong emphasis on Friendship. Epicurus famously stating that it is better to have someone to eat with than to have something to eat; as if to say that we are nothing without friendship. Friendship.

This below is Robert Harrison telling us about Boccaccio's basic Epicurean morality; Yes, human life is rife with pain and misfortune, and as we strive toward increasing joy as much as we can, we do this not just for ourselves, but rather strive to increase overall joy in the world by bringing both pleasure and support to those around us. This is, says Harrison, the minimal moral imperative according to Boccaccio:

To be human means to vulnerable to misfortune and disaster. It means periodically to find oneself in need of help, comfort, distraction, or edification.Our condition is for the most part an affair of the everyday, not of the heroic, and our minimal ethical responsibility to our neighbor, according to Boccaccio's humanism, consists not in showing him or her the way redemption but in helping him or her get through the day. This help may take modest forms, not the least of which is rendering the sphere of social interactions more pleasurable through wit, decorum, storytelling, fellowship, conversation, courtesy, and socialibility. To add to the pleasure of life: that is the arche, or first principle of Boccacio's humanism, which is not the triumphalist humanism of later eras (which saw humankind as the glory of all creation) but the civil humanism of neighborly love. 

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I have lately been thinking of Cleopatra and her carpet.

Remember when the Egyptian Queen first met the love of her life, Caesar? She was snuck in to his palace hidden in a rolled up carpet?  It is funny that that image of a woman being unfurled from a carpet before an emperor is somehow cross-cultural (ancient Rome, or concubines in Qing dynasty China, etc).

You can see two different Hollywood versions of the scene here and can judge for yourselves. But, I think everything we need to know about their love affair can be glimpsed in that first moment when Caesar pauses and really looks at her. Of course, I say this with the idea that I have been thinking so much about lately of Really Looking at what is right in front of you as the essential factor in virtue.

Tumbling out of the carpet, she landed at his feet and at that precise moment Caesar paused to really looked and listen to the Queen of Egypt. An Epicurean through and through, Caesar would remind her again and again and again that no matter what happened in Egypt-- even in the midst of great confusion or suffering-- one must still strive to find pleasure in daily life. Easier said than done, she thought. But Caesar was a delightful conversationist and had a fairly amusing sense of humor as well. All attributes of Roman suavitas-- and true friendship. To delight in the moment, but not just that-- to be like Caesar, she realized the trick is to enjoy the moment in a refined and measured manner based on the gratitude of all the blessings that one has received in the past; for Epicurean philosophy demands patience for the present, hope for the future based wholly on our ability to feel gratitude for the past: 

The life of the fool is marked by ingratitude and apprehension; the drift of his thought exclusively toward the future-- Epicurus

 

With Epicurus' words echoing in my head (and Caesar's teasing bringing a smile to my face), I realize that for many years now, this has been nothing if not my very own life: the life of the fool. 

 

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The Villa of Papyri.

It contained one of the great Epicurean libraries of antiquity. Originally owned by Caesar's father-in-law, the villa was centered around an inner atrium. Full of art, books and cultivated vegetables and flower gardens, it was known as the finest villa in the resort town of Herculanean. With its library and spectacular view of the sea, I think it it is safe to say that it must have been a gathering place for the great thinkers and artists of the time. Of course, the life of the villa would end tragically with the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 a.d.

Fast forward to the 1970s when JP Getty decided to make public his fabulous art collection in 1974, he would do so in a building modeled on the ancient Villa of Papyri. And so, a replica of a roman villa sits atop one of the most beautiful hills in Malibu. Containing one of the finest art collections in America, it harkens back to the days of Rome-- to a villa that itself was full of its own longings for antiquity--looking back toward the glories of ancient Greek. In our future-focused worldview, we often forget that for much of human history, people posited the golden age, not in the promises of the future but as having already existed-- in the past (復古). Therefore, religious thinkers and philosphers looked back into antiquity in search of exemplery models that could be useful to the problems of present-day people. Full of tomes of classical knowledge, the villa received its name for the famed papyrus scrolls kept in its library. The Villa of the Papyrus scrolls.

A few years ago, Robert Harris used the villa in his book Pompeii. Indeed, most of the action of the novel takes place right there in the Villa Papyri. By that time, it had changed hands and belonged to a Roman aristocrat who used it for his holiday retreat. In the final scene of the novel, Harris describes Pliny the Elder, a friend and frequent visitor of the villa, who deciding that the smoke and rumbling of Vesuvius was a sign that the volcano was about to blow, tries to save the library in vain. As the bellowing becomes increasingly deafening, he tries to organize a bold rescue attempt by boat. But as he makes his way toward the villa, the volcano explodes and all is lost.