THREE ARTIFACTS FROM SUZHOU

Tongji University_WS 2011 Suzhou Gardens_Prof. Stan Fung Marco Capitanio

The following is a collection of speculative artifacts stem from visits to a number of classical gardens in Suzhou. By synecdoche, i.e. pars pro toto, I will imply the applicability of my thoughts to the Chinese classical gardens as a whole. SWEET CAGE FOR THE MOVING EYE I would argue that it is useful to distinguish the notion of the Chinese classical garden from the experience of it. Let us first examine what a garden is. In descriptive terms, it could simply be a contemplative heterotopy originated in the past as hunting reservoir or medical-herbs orchard, whether from private (the great majority), or imperial property. It has to have at least four elements: architecture, plants, water and rockery. We could then discuss the layout of the single elements, their function and meaning, but this is not the point I want to stress in this short paper. What I will try to define in the following paragraphs is the perception of the gardens space. First of all we can divide Chinese gardens experience into two categories: the static/photographic and the erratic/cinematic. A photographic experience has to do with a fixed position of the observer. We can imagine somebody sitting in the gardens teahouse (like in Liu Yuan facing a rock) or on the bench of some pavilion contemplating the central pond. In this case a picture is framed and catches the viewers attention. It conveys calmness and order. A cinematic experience, on the other hand, presupposes that the viewer is moving and his point of view constantly changes, it is erratic (for a fascinating travelogue about the words errare/errore in art see Bruno 2002). It is here in my opinion, that the Chinese garden reveals all its Baroque-ness. Even-tough I do not deny that the tactile/hectic aspect plays a crucial role, I would rather say that the visual component reaches extremely fine-tuned levels. In this respect, I see a garden very much as a sweet cage for the moving eye. Let us now introduce some quotes by E. Panofsky in order to illustrate this idea. When explaining the birth of perspective he argues that: [P]erspective transforms psychophysiological space into mathematical space. [...] It forgets that we see not with a single fixed eye but with two constantly moving eyes, resulting in a spheroidal field of vision. (Panofsky 1991:31) Panofsky indicates in the Italian Renaissance the will to systematize through mathematical precision not only spatial representation in arts, but also a whole Weltanschauung. It fundamentally differs from ancient Greece, Rome and the Middle-Ages, where figures and objects were displayed in an a-perspectival way on the flat surface. They relied on the spectators subjectiveness to be coherently interpreted, while exact Renaissance representation was valuable because objective. The Baroque goes both a step back and farther. In fact, relying on Renaissance knowledge about perspective, it employs it in oder to restate the preeminence of psychophysiological space. [N]ot only the great phantasmagorias of the Baroque [...] but also the late paintings of Rembrandt would not have been possible without the perspectival view of space. (Panofsky 1991:72) In other words, the winding paths through a garden, the cut-out views in a wall, the carefully-positioned stones and trees lead the visitor and surprise him with scenes that challenge and deny perspectival view exactly because its principles are known and exploited. CECI NEST PAS UN JARDIN Looking back at my collages I find retrospectively two strong links with Ren Magritte: first of all the style (if we can call it so), and second the overall mysterious atmosphere. These connections seem to me rather obvious now, but I was not aware of them when I produced the collages. Magritte was apparently hidden in some remote nook of my memory. I will comment now on two collages of mine.
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The first represents two men holding their breath while seeing a huge stone suspended in the air. They stand on a bridge in I. M. Peis Suzhou Museum. The Battle of Argonne, painted in 1959, depicts a similar situation. Here a stone is hovering together with a cloud; nobody is staring at them though, except for the paintings viewer. The painter could comment: My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question What does that mean? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable. (Hammacher 1995) On my side, the idea for such a composition came when realizing that free-standing stones in Chinese gardens could be interpreted as solid clouds, due to their naturallycarved structures and shapes. A second collage that I would like to briefly illustrate is showing a roof-ridge with a bird-shaped end and underneath roof-tiles through which we can see a portion of sky and the red leaves of a tree. My intention was to create a sense of displacement while sticking to a clear compositional and geometrical principle. Again, I could point at some Magrittes work. Paintings like The Large Family (1963) or The Blank Check (1965) feature cut-out skies in the shape of a dove, or a horse-rider partly appearing through a neatly ordered row of trees trunks. TIME-LAPSE This third and last artifact deals with time. What strikes me now is the fact that I started realizing how I produced my collages only a couple of weeks after I finished them and when I was not looking at them. I am expecting some garden-related revelations as well... This time I will ask R. Barthes for help. Talking about photography and the way we perceive it, he distinguished between two kind of cognitive processes, the studium and the punctum. The former deals with the correct-ness of a picture, e.g. it is nicely composed, technically good, its subject is interesting etc. The latter will break (or punctuate) the studium. [...] [I]s that accident which pricks me. (Barthes 1982:26-27) Often it is a small detail that triggers imagination. Moreover, the punctum should be revealed only after the fact, when the photograph is no longer in front of me and I think back on it. I may know better a photograph I remember than a photograph I am looking at, as if direct vision oriented its language wrongly (Barthes 1982:53). I still do not know if the collages I made hold a barthesian punctum, but definitively they revealed themselves when I was not looking at them.
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REFERENCES Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, New York: Hill and Wang Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotions: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film, London-New York: Verso Hammacher, A. M. (1995) Ren Magritte, New York: Abrams Panofsky, E. (1991) Perspective as Symbolic Form, New York: Zone books