Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

There is an inscription running across all four prints in ‘square word calligraphy’, which reads (from left): I used my method to copy four hanging scrolls from the Suzhou Museum. The four paintings that I chose are themselves works based on earlier paintings, something that is made apparent in their titles. “Plagiarism” does not exist in traditional Chinese culture. Good poetry emphasizes use of the “canon,” the brilliant / poetry of earlier generations. If a good painting possesses “classical” qualities, it must reflect the brushwork of the ancients. Chinese painting emphasizes “paper copying paper,” and through these symbolized brushstrokes it is passed on from generation to generation. "The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting”, China’s most famous work of art instruction, compiles the brushstrokes – mountain strokes, tree strokes, rock strokes – from the paintings of old. It is a dictionary. Students need only memorize the / “radicals” to express everything existing in this world. In China, calligraphy and painting are a single action. Painting a mountain is writing the character “mountain”. The character “mountain” is the concept of “mountain”, and the pith of a mountain and also a copy of the image of “mountain” and how it has evolved. These four works nakedly exhibit and explore this tradition. Works of the Chinese literati are / born from feelings that develop between friends, over time, at gatherings, and outings. This group of prints, drafted over a period of ten years, are a record of a friendship. Xu Bing, September third, two thousand and eleven Chang Chun.