Once Hing Shi talked with Yange Ren, a rather skeptical sage, about the importance of canons in the fine arts. Yange Ren insisted that the master, when depicting something, must, regardless of his desire, adhere to certain canons and rules. Hing Shi, who more than once encountered a variety of cultures and arts in his travels, could not agree with this, and therefore said: “Art cannot be enclosed in strict frameworks and rules, if only because it is a reflection of the freest part of a person, his soul.” - But what does the soul have to do with it? Paintings are just images of the world around us. “It’s unlikely,” Hing Shi objected, “then painting and drawing would lose all meaning.” Why would a person need to create a copy that would still never be able to compare with the perfection of the original? “I think that paintings are nothing more than an artist’s attempt to convey with colors what he sees. “Then how can we judge how the artist sees this world if we are not given the opportunity to see through his eyes?” – Hing Shi answered.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru