China’s most eminent writer of modern times, Lu Xun, once observed:“One who hasn’t read the Tao Te Ching cannot have any real understanding of Chinese culture.” An impressive claim which
surely begs the question: how exactly did it influence Chinese civilization and culture? For thousands of years, perhaps all ancient civilizations ultimately became submerged in the long river of history. This never happened with Chinese civilization. The civilization and culture, like an aged but still flourishing oak tree, is still vigorous after the ravages of wind and rain. But where does this vigorous life force come from?
Water is the most common constituent element of the planet human beings live on; indeed it is the ultimate source of all life on that planet. Lao Tzu held the character of water to be most virtuous. It nourishes all beings but never contends with them. Water has always been an important element flowing in the veins of Chinese culture these last5,000 years.
The influence of Taoism pervades every single aspect of Chinese culture. Take Chinese painting for example. Traditional Chinese painting takes white and black as its principal tones. These colours contain within the extremes they represent all other colours: they are the bookends to riotous profusion of colour that nature offers.
The element of water is as central to Chinese painting as it is to Taoist ideas. Indeed water functioned as an explanatory method for many ancient philosophers as they sought to expound their views on the world. Fluid and dynamic, water assimilates all colours to itself, while itself being colourless; transparent. The colour without colour is the greatest colour, a paradox that fits in well with Lao Tzu’s gnomic observations:“A greatest shape has no shape; the loudest voice sounds soft.” Hence the choice of water as a colorless solvent in Chinese traditional paintings. It neutralizes all colors and dyestuffs.
The ambiguous linkages between questions of morality and propriety and the elegant, opaque, suggestiveness of expression bestow a unique charm on Chinese paintings: which are representations of reality yet they transcend reality. Dark ink and heavy color evoke weight and strength while the outline evokes a sense of ease and gentleness. Such subtle delight also ultimately derives from water. Chinese painting cherishes water as its blood and ink as its gold just as traditional Taoism regards life as supported by qi and blood. To Chinese paintings the rhythm of qi is also vital. Drawing inspiration from qi and water and treating paintings as living entities, Chinese painters achieve a unique combination of evocative beauty. This is the clearest manifestation of the Taoist maxim:“The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to.”
