{"id":17383,"date":"2019-03-13T10:07:31","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T00:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/?p=17383"},"modified":"2019-03-16T04:25:36","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T18:25:36","slug":"pine-breeze-wisteria-moon-a-new-masthead-for-china-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/journal\/pine-breeze-wisteria-moon-a-new-masthead-for-china-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Pine Breeze, Wisteria Moon \u2014 a new masthead for China Heritage<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new masthead of China Heritage<\/em> is a photograph made by Lois Conner<\/a> in the Garden of Perfect Brightness \u5713\u660e\u5712<\/a>, northwest Beijing:<\/p>\n

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‘Pine Breeze, Wisteria Moon’ \u677e\u98a8\u863f\u6708, Garden of Brocade Spring \u7dba\u6625\u5712. Photograph by Lois Conner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lakeside scene takes its name, ‘Pine Breeze, Wisteria Moon’\u00a0\u677e\u98a8\u863f\u6708 \u2014 ‘the wind scented by pine trees, the moon seen through a wisteria trellis’ \u2014 from a line in a poem by the Qianlong Emperor composed in 1762:<\/p>\n

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Folded hills, serene waters convey a heavenly truth
\nWisteria moon, pine winds invite contemplation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u5c4f\u5c71\u93e1\u6c34\u7686\u771f\u7e21,
\n\u863f\u6708\u677e\u98a8\u5408\u975c\u89c0\u3002<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Pine Breeze, Wisteria Moon’, where a pavilion inscribed with Qianlong\u2019s poem once stood, marks a unique location in the sprawling gardens. It is next to an intersection of the original Garden of Perfect Brightness \u5713\u660e\u5712, to the west, the Garden of Extended Spring \u9577\u6625\u5712 to the north and the Garden of Brocade Spring \u7dba\u6625\u5712 to the south. Constructed and extended over a period of nearly 150 years, the three garden-palaces are collectively known as the \u2018Garden of Perfect Brightness\u2019. The masthead also reflects the theme of the 2019 China Heritage Annual<\/i><\/a>, which is Translatio Imperii Sinici<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 the skein of empire in modern China.<\/p>\n

My thanks to Callum Smith<\/a>, the designer of this site, for his work on new masthead, Lois Conner<\/a> for her ongoing and generous support and\u00a0Gerald Szeto \u53f8\u5f92\u4f50<\/a> for allowing us to use his March 2019 photograph of Lois.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9
\nEditor, China Heritage<\/em>
\n13 March 2019<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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Lois Conner after a day of making work in Beijing, March 2019. Photograph by Gerald Szeto<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Over the years, Lois Conner has repeatedly returned to the lotuses that still \ufb01ll the lakes of Beijing in the summer months and augur the changing seasons of the capital. She thinks of them as her muse, as well as being deeply emblematic of the former imperial city and a more ephemeral, if recurring, aspect of its traditional aesthetic.<\/p>\n

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Hangzhou. Photograph by Lois Conner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese art has long treated the lotus as symbolic of transient worldly glory: resplendent one day and shorn of splendor the next. The \ufb02ower has varied associations \u2014 with lithe sensuality, for example, as well as with others that no longer seem that sublime: ‘golden lotuses’ \u91d1\u84ee and ‘hooked lotuses’ \u9264\u84ee are poetic terms for the dis\ufb01gured stumps produced by the binding of girls\u2019 feet in dynastic times.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the dominant association of the aquatic nelumbo nucifera<\/i> is with the Buddha. In India, where Buddhism originated, the lotus was an early symbol of sunlike power and vitality. The chakras, those whorling nodes of potential and awakening power that run along the spine of the human body, take the pictorial form of dormant or fully blossoming lotus \ufb02owers. In the heart of the blossom grows awareness, perfection. As a newborn child, Siddhartha Gautama, later the Buddha, was said to have taken seven steps on the earth from which lotuses sprang; in artistic representations, his footprint is often adorned with a lotus pattern. He, as well as myriad bodhisattvas, are most often represented seated upon or within the sacred \ufb02ower in the folded-legged \u2018lotus posture\u2019. The eleventh-century writer Zhou Dunyi \u5468\u6566\u9824, famed for his \u2018Essay on Loving Lotuses\u2019 \u611b\u84ee\u8aaa, quotes a Buddhist line about the leaves and \ufb02owers of the aquatic plant: \u2018They emerge from the mud yet remain untainted\u2019 \u51fa\u6de4\u6ce5\u800c\u4e0d\u67d3. Tibetan Buddhists are constantly mindful of the signi\ufb01cance of the lotus as they repeat the Sanskrit mantra-prayer Au\u1e43 ma\u1e47i padme h\u016b\u1e43<\/em>\u00a0\u0f68\u0f7c\u0f7e\u0f0b\u0f58\u0f0b\u0f4e\u0f72\u0f0b\u0f54\u0f51\u0fa8\u0f7a\u0f0b\u0f67\u0f71\u0f74\u0f83, ‘Hail the jewel in the lotus!’ The botanist Peter Valder has written of the lotus in his magisterial work The Garden Plants of China<\/i>:<\/p>\n

The fact that seed pods, flowers, and buds are present at the same time denotes the three stages of existence \u2014 past, present, and future. The many seeds in each head suggest abundant progeny and, because its rhizomes are \ufb01rmly rooted in the mud and its \ufb02owers and leaves are numerous, it is a symbol of steadfastness and prosperity in the family. And the pronunciation of the Chinese names for the plant, Li\u00e1n<\/em> \u84ee and H\u00e9<\/em> \u8377, is the same as it is for other characters denoting continuity and peace, respectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Garden of Perfect Brightness. Photograph by Lois Conner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the early spring, the first leaves of the lotus pierce the surface of lakes and ponds, unfurling and \ufb02oating as if not tethered. Through the summer the leaves lift above the water, growing to their full expanse and swaying, blowsy in wafts of warm air, quivering on thin stalks. By autumn the limpid sticks of the now-decayed stems, heavy with the umbrella of shriveled leaves, collapse, crumbling into calligraphic forms. Finally, the dried-out skeletons of the plants lie brittle and crushed on the water\u2019s surface, metamorphosing into a bas-relief in mud or magni\ufb01ed and preserved under an icy crust during the winter months. The life cycle of the lotus provides Lois Conner with inspiration, appearing vibrant and luscious at the height of the summer season and in its autumnal, dying mien at the Garden of Perfect Brightness.<\/p>\n

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‘Kiosk for Appreciating Lotuses’ \u89c0\u84ee\u4ead, Imperial Summer Lodge \u907f\u6691\u5c71\u838a, Chengde, Hebei province, 1999. Photograph by Lois Conner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Originally, Lois Conner made her spare, calligraphic lotus studies in the southern lake city of Hangzhou, whose poetry and landscapes, both natural and built, inspired many of the imperial gardens and villas of Beijing and beyond. The seasonal contrast of the north provided the artist with another dimension of the lotus. At the Imperial Summer Lodge \u907f\u6691\u5c71\u838a in Chengde, for example, she found the Kiosk for Appreciating Lotuses \u89c0\u84ee\u4ead, a scene with a pavilion and lotus-\ufb01lled lake inspired by Zhou Dunyi\u2019s essay mentioned above. Here the lotus plant, literary tradition, and political power come together: it is said that while in residence here before the autumn hunt, the Kangxi emperor (r.<\/i> 1662-1722) asked the brightest of his grandchildren, Hongli \u5f18\u66c6, whether he could recite Zhou\u2019s essay. The young boy did so with aplomb, greatly pleasing both the grandfather and his father, the future Yongzheng emperor (r.<\/i> 1723-1735) and creator of the Garden of Perfect Brightness. The young boy, Hongli, would himself eventually inherit the throne and reign for nearly sixty years \u2014 as the Qianlong emperor.<\/p>\n

\u2014 G.R. Barm\u00e9,\u00a0<\/em>from<\/em>\u00a0Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial<\/a>
\nPrinceton Architectural Press<\/a>, 2014, pp.155-156<\/em><\/p>\n

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West Lake, 1984. A photograph by Lois Conner used as the masthead image of China Heritage<\/em> from December 2016 to March 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Lois Conner and Geremie R. Barm\u00e9 collaborations\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n