11th std Landscape of the Soul

11th std Landscape of the Soul

MCQs

Question 1. What did Quinten do to get into apprenticeship into his master’s studio?
(a) asked him to admit him too
(b) drew a fly on his latest panel that looked real
(c) gave an interview
(d) drew a dragon

Question 2. What according to the painter dwells in the cave?
(a) a spirit
(b) magic
(c) mystery
(d) dragon

Question 3. What is the third element compared with?
(a) prayer
(b) travel
(c) yogic practice of pranayama
(d) nirvana

Question 4. What does the European Figurative painting mean to the viewer?
(a) Illusion
(b) Imagination
(c) exactly as he sees it from a specific angle
(d) view of the painter

Question 5. What was Francois Cheng’s expression?
(a) the centre of the landscape
(b) the eye of the landscape
(c) the centre of the universe
(d) the left side of the yang

Question 6. What does Yang mean?
(a) Mountain; vertically towards Heaven, stable, warm, and dry in the sun
(b) water; horizontal and resting on the earth, fluid, moist and cool
(c) Neutral action
(d) receptive, feminine aspect of universal energy

Question 7. What does the concept of ‘Shanshui’ represent?
(a) Imaginary place
(b) worship
(c) ‘mountain water’ which when used together represents the word ‘landscape’
(d) None of the above

Question 8. What does ‘Leisurely movement’ mean?
(a) relaxed movement
(b) hurried action
(c) pleasure action
(d) None of the above

Question 9. What does the word ‘Dao’ mean?
(a) perfection
(b) both the path or the method, and the mysterious works of the Universe
(c) mystery
(d) royal

Question 10. Why didn’t the painter want to draw an eye of a dragon?
(a) he feared that the painting would not look good
(b) he feared that the dragon would fly out of the painting
(c) he feared that dragon will seem real
(d) because he didn’t want to work

Short Answer Type

Question 1. How did stories such as the one about Wu Daozi play an important role in China’s classical education?

Answer: Such stories played a significant part in China’s classical education. They helped the master to guide his pupil in the right direction. They were not merely tales, but were deeply illuminating of the essence of art. The books of Confucius and Zhuangzi are full of such stories. They reveal that art was considered the essence of inner life and spirit in Asia.

Question 2. What is the difference between the Chinese and European art?

Answer: The Chinese and European art are different as the European art is trying to achieve a perfect, illusionistic likeness in Europe, and the Chinese the essence of inner life and spirit in Asia. While the European wants you to look at the landscape through his eyes, the Chinese painter wants you to enter it from any point, then travel in it. He creates a path for your eyes to travel up and down, then back again, in a leisurely movement.

Question 3. Why did the artist agree to get his daughter married to the blacksmith?

Answer: Initially the artist was against the blacksmith, Quinten Metsys, marrying his daughter. However, one day Quinten slyly sneaked into the painter’s studio and painted a fly on his latest panel, that was so realistic that the master tried to swat it away. The artist was so impressed that he admitted Quinten as an apprentice into his studio and let him marry his beloved.

Question 4. Briefly narrate the story of the Emperor and the Chinese artist.

Answer: A painter Wu Daozi, who lived in the eighth century was asked to paint a landscape by the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, to decorate a palace wall. The artist concealed his work behind a screen, so that only the Emperor would see it. For a long time, the Emperor admired the wonderful scene.

One day the painter showed him a cave at the foot of the mountain, and said that a spirit dwelt there. The painter clapped his hands, and the entrance to the cave opened. He then entered the cave and the entrance closed behind him. Since then, nothing is known of the artist or the painting as the painting vanished off the wall.

Question 5. How does shanshui express the Daoist view of the universe?

Answer: Shanshui means ‘mountainwater.’ It expresses the Daoist view. The mountain is Yang and it stretches vertically towards Heaven. It is stable, warm, and dry in the sun, while the water is Yin. It is horizontal and resting on the earth, fluid, moist and cool. The interaction of Yin, the receiver, feminine aspect of universal energy, and Yang, active and masculine, is the fundamental belief of Daoism.

Question 6. How did the theory of ‘brut art’ put forward by Jean Dubuffet get credence?

Answer: French painter Jean Dubuffet challenged the concept of ‘art brut’ in the 1940s. Before that the art of the untrained visionary was of minor interest. At about the same time ‘an untutored genius was creating paradise’. This was none other than Nek Chand, who cleared a little patch of jungle to make himself a garden sculpted with stone and recycled material known to the world today as the Rock Garden, at Chandigarh.

Question 7. What is lacking in Shanshui?

Answer: The third element, the Middle Void where their interaction takes place, is lacking in Shanshui. The Middle Void is indispensable. Hence nothing can happen without it. This is the reason why the white, unpainted space in Chinese landscape is important. This is also where Man finds a fundamental role, in that space between Heaven and Earth, he becomes the medium of communication between both poles of the universe.

Long Answer Type

Question 1. What was the revolutionary idea in art that was put forward by Jean Dubuffet? How did an Indian artist support his theory?

Answer: Before the French painter Jean Dubuffet, challenged the concept of ‘art brut’ in the 1940s, people were not interested in the art of the untutored creative thinkers. It was he who defied this concept. As a consequence, this ‘outsider art’ has steadily become the fastest growing area of interest in modem art worldwide. He felt that there are artists who have received no formal training, yet show talent and artistic insight. Their works are a motivating contrast to a lot of conventional ones.

At the time Dubuffet was advocating his theory, in India ‘an untutored genius was creating paradise’. Nek Chand made one of the biggest contributions by clearing a little patch of jungle to make himself a garden sculpted with stone and recycled material. This garden is known to the world today as the Rock Garden at Chandigarh.

Question 2. Nek Chand’s work is acclaimed as the work of a genius and is appreciated world over. Justify.

Answer: Nek Chand’s work is acknowledged as India’s biggest contribution to outsider art. The fiftieth issue of Raw Vision, a UK-based magazine that initiated the outsider art publications, featured Nek Chand, and his Rock Garden sculpture ‘Women by the Waterfall’ on its anniversary issue’s cover. It reported how Nek Chand had used everything from a tin to a sink to a broken-down car to create a work of art that took him to the pinnacles of glory.

The Swiss Commission for UNESCO applauded his art as ‘an outstanding testimony of the difference a single man can make when he lives his dream’, and decided to honour him. They decided to put up an exhibition of his works. The five-month interactive show, ‘Realm of Nek Chand’, is to begin in October. It is to be held at leading museums in Switzerland, Belgium, France and Italy. However, the greatest honour for him is seeing people enjoy the creation.

Question 3. How do the Chinese expect the people to view the horizontal scroll? Why?

Answer: Unlike European art, Chinese art is meant to be metaphorical. An artist in China would not like the onlooker to look at a particular landscape from a specific angle. The Chinese painter does not choose a specific viewpoint. One can enter his landscape from any point, and then travel in it. The artist creates a course for your eyes to journey up and down, then back again, at an unhurried pace.

This is even truer of the horizontal scroll. The action of slowly opening one section of the painting, then rolling it up to move on to the other, adds a dimension of time which is unknown in any other form of painting. It necessitates the active contribution of the viewer. It is the viewer who decides at what speed he will travel through the painting. The interaction is physical as well as mental. The Chinese painter wants you to enter his mind. The landscape is an inner one, a spiritual and abstract.

 Question 4. Narrate the tale of the Chinese Emperor and the artist. What message does the story convey?

Answer: Tang Emperor Xuanzong asked the painter Wu Daozi, to make a landscape to decorate a palace wall. The artist had hidden his work behind a screen, so only the Emperor would see it. The Emperor, for a long time, admired the wonderful scene, discovering forests, high mountains, waterfalls, clouds floating in an immense sky, men on hilly paths, birds in flight. One day the painter showed him a cave, at the foot of the mountain.

He said that a spirit lived there. Just then, the painter clapped his hands, and the entrance to the cave opened. The artist said that it was infinitely beautiful inside and he entered the cave. The entrance closed behind him. Since then, nothing has been known of Wu Daozi.

The story underlines the message that the Emperor was only interested appreciating the outer appearance of the painting but the artist makes known to him the true meaning of his work. The Emperor admires the territory while the artist is filled with the ‘spirit’ within.

Question 5. Narrate the anecdote that brings out that Europeans endeavoured to achieve ‘a perfect, illusionistic likeness’.

Answer: In fifteenth century lived a blacksmith named Quinten Metsys who fell in love with a painter’s daughter. The father, being an artist, would not accept a son-in-law who was a blacksmith. So, Quinten crept into the painter’s studio and painted a fly on his latest board. It seemed so real that even the artist thought it was real and tried to swat it away.

It was then he realised what had happened. He immediately took Quinten as a trainee into his studio. Quinten then married his beloved and went on to become one of the most famous painters of his age. This story exemplifies what European form of art was trying to achieve. They wanted a perfect, illusionistic likeness.