Artistic realm is the implications and realm conveyed through images or figures in the ancient Chinese artistic creation. Especially in poetry and painting, whether there is an artistic realm or whether the realm is high or low become important standards for artwork appreciation. For ancient painting, artists in their artwork should not only depict the tangible "realm of substance" in objective world, but also demonstrate certain thoughts or feelings, which are what ancient people called "emotional realm" or the "artistic realm". In a classical garden, especially a scholar's garden, shallow pond with green water, lotus, water lily, bamboo, bright moon and cool breeze are all important components of scenery in a garden. A garden that is full of poetic charm and imaginary space, simple but elegant, pure and fresh is considered to be the top grade. When a garden owner builds a garden, he will place his spiritual pursuit into the scenes of garden, hoping that visitors will be sympathetic and emotionally touched by these scenes. So in order to fully appreciate the beauty of a garden, one should also fix his attention on the general artistic realm behind scenes to understand the implied philosophy and view of life. |
