Disengagement Unrelated to the Objective World in Chinese and East Asian Art

Abstract

Distinguished from representation, another kind of art of “Word-Writing” finds echoes in Paleolithic art (e.g. the Lascaux cave), which features a type of “drawings” of lines and dots, in addition to mimetic images and patterns as signs and symbols in art history. Not being fully explained so far, this kind of “drawings/traces” can be a research subject if approached from the perspective of shufa (Chinese traditional art of Word-Writing which highlights spontaneity/freedom of expressing moods or feelings and also refers to a kind of freehand brushwork correlating) and xieyi (Chinese traditional painting which becomes similar to a kind of “Word-Writing”).