Perspective, the Visible and the Invisible in Chinese Paintings: A Response to Jean-Luc Marion

Abstract

In the Chinese translation of The Crossing of the Visible, French phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion, raised a question about the nature of Chinese paintings: does the relationship between the visible and the invisible commonly found in the Western painting play the same role in Chinese paintings? This essay aims to answer this question. Chinese paintings maintain the acceptance that the sense of perspective is the implementation of the invisible by the varieties of perspective, the invisible vanishing point and the poem. My response to Marion’s call opens a fresh dialogue between the French thought and the Chinese thought.