Making Visible: Sallis on the Landscapes of Cao Jun

Abstract

ABSTRACT A review of Songs of Nature, a study by John Sallis of the landscapes of the modern Chinese artist Cao Jun, with philosophical emphases on the notion of landscape, this analysis widens out to a relevance to all creative work. It homes in on the comparative or intercultural overlap between Western and Eastern traditions. as well as that between painting and music and the other senses. The focus is on the elemental. Art is at base a return to nature with earth and sky as the horizons of what it means to be human.