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02Yang Sunhee-
Samadhi and Prajna in Vairocana Shkhavati
-Intent contemplation and Discernment in Vairocana Buddha's Pure Land
Samadhi-Dhayanae
-Intent Contemplation-Calm and Peace
Fresh vision and strict interpretation of the lucid paintings by Yang Sunhee will be shown in this essay. An expanded vision will be provided in peaceful freedom in appreciation, reinterpreted space and scope of the pictures and minimized feeling of gravity. Eyesight that was concentrated on the center earlier, becomes capable of illustrating expanding vision by means of passing upwards and toward the faraway horizon.
Yang's pictures have probably exuviated (i.e., shed their skin) more than three times, just as ceramic ware needs almost three hundred years to achieve complete antiquity. From that point of view, Yang's pictures have finished exuviation, and, as a result, the pictures have achieved the quality of non-gravitation. Above all, the artist seems to allow the wisdom of calm vision to pass from the works to the viewer.
Thus, composition of the pictures should be transformed from concentration mode to expansion to a wider vision mode. In the earlier paintings, most of the pictorial elements were struggling to be prominent factors among others. But the factors become harmonized in the bigger scope of painting now,
Eye-catching images are juxtaposed in the moon j above Sumeru mountain. Apparently, no sense of gravity exists. Since Yang draws floating subjects and a subtitle in the vacant space that reminds one of the mobile sculptures of Takis Vassilakis, in which the subjects were floating in between tensile power and repulsive power, by magnetism.
Here there seems no sign of physical power in the painting, of course. No doubt, the moon jar in the painting appears to be lighter in weight than Sumeru mountain, no matter how many objects and figures are drawn on it. However, the moon jar and Sumeru mountain show no discrimination in the sense of weight. There remains overall just a marvelous feeling of uplift and enhancement.
In the background of these feelings, Yang seems to be equipped with an extraordinary artistic ability that might be compared to that of Buddha's achievement, as far as Yang's enlightenment is concerned. What is more, Yang seems to be free from discrimination between Buddhistic and ordinary objects even though the artist adopts them as his main motifs.
Like a meditation topic in Buddhist practice, with the deep concentration of the mind solid iron barriers will be eventually and totally broken to pieces to enter into a bright new horizon of cognizance. If the topic is supposed to be broken in the painting, it will be something like Yang's paintings.
In front of Yang's pictures, viewers may experience elan vital-vigorous vitality-as developed by Henry Bergson, since the viewer sees and feels the joy of life in cognizance though breathing the spontaneous feeling of the characters in the works provided by non-gravity air.
Prajna-Dharmakaya
bright wisdom-inner wisdom
All the motifs in the picture are well harmonized and arranged in terms of the total composition. The moon jar is drawn on the Sumeru mountain, Manjusri and the blue lion, and sattva-living beings–are drawn in it simultaneously. In that sense, the moon jar is none other than Yang's Tushita pure land Heaven.
Why didn't Yang draw the Moon on the Sumeru mountain and why did he draw the moon jar instead of moonlight shining above all the world? Perhaps because Yang thought that describing the moon by depicting the moon is easy, while depicting a transcendental moon without describing the moon would be very difficult.
Just like Buddhist symbols without the Buddha image era, representational substances are juxtaposed other than the statue of the Buddha. What is more, all the symbols and signs in the picture are dashed to a centrifugal point even though the point is vacant.
In the center point, the Vairocana Buddha is supposed to be sitting. Manjusri and the lion are two assistants of Vairocana, while the heavenly maid, auspicious cloud, lotus and Bonghwang phoenix represent the world of Sambhogakaya Rosana Buddha, so Vairocana should be in the center of the picture, Yang surely thinks.
Like the moonlight illuminating and reflecting on the thousand rivers simultaneously and fostering living things on earth, the light of Vairocana shines and Rosana Buddha takes over the light for spreading Vairocana Buddha's teachings. From that point of view, Yang's Tushita heaven will be full of a bountiful harvest.
In the Tushita Heaven, decorative factors for the temple, including fish, frog, dragon, along with lotus flower, peony and Bonghwang phoenix, are drawn. In addition, Minhwa-Korean folk painting motifs like the magpie and the tiger, lotus seed and carp are drawn and harmonized. Yang might draw people's yearnings toward Vairocana Buddha, on behalf of the people.
Sukhavati-Dhayanae and Picture
Pure land-serene painting
The lucidity of the paintings might come from the neat quality of hemp cloth and plain stony pigment, in addition to the deep concentration and serene mind that matches to objects in a single-minded state in neat and clean work, thereafter the artist can dash to the work itself with no doubt of disturbance.
Above the Dhayanae calm and peaceful mind, Yang shows a kind of all-over painting in which exuviate and expanded vision emerge from concentrated motif and theme. Juxtaposed picture elements are harmonized with other elements each sharing with voices of their own. Thus, visions are expanded and the themes become serene and lucid.
Hemp clothes provide Yang's painting vivid and impressive characters, decide neat visual sense of beauty and cheerfulness arises just like floating to the vacant air. Stone pigments are the single biggest contributor of the plain and clean kinds of mentality.
In the meantime, as we are speculating about Yang's procedure of making the works, he has reached a sense of floating upward. Above all, the viewer can catch the creative mechanism of Yang's works, that is, the approach to the essence of the color patches are available which seem to be juxtaposed randomly but are fully arranged.
Imagining the process of the works, it seems possible that the artist is none other than a hired soldier. Figuratively speaking, the borrowed hands of hired soldiers are just like a vector sum, available to move in the range of the absolute existences and the boundaries.
Yang recollects the supernatural character of Virocana, above the reality of Shakamuni Buddha and dedicated to an entity of majestic Buddha in mahayana Buddhism. In the meantime, Yang wants to share the symbolic communication with Virocana sukhavati face to face, like symbolizing Virocana sukhavati by means of drawing the vulture peak Sukhavati.
In these kinds of belief and understanding, the artist might dedicate herself in a mental state of levitation of the artworks involving the truth and instruction of Virocana. There is an anecdote of a calligrapher who remained stuck to the stela signboard sustained only by the brush tip when a jealous man took the ladder away which had been supporting the calligrapher.
In the end, the viewer might reach the conclusion about the reason why Yang showed a symbolic structure by skipping drawing Virocana Buddha. That is probably because Yang wanted to show the encounter with Virocana Buddha in strolling Virocana sukhavati of the high level of Buddha's dimension, and above all, her painting.
2018-2019
Kim Youngjai: art philosopher, Ph.D
editing and proofreading by editmyenglish.com
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