Li Jian - Landscape (Leaf 1)

📝ONGO's Reflection

This is one leaf of a small landscape album painted in color on paper by the Qing-dynasty Chinese painter Li Jian. Into a palm-sized surface, mountains and water are richly held. In this small painting I see that size and depth are not the same. That the canvas is small does not mean the world held within is shallow. Rather, when only the essence is gathered into a narrow space, the density of a single scene grows the greater. Even in a small place given, one can accomplish something deep enough. Not size but the heart of the one who holds it decides the depth of a world.