Floating Mountain Peak

Floating Mountain Peak is a major work of Liu Kuo-sung’s “Water-rubbing” technique. “Water-rubbing” is an important component to Liu’s “revolution against the brush,” and a total rejection of the dominance of refined brushwork in traditional Chinese painting.

“Ink-rubbing” in general involves the transfer of ink onto paper by pressing the paper on a medium which has ink on or in it. Mediums that support the technique include cloth, stone, wood, and water. Of the various mediums, the reaction of ink in water creates the most elaborate visual effect. Like the formation and movement of clouds in the sky, the image created by “Water-rubbing” is moving and poetic.

As a collage, Floating Mountain Peak also features Liu’s specially crafted rice paper with heavy fibers, known to art historians as “Liu Kuo-sung Paper.” Cut and pasted onto the painting, the jagged edges of the heavy-fibre paper resemble towering mountain peaks, which stand in clear contrast with the flowing watery lines of “Water-rubbing.” The combination of the two techniques embraces the visual tensions between movement and repose, and solid and void, and ultimately materializes the spirit of this metaphysical landscape.