Chinese scholar's stone (Gongshi), Republic period (1912–1949)

Dark, resonant natural stone on a custom-made rosewood base

Dimensions: H. 39 cm – L. 35 cm – D. 29 cm

Description

This Chinese scholar's stone, also called Gongshi (供石), is a natural sculpture of rare visual power. Its dark surface, polished by time, forms an almost perfect circular arch, a central void that becomes the true subject of the work.

Placed on a custom-carved rosewood base, it embodies one of the most emblematic objects of Chinese scholarly culture: the scholar's stone.

Since the Tang Dynasty (7th century), these stones have occupied an essential place in the world of the scholar (wenren) — the learned man, calligrapher, and poet. Appreciated for their natural beauty, they are neither cut nor polished: their form, the result of erosion and chance, is perceived as a metaphor for the universe.

The scholar contemplates an inner landscape, a miniature world where mountain, cloud, cave and cosmic breath meet.

Scholars' stones were chosen according to four virtues: minerality (质), texture (纹), shape (形) and sound (声).

The stone presented here, dense and of a deep anthracite grey, perfectly illustrates this tradition: its balanced volumes, its subtle veins and its hollowed opening invite meditation and contemplation.

Emerging simultaneously as an object of art and an instrument of thought, the scholar's stone connects man to nature without the intermediary of artistic gesture.

This piece, from the Republic era, testifies to the permanence of an aesthetic ideal born more than a millennium ago, where contemplation and simplicity become an art of living.