Zen Art: Mu Qi’s Six Persimmons

This is Chinese Zen master Mu Qi’s famous 13th-century painting of six persimmons. Notice that there’s no table and no shadows. It’s groundless, like the mirror-mind or groundless condition of all things–what Zen Buddhists like to call groundlessness. The floating persimmons also feel timeless and unplaceable. The persimmons on the edges are empty. Like thoughts arising out of and returning to the nature of mind, the persimmons appear to emerge out of and then return to the paper. We might also notice that this drawing is about repetition and order, but it’s also about diversity and spontaneity. Not only are the persimmons all different, but their relationships are also different. The two on the left are just barely touching, such a delicate moment, but then we see a gap. The smallest persimmon is pushed forward, and the next persimmon, the darkest one, is pushed back a tiny bit and almost touches its dark gray neighbor, but not quite! See the sudden visual tension? Then the next two persimmons clearly overlap, which is a classic way to evoke the illusion of space in a drawing. <a href="https://davidtitterington.medium.com/zen-art-mu-qis-six-persimmons-308f6f944a2a">Website</a>