The Lingnan School

Fig. 6. Handscroll continued from page 14. Fig. 12. Crystal bottle, 1822. but the depth of expression in the two is perceived by the initiated au– dience as widely different. In pro– cess aesthetics, the aesthetics of the East, as opposed to product aes– thetics, which governed in the West prior to our modern revolution, pro– fundiry is not confined to the physi– cal work of art. It lies less in the languages of depiction than in the level of wisdom which informs Fig. 13. Crystal bottle. them. This can actually be said of any language, if we pause to con– sider the statement: it is never the language itself that is profound, but the meaning behind it. Profundiry may not be visible through a first glance at a given work of art. Mature Dubuffet, to the uninitiated, may seem like no more than the random doodlings of a child, and yet he holds an important place in the 13 Fig. 14. Inscription and signature on re– verse of bottle in figure 13. evolving pictorial culture of the West. This particular crystal bonle is not signed at all, but we know it is by Gan Xuanwen. 1\vo other examples are recorded that combine the same subject in identical style with the artist's Signa– ture. On one of these (fig. 13), the signature on the reverse is clearly Gan's, following one of his charac– teristic inscriptions (fig. 14). Appar-