Liu Dan (Chinese, born 1953). Taihu Rock from Jiemei Studio, 2006. Ink on paper, image: 260 × 152.7 cm sheet: 279.4 × 172.1 cm frame: 288.3 × 180.3 × 5.7 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Asian Art Council, 2005 China Trip Participants, in honor of Amy G. Poster, Lisa and Bernard Selz Curator and Chair, Asian Art, 2006.19. © Liu Dan. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

This monumental painting depicts a rock of a type revered in Daoist philosophy as symbolic of utopian paradises where immortals gathered. The most prized of these limestone rocks were found in the Taihu Lake area of Jiangsu province, with craggy forms that naturally resulted from erosion by water and acidic soil. Such rocks were also found in the gardens or in miniature scale on the desks of Confucian scholars, who installed them as focal points for meditation. Liu Dan has described such rocks as the “stem cells or the DNA” in the structure of Chinese landscape painting; they create the basic building block for depicting sacred mountains and embodying the spirit and life force (qi) within them. Liu writes, “The hallucinogenic effect of rocks, which can transform one’s sense of time and space, has enabled Chinese literati to create spiritual and physical spaces that correspond with their aspired values.” This painting was commissioned by the Brooklyn Museum in 2005, when the artist was living in New York City.