SOAMI 相阿弥 (1472 ?-1525)
Lushan / 庐山 (1,474m- 4,834ft)
China
In Li Bai viewing the waterfall at Mt Lu, hanging scroll, ink on paper,
Japan, Muromachi period, approx. 1500-1525,
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
The mountain
Lushan / 庐山 (1,474m- 4,834ft) is situated in the northern part of Jiangxi province in southeastern China, and is one of the most renowned mountains in the country. Mount Lushan is one of the spiritual centres of Chinese civilization. Buddhist and Taoist temples, along with landmarks of Confucianism, where the most eminent masters taught, blend effortlessly into a strikingly beautiful landscape which has inspired countless artists who developed the aesthetic approach to nature found in Chinese culture.
The oval-shaped mountains are about 25 km long and 10 km wide, and neighbors Jiujiang city and the Yangtze River to the north, Nanchang city to the south, and Poyang Lake to the east. Its highest point is Dahanyang Peak (1,474m- 4,834ft) and is one of the hundreds of steep peaks that towers above a sea of clouds that encompass the mountains for almost 200 days out of the year. Mount Lu is known for its grandeur, steepness, and beauty, and is part of Lushan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and a prominent tourist attraction, especially during the summer months when the weather is cooler.
Lushan was a summer resort for Western missionaries in China. Absalom Sydenstricker, the father of Pearl Buck was one of the first five missionaries to acquire property in the Kuling Estate on the mountain.
Mount Lu was once dubbed the xiadu ("summer capital") of the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-Shek, China's leader at the time, would frequently spend his summers here. In June 1937, Zhou Enlai, then a major leader in the Communist Party, met with Chiang on the mountain to discuss a united front against the Japanese invasion. In July 1937, Chiang Kai-shek announced his intention for a full mobilization for war against Japan from Mount Lu. In 1946, following the war, the U.S. special diplomatic mission led by General George C. Marshall met with Chiang Kai-Shek to discuss the role of post-WWII China.
Mao Zedong convened three large conferences of senior party officials at Mount Lu, in 1959, 1961, and 1970. The 1959 conference became known as the Lushan Conference. The meeting saw the purge of decorated Chinese Civil War and Korean War general Peng Dehuai, who was critical of Mao's Great Leap Forward policies. The 1970 Lushan Conference took place during the Cultural Revolution, and marked the increasing antagonism between those loyal to Mao and those loyal to his chosen successor Lin Biao.
Mount Lushan has rich cultural and natural heritage, which authentically preserve the unique elements and characteristics of Mount Lushan’s creation, development and inheritance, including cultural, historical and natural elements such as ancient monuments and sites, villas, ancient stone inscriptions, paintings and poems dating to different historic periods, and streams and waterfalls, peaks and valleys. Temporary or partial damage of the ecological environment can be quickly and effectively restored. Restoration and intervention have followed principle of retaining the historic condition of the heritage in terms of design, materials, methods, and techniques. Thus, the property retains its historical authenticity, which permanently preserves the value of this “famous cultural mountain”.
In 1982, Mount Lushan became one of the first National Scenic Areas and one of the First Class National Nature Reserves, with the property area and buffer zone delimited. All attributes of Mount Lushan are effectively protected by the laws and regulations pertaining to the management of national scenic areas, and to the protection of cultural heritage and its setting. Any measures and projects that may significantly impact the heritage value must be authorized by the relevant national authorities.
The artist
Sōami / 相阿弥 (1472 ?- 1525) also called Shinsō, was a Japanese painter, art critic, poet, landscape gardener, and master of the tea ceremony, incense ceremony, and flower arrangement who is an outstanding figure in the history of Japanese aesthetics.
Sōami was the grandson and son of the painters and art connoisseurs Nōami and Geiami, respectively, and like them was in charge of the art collection of the Ashikaga shoguns (military dictators of the Ashikaga clan that ruled Japan from 1338 to 1573.
Sōami’s work was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Zen, the meditative sect of Buddhism that taught that secular art forms can serve as a means of attaining spiritual enlightenment. As a painter, he preferred the soft ink-wash style of Mu-ch’i Fa-ch’ang, a 13th-century Chinese Zen painter greatly admired in Japan, and he painted a fine set of landscape fusuma-e (paintings done on sliding doors) in the Daisen-in, a monastery within the Zen Buddhist Daitoku Temple in Kyōto. As a critic, in 1511 he revised Nōami’s famous catalog of Chinese paintings, the Kundaikan sayū chōki (compiled in 1476). As a landscape gardener, he designed two of the most celebrated Zen temple gardens in Japan: the Ryōan Temple garden, in Kyōto, an outstanding example of kare sansui, a dry landscape technique in which combinations of stones and sand are used to suggest mountains and water; and the Daisei-in garden, a miniature reproduction of a natural landscape, also in the kare sansui style. It is believed that he also planned the garden of the famed Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku Temple) in Kyōto, the villa built by his major patron, Ashikaga Yoshimasa.
