W.ONE SPACE is pleased to announce the exhibition Chong-Er (The Boundless Wind and Moon), the second part of our exhibition series One, Two, Three based on Taoist thought.
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It might be difcult to make heads or tails of it the term chong-er when frst hearing it. However, in its literal sense, this phrase is actually quite witty and whimsical. It comes from an ancient anagram, or word riddle, used by the literati in Chinese antiquity. The traditional characters feng and yue represent the wind and the moon respectively. When the “frame” (the jiong radical) of these characters is removed, the remaining content forms the characters chong-er. The literal meaning of chong-er, endless romance, now takes on the additional connotation of the boundlessness of the wind and the moon. The wind and the moon cannot be captured, cannot be held in place. These characters embody the extreme romanticism of the ancient scholars and literati who believed in aromance that was vast and boundless, without limitation.
When discussing the two characters chong-er, two locations must be mentioned. The first is the stone tablet in the central pavilion of the West Lake in Hangzhou. When the Qianlong Emperor （1736-1796 AD）embarked on his Southern Inspection Tour, he traveled at night to see the eighteen famous views of the ancient West Lake, including Hu Xin Ping Tiao (Panoramic Views from the Lake Center), and inscribed the characters chong-er on a stone tablet there, implying that the beautiful scenery embodied the “boundless wind and moon,” an endless romance. There is also a rumor that Su Dongpo (1037-1101 AD) inscribed the characters chong-er on a tablet in commemoration of the beautiful scenery of West Lake. The second location is found among the Buddhist carvings on the cliffs of Mount Tai, at the Wanxian (10,000 immortals) Tower. This is one of the 72 views of Mount Tai. In the reign of Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908 AD) of the Qing Dynasty, Liu Tinggui inscribed and talked about the “chong-er “ or Endless Romance Pavilion in Hangzhou. He said: "Although there is no Endless Romance Pavilion here, nevertheless endless romance exists." According to legend, the great poet Li Bai once climbed the Yueyang Tower and found the shallow inscription yi chong-er on a wooden wall, and suddenly comprehended that he was looking at an anagram for “endless romance.”
The concept of endless romance is concealed within the term chong-er, like a fresh breeze or a bright moon, showing natural and pure qualities.
“Words in a book cannot express it, pictures cannot convey it, the boundless wind and moon, an endless romance hidden in the natural world.” A wordless instinct, indescribable and nameless, emotions and romance are boundless.
When looking up the word “romantic” in the dictionary, as well as the more common interpretations, we also fnd this word expresses heroism, mystery and soul. In this way, if we call something romantic, does it violate the normal laws of cause and efect? Does it not contain risk and adventure, even touching on the spiritual?
Sir Isaiah Berlin, British philosopher and historian of ideas, dedicated himself to the study of Western Romanticism. He wrote in his book The Roots of Romanticism “Romanticism is unity and diversity…it is individual and collective, pure and degenerated, revolutionary and reactionary, peace and war; it’s also the love of life, and the love of death.”
The boundless wind and moon, or “endless romance,” can refer to the secret romance between two people, a burst of private emotion, such as the type seen in the taboobreaking garden of afection in Tang Xianzu’s play The Peony Pavilion: a real and fantasy place, a place where love and death occur, a place where life exists or even transcends itself. The romantic lover’s mad obsession and inseparable distance connects to related echoes and repeated frequencies, since it is both symbiotic and opposite, since entanglement is also the soul’s resonance. A chaotic and hectic time period with a great diversity and complexity of popular culture will also be pregnant with romantic sentiment. In reality, the collisions caused by the speed of society are a catalyst for romance. More than this, in a time of despair and hopelessness, such as the one found in Love in the Time of Cholera, all the methods and possibilities of love are revealed. Extreme environments always produce deep and mythical works of art. Even moments of despair contain within them faith in the beautiful, and strong hope in the future; in the darkness there remain glimmers of light.
The boundless wind and moon, or “endless romance,” can refer to the secret romance between two people, a burst of private emotion, such as the type seen in the taboobreaking garden of afection in Tang Xianzu’s play The Peony Pavilion: a real and fantasy place, a place where love and death occur, a place where life exists or even transcends itself. The romantic lover’s mad obsession and inseparable distance connects to related echoes and repeated frequencies, since it is both symbiotic and opposite, since entanglement is also the soul’s resonance. A chaotic and hectic time period with a great diversity and complexity of popular culture will also be pregnant with romantic sentiment. In reality, the collisions caused by the speed of society are a catalyst for romance. More than this, in a time of despair and hopelessness, such as the one found in Love in the Time of Cholera, all the methods and possibilities of love are revealed. Extreme environments always produce deep and mythical works of art. Even moments of despair contain within them faith in the beautiful, and strong hope in the future; in the darkness there remain glimmers of light.
