When I took Asian art history, my professor talked about how the Western, or Greek, mind tends to prefer clarity and brightness in a view. We consider it a perfect view of a mountain if not a cloud is in the sky and the sun is making it gleam. And that is indeed a great view (see "Holy, holy" below).
But the Chinese landscape almost always shows a misty mountain and the mist was there for spiritual reasons. I remember reading a remark by a Chinese artist to the effect that one did not paint the physical likeness of a mountain, but its spirit or its holiness.


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