Rockery Works Appreciation- Sight of Living in Zhongnan Mou

AddTime：2014-9-2

Zhongnan Mountain, which is also called Taiyi Mountain, has been known long as a place of happiness where immortals ever lived. Peaks rising one after another, hills connecting with each other, beautiful and magnificent, the stretch long mountain is like a curtain covering the sky, also like a ladder leading to the top of sky. The mountain stands high and upright beside the Wei River, the water and the sky merge in one color looking into the distance, time flies but the mountain is still the same. Lots of pine trees cover the mountain, which is high, steep and elegant. In the morning, the sun rises from here, and in the evening, the moon shines the whole area. Wind or snow, the mountain always keeps its own color. Sunny and rainy days replace each other in turn; clouds get apart and together, while the mountain never changes always keeping its own character.
The south peak is so high and steep that seems like reaching to the sky. Strange rocks line up here and there, in jade green made by the nature. The blue sky with white clouds always accompany the mountain despite of the changes in nature, and the long and circuitous mountain road is like a path to Penglai Island, a fabled residence of immortals. The valley in the mountain is deep and quiet; forests here are dense and flourish with birds singing happily in them. What a beautiful and elegant scene!
If you want, you can live in the mountain at ease, with a book, an instrument, a chessboard, and a pot of wine, watching the high and upright peaks and enjoying the clear and empty sceneries. You can climb to the mountain top looking the grand view around, up and down, all the wide sky and ground coming into eyes. Or you can go boating on the quiet lake, with light wind and soft water waves. Rivers and small islets surround the mountain, which leads the water flowing to the east.
A famous idyllist named Wang Wei ever wrote a poem “Zhongnan Mountain” in praise of the mountain, saying that “Zhongnan Mountain is near the City of heaven, connecting hills to the sea. Clouds become close when I looking back and mists spread apart when I enter them. A central peak divides the area and the valleys here are of different shapes with weather changes. I need a place for the night so I ask a woodcutter over the river.”
The works here has well expressed the magnificence of Zhongnan Mountain, consisting of four bonsai decorated with grasses and trees. Each bonsai, large or small, has been carefully engraved but without any traces, using artificial skills to make out scenes in nature. Stones and rocks are here and there in glorious momentum. The main peak is high and upright, the secondary peaks are continuous with rise and fall, like turbulent waves blowing against the face. Green forests and red leaves reflect each other, inscriptions on precipices record the quiet time. This works successfully shows the elegance and pretty of Zhongnan Mountain, embodying the maker’s high skill and special originality.