The Technological Sublime: An Ink Painter and a Coal Mine in 1960s China

In this online lecture, Claypool explores paintings of a mountain dissected into terraces by rails, wires, and excavators (described by the artist Fu Baoshi as a 'naked mountain'), focusing on the question of how to paint a mountain as it was being exposed to and was disappearing from view. Such a conundrum asks us to reflect on the poetic and scientific realms of lived experience to which art can only gesture. The lecture considers the question: Just what does the painting of a coal mine reveal about the nature of Fu’s encounter with what is hidden beneath a rocky surface – and the technology above it that gets us there? Are there ecocritical lessons we can learn from the artist’s reconciliation of what he calls 'visual excavation' and ink painting through the technological sublime?

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