Angle of Totality

"Guo Xi, a painter and writer who lived some four centuries after Xie He, indicated that the painter’s ability to see the spiritual meaning of things depended on his or her own spiritual character: 'A virtuous man takes delight in landscapes so that in a rustic retreat he may nourish his nature, amid the carefree play of streams and rocks, he may take delight.' To see in nature the qualities of excellence and virtue, the artist must be attuned to receive them.

...

Chinese painters ... often abandon normal limitations of perspective and unity of composition; they are emphasizing a scene not as it presents itself to the eye, but as it inhabits the soul. In a photograph, our vision is limited by the lens. In a painting ... we see the mountain, not as it appears from one vantage point at one time, but as it appears to a man who has walked among its nooks and crannies, loved it, and come to associate it with the various events of his life. Guo Xi called this freedom of perspective the 'angle of totality.' For the artist who lived in these mountains, each part of the scene has become a friend and reveals a personality."

- Nathan Beacom
The Prayers of the Chinese Nature Painters