Painting the Dao

154 ak25.41 Strange Events at the Nodding Stone Garden Ink and watercolour on Arches paper, wooden box Eleven sheets, each 19.5 × 29.0 cm, completed in Sussex, July 2025 Twelve artist seals 虚静觀復道人 Xujing guanfu Daoren (Man of the Dao who observes the return of all things to emptiness and quietude) 石石 Shishi (Stones) 養石閒人 Yangshi xianren (Idler who cherishes stones) 士撝 Shihui [name] 誠 Cheng (Sincere) 无爲 Wuwei (Without action) 水松石山房 Shuisongshi shanfang (Water, Pine and Stone Retreat) Flying cranes [pictorial] 石 Shi (Stone) 竹虛老人 Zhuxu laoren (Old man as empty inside as bamboo) 意外之喜 Yiwai zhixi (Happy accident) 墨者不朽 Mozhe buxiu (Let ink be my immortality) inscr iption Title Panel Strange Events at the Nodding Stone Garden Painting I first encountered the Daoist of the Pot in a marketplace in Wuxi; I never knew his real name. Set out on his table were gourds, herbs, elixirs and a variety of small strange stones, pebbles and pieces of oddly-shaped wood. I was admiring them when he asked what use I had for such things. ‘I might ask the same of you,’ I replied. ‘I have no use for them,’ was his response. ‘I sell them, that is all. But others who do have a use for them will buy them.’ I asked him if they would disappear into his gourds or strange stones and transcend the dusty world. He burst out laughing, and walking around his table took me by the arm. ‘You are obviously a man of the Way and I would enjoy your company. I have a retreat a day’s journey from here, if you care to join me.’ I readily agreed and we set out immediately. I asked him whether he didn’t want to take his wares with him. ‘No need,’ he replied. ‘They will find their way into the right hands one way or another.’We soon found a ride much of the way on a horse-drawn cart going west into the rugged hills beyond Hangzhou, then set off from the main road on foot, climbing steadily through the trees. His home was a ramshackle affair, made up of whatever materials he could add to an abandoned hut he had stumbled across long ago. Set beside a brook, with fruit trees and vegetables once planted but now left to their own devices, he ushered me inside to find a large flat stone rising out of the ground, dividing the interior into two, with a simple wall of woven bamboo on one side, beyond which was a pallet as his bed. He offered me the other side of the fireplace, set in a natural hearth in the centre of the great stone, and dragged an old mattress stuffed with dried and shredded bamboo leaves from the dark recess behind his bed to serve as mine. Then he lit the fire and set about preparing a simple but delicious meal in an ancient wok. Tucked in amongst the pines and other trees behind his retreat were eight of the most spectacular stones I had seen for a while, too large for the painting table but ideal for a garden. The space around them was strangely carefully tended compared to his home and immediate surrounds.