This concept contrasts the Chinese and Western (European Renaissance) systems of spatial representation in painting: Western painting of the period developed one-point linear perspective, a mathematically calculated system with a single fixed vanishing point that presents space as a stable, objective, unified whole viewable all at once. Chinese landscape painting instead uses an undefined, open spatial field with multiple, shifting viewpoints, structuring the viewing experience as a temporal "journey" through the composition rather than a single instantaneous view, and aiming to depict nature as dynamic process (movement, growth, change) rather than fixed objects. This belongs to comparative art history/art theory, specifically the study of pictorial space and perspective systems.
This concept contrasts the Chinese and Western (European Renaissance) systems of spatial representation in painting: Western painting of the period developed one-point linear perspective, a mathemati…