The Language of Chinese Painting

Empty and Full: the Language of Chinese Painting,

by François Cheng

Empty and Full: the Language of Chinese Painting, by François Cheng, disciple of Lacan and perhaps the first book of Lacanian aesthetics. The Oriental void, which Cheng will consider neither as a noumenon nor a phenomenon, may grant the possibility of the painting: "the stroke is to extract oneness from the void," yet the void is not only the condition for color, stroke and texture to emerge, but also the "vital breath" animating the body (how to avoid mentioning the topological structure of the body, that Lacan writes with the figure of the torus showing how the human body envelopes the void). It's in 1953 that Cheng speaks of a center exterior to language which has to do with the "presence of death" in speech. http://www.lacan.com/frameXI6.htm