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

Full and Empty: The existence of all the things

Democritus characterizes space as a receptacle for stationary and moving objects, which -under certain circumstances- can as well be completely empty. The nature of things consists of an infinite number of extremely small particles, which they called atoms. Atoms are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible. Democritus described atoms as being indestructible and completely full, containing no empty space. Because of their indestructibility, atoms are eternal.


According to the atomists, nature exists only of two things, namely atoms and the empty space, the "void" that surrounds them. Leucippus and Democritus thought that there are many different kinds of atoms, each distinct in shape and size and that all atoms move around in space.


Leucippus and Democritus came closer to the truth than anyone else in the following millennium. They developed a fully mechanistic view of nature in which every material phenomenon is seen a product of the atom collisions. Democritus' theory had no place for the notion of purpose and the intervention of gods in the workings of the world. He even held that mind and soul is formed by the movement of atoms. In this regard, his attitude was genuinely materialistic. Everything, including human existence, is a product of mere atom collisions.


Then the void of Democrito coincides with the empty space. Full and Empty constituted therefore the two native principles that have produced the existence of all the things, reality is the result of their synthesis.

http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/democritus.html