On Reflections, Lotus Leaves, and the Entanglement of the Visible World

— The Philosophy of Perception and Spiritual Space in Hsieh Cheng-Yu’s（謝正瑜） Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相）

Written by Wang Muti（王穆提）

What we call “seeing” has never been a simple matter. A person stands before a painting, directing the eyes toward something outside oneself, and therefore easily assumes that the self is the subject, the painting is the object, the world is what is being viewed, and the self is the center of vision. Yet any work truly worthy of prolonged contemplation will, at a certain moment, quietly loosen this confidence. It makes one suddenly realize that one is not merely seeing something; rather, in the very act of seeing, one is also being surrounded, drawn in, permeated, and even subtly transformed by something visible.

In my view, Hsieh Cheng-Yu’s（謝正瑜） Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） is precisely such a work. On the surface, it presents a lotus pond: a lotus leaf, several lotus flowers either in full bloom or near withering, a kingfisher perched upon a lotus seedpod, a few dragonflies, layers of delicate water ripples, and, in the distance, faintly visible pavilion-like architecture. Yet to treat this work merely as a flower-and-bird scene（花鳥景致） would ultimately be too superficial. What truly causes the viewer to linger is not only the richness of its imagery, but the way it draws all things into a relational network of mutual reflection（互相映照）, mutual infiltration（互相滲透）, and the dissolution of independent boundaries（獨立邊界的消融）.

The title Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） does not place its essential meaning in the “lotus pond”（蓮池） itself, but in “reflection”（映相）. And reflection here is by no means merely a visual mirror image（視覺倒影）; rather, it is a mode by which existence reveals itself through another（存在經由他物顯現自身的方式）.

From the perspective of Heraclitus（赫拉克利特）, this work may first be understood as a painting about flux（流變）. Heraclitus’s well-known statement — “No one can step into the same river twice”（人不能兩次踏入同一條河流） — is not merely a proposition about water, but about existence itself as something rooted in change. The world is not a completed state（完成態）, but a state of becoming（生成態）; it is not a static noun, but a flowing verb.

The pond water in Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） is therefore not a background, but the very site where meaning takes place. The water surface in the painting is not rendered as a smooth and definitive mirror. Instead, through heavy color（重彩）, layered pigments（疊色）, light spots（光斑）, ripples（水紋）, and washes（暈染）, it becomes a surface that is visible yet impossible to fully fix in place. This surface seems to reflect, yet it offers no clear conclusion; it seems quiet, yet everywhere it carries minute disturbances. This is precisely the world in the Heraclitean sense（赫拉克利特意義下的世界）: things are not securely fixed in place, but temporarily come into being through encounter, through flow, and between forming and dispersing.

The lotus reflects in the water, the pavilion reflects in the water, the shadows of leaves reflect in the water, and light also reflects in the water; yet as water reflects all things, it quietly rewrites them at the same time. In this sense, the philosophical point of departure for this work is not “scenery”（景物）, but “manifestation within change”（變動中的顯現）.

Yet to explain this work solely through flux would still be insufficient. Hsieh Cheng-Yu（謝正瑜） does not paint flux as fragmentation or agitation, but as a perceptual field（感知場） into which one may enter. Here, Merleau-Ponty（梅洛－龐蒂） becomes indispensable. One of Merleau-Ponty’s most profound insights lies in his insistence that the world is not a heap of objects outside me, available for objective inspection. Seeing and being seen, touching and being touched, subject and world are always intertwined within the same “flesh of the world”（世界之肉／肉身的織體）.

If we borrow Merleau-Ponty’s（梅洛－龐蒂） language to view Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相）, we discover that no element in the painting is truly isolated. The large deep blue-purple lotus leaf on the right is not a mere background; it is like a dark screen absorbing light and time. The lotus leaves and grey-pink flower on the left are not merely botanical forms（植物形態）, but contours of life slowly emerging from water vapor. The ripples in the middle ground connect all objects to one another, forcing the gaze not to remain fixed on a single thing, but to slide continually toward relationship, atmosphere, moistness, and drift.

This treatment embodies what Merleau-Ponty described as the interweaving of the visible and the viewer（可見者與觀看者之互涉）: we are not standing before the painting analyzing a leaf, but are being enfolded by the whole image into an atmosphere of visibility（可見性的氛圍）. Thus, viewing here is no longer a relation of “I before the painting,” but rather “I entering the perceptual field constituted by the painting”（進入畫面所構成的知覺場）. If Merleau-Ponty（梅洛－龐蒂） helps us understand the perceptual structure（感知結構） of the work, then Gaston Bachelard（加斯東・巴舍拉） allows us to understand its material imagination（水的物質想像）. When Bachelard（巴舍拉） speaks of water, he never regards it merely as a natural element. For him, water is the substance of dream（夢的物質）, the medium of memory（回憶的媒介）, and one of the softest elements in which imagination may dwell.

This resonates profoundly with Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相）. The water here is never merely ecological pond water（生態學意義上的池水）, but water transformed collectively by dream, memory, religious feeling, and aesthetic sensibility. The distant pavilion is not rendered in clear realism, but appears like a spiritual structure rising from mist. The light on the water surface is not merely the “reflection” of a physical light source, but resembles a flash of spiritual radiance（靈光） occasionally stirred up as time settles. Even the lotus leaves and flowers are not simply botanical specimens; they seem to acquire a second generation of existence（第二次生成） through water vapor, shadow, and layers of color.

Were Bachelard（巴舍拉） here, he might say: this is not the painting of a pond, but the painting of how water turns the world into something that can be dreamed（水如何使世界成為可被夢見的世界）. Precisely for this reason, the space of the work is not depth in the perspectival sense（透視學意義上的深度）, but imaginative depth（想像的深度） — a psychological depth that involuntarily slows the viewer’s gaze and draws the mind inward. Yet this is still not the whole of the work. Within this pond of reflections, what cannot be ignored is the Eastern structure of thought（東方思想結構） that the painting evokes, especially the two different yet complementary interpretive paths offered by Zhuangzi（莊子） and Zhou Dunyi（周敦頤）.

Zhuangzi’s（莊子） worldview does not emphasize domination or one-way expression; rather, it values the mutual forgetting of self and object（物我相忘）, and the interconnectedness of all things. The statement “Heaven and earth were born together with me, and all things are one with me”（天地與我並生，而萬物與我為一）, if not treated as abstract metaphysics but brought back to the concrete image, is particularly useful for understanding the decentralized composition（非中心化佈局） of Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相）.

There is no absolute protagonist in the painting. The lotus flower is certainly striking, but it does not overpower the lotus leaves. The kingfisher is vividly colored, but it does not dominate the scene. The dragonflies are small, yet they introduce seasonal points of rhythm. The distant pavilion is subtle, yet it lends the whole image a spiritual orientation. This is not a picture ruled by a single image, but a field in which all things occupy their places while serving as conditions for one another（萬物各守其位，又互為條件）. Such a composition is very close to Zhuangzi’s equality of things and self（莊子式的物我平權）: rather than ordering the world from a human viewpoint, it allows the world itself to speak through its relations.

If Zhuangzi（莊子） allows us to see the work’s cosmic relationality（宇宙關係論）, Zhou Dunyi（周敦頤） allows us to see its aesthetics of virtue（德性美學）. The most famous line from Zhou Dunyi’s On the Love of the Lotus（愛蓮說） — “It emerges from the mud yet remains unstained; it is washed by clear ripples yet is not seductive”（出淤泥而不染，濯清漣而不妖） — has nearly become the foundational grammar of lotus imagery in East Asia（東亞蓮意象的基本語法）.

Yet to read Hsieh Cheng-Yu’s（謝正瑜） lotus only as a symbol of purity would be too flat. The lotus in this painting is not an aloof and isolated lotus, nor the abstract purity of a moral textbook, but a clarity deeply situated within worldly relations（深處世界關係之中的清明）. The flower blooms in water, the leaves are soaked in moisture, the bird rests on the seedpod, light moves across the water surface, and the distant architecture also seems wrapped in the vapor of the pond. In other words, purity here is not “withdrawal from the world”（脫離世界）, but the ability to remain clear within the world — neither muddy, nor ingratiating, nor frivolous. This is precisely the deepening of Zhou Dunyi’s lotus ideal（周敦頤蓮意的深化） in contemporary painting: true clarity does not withdraw from relation, but preserves its light within relation（在關係中不失其光）.

What deserves particular discussion here is the spiritual space（靈性空間） presented in the work. The faintly visible, golden-brown architecture in the upper central area lifts the entire painting beyond pure natural scenery. This structure does not occupy a dominant position, yet it appears like a spiritual sign inserted into the pondscape. It may be read as a temple from memory（記憶中的廟宇）, as a summons from the other shore（彼岸性的召喚）, or simply as a projection of civilizational history or sacred space upon nature.

In terms of artistic structure, this element is crucial: it turns the lotus pond from an ecological landscape（生態景觀） into an intermediary space between nature, culture, and spirituality（自然、文化與靈性之間的中介地帶）. Thus, the “reflection” of the work is no longer limited to the mutual reflection of visible objects; it rises into the mutual reflection of different levels of existence（不同存在層次之間的互映）: nature reflects culture, perception reflects memory, the present reflects eternity, and concrete things reflect abstract spiritual radiance. This gives the painting a subtle quality almost akin to religious art（近乎宗教藝術的微妙氣質） — yet it does not preach through direct iconography. Rather, through atmosphere, it allows one to sense that a spiritual presence is quietly there.

Returning once more to the medium itself, heavy color（重彩） in this work is not merely a technical choice, but a material accumulation of time（時間性的物質堆積）. The moving quality of heavy color lies not in splendor, but in the way it turns color layers themselves into time. Hsieh Cheng-Yu（謝正瑜） does not merely cover the surface with flat color. Instead, gold-brown, blue-green, grey-purple, deep blue, and ochre-pink sink into one another, penetrate one another, obscure and reveal one another, creating a visual texture that is dense without being blocked, moist without being greasy（厚而不塞、潤而不膩）.

This sense of layered color makes the painting seem not completed in a single moment, but slowly grown through repeated gazes, repeated applications, and repeated sedimentations. This gives heavy color（重彩） a phenomenological quality（現象學意味） beyond decoration: each layer of color is like the residue of an act of perception, and each overwriting is like a trace left by time brushing across the surface. Therefore, the work not only depicts water and reflection, but also reenacts the essence of reflection within its material structure — one layer covering another, one manifestation carrying within it another concealment（一個顯現中帶著另一個隱沒）. If one were to summarize the work in a more academic manner, I would offer the following judgment: the theoretical depth of Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） lies first in its transformation of Heraclitean flux（赫拉克利特式流變） into visual ripples and shifting light; second, in its reconstruction of the relationship between seeing and being seen through a Merleau-Pontian entanglement of visibility（梅洛－龐蒂式可見性交纏）; third, in its transformation of pond water into the substance of dream and memory through Bachelard’s imagination of water（巴舍拉的水之想像）; and finally, in its completion of an Eastern cosmic and moral allegory（東方式的宇宙與人格寓意） through Zhuangzi’s non-duality of self and things（莊子的物我不二） and Zhou Dunyi’s virtue of the lotus（周敦頤的蓮之德性）.

In other words, what this painting ultimately presents is not a consumable flower-and-bird subject（可供消費的花鳥題材）, but a field where perceptual philosophy（感知哲學）, material imagination（物質想像學）, and Eastern spiritual aesthetics（東方靈性美學） intersect. A human being need not always live as the center of the world. Sometimes a stretch of water, a lotus, a reflection, or a resting bird can teach the humble order of existence more powerfully than any clamorous declaration. If one is willing to pause before such a painting, one comes to understand that reality is never merely a frontal, singular, and clear surface. Reality often exists in glimmers, reflections, half-lit and half-shadowed ripples, and becomes deeper only after being reflected through other things. Is our understanding of ourselves not much the same? We do not truly understand ourselves only at moments of greatest clarity; rather, we often encounter ourselves in ambiguity, retrospection, reflection, and hesitation.

Thus I would like to conclude with these words: Hsieh Cheng-Yu’s（謝正瑜） Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） is, in form, a heavy-color flower-and-bird painting（重彩花鳥畫）, but in spirit, it is a philosophical image about how manifestation is always accompanied by flux（顯現如何總伴隨流變）, how perception always contains mutual implication（感知如何總夾帶互涉）, and how purity must still dwell within relation（清淨如何仍需住於關係之中）.

It turns the lotus pond into a meeting point of the visible world: water reflects things, things reflect light, light reflects the mind, and the mind, in contemplation, discovers that it too is only a ripple within this total field of reflection. The value of such a work no longer lies merely in the continuation of an art-historical subject, but in restoring philosophical weight（思想的重量） to the ancient lotus image within contemporary vision.

Simply put, Hsieh Cheng-Yu’s（謝正瑜） Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） uses heavy color（重彩） to construct a complex visual system between natural waterscape（自然水景）, perceptual field（感知場域）, and spiritual space（靈性空間）. The lotus leaves, lotus flowers, kingfisher, dragonflies, water ripples, and distant pavilion are not merely juxtaposed; rather, through layered color, diffused light and shadow, and reflective structures, they form relationships of mutual reflection. From the perspective of Heraclitus’s philosophy of flux（赫拉克利特的流變思想）, the pond water is no longer a background, but a site where all things come into being and become unstable. From Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology（梅洛－龐蒂的現象學）, the relation between viewer and painting is no longer a subject-object division（主客二分）, but an entanglement within the same field of visibility（同一可見性場域中的交纏關係）. Bachelard’s material imagination of water（巴舍拉對水的物質想像學） further explains how the work transforms pond water into a medium of dream and memory, while Zhuangzi’s “all things and I are one”（莊子的「萬物與我為一」） and Zhou Dunyi’s lotus grammar of “emerging from mud yet unstained”（周敦頤「出淤泥而不染」的蓮文化語法） together give the work profound Eastern cosmology（東方宇宙觀） and virtue aesthetics（德性美學）.

Overall, Reflections in the Lotus Pond（蓮池映相） is by no means merely a decorative flower-and-bird painting with a lotus pond as its theme, but a mature work that integrates perceptual philosophy（感知哲學）, consciousness of flux（流變意識）, and Eastern spiritual writing（東方靈性書寫） within the language of heavy color（重彩語境）.