The sympathy of Chih-tun for the cranes and the indiscriminate
generosity of the Juans to the pigs show that they had a feeling of
equality and non-differentiation between themselves and other things of
nature. This feeling is essential in order to have the quality of feng
liu and to be artistic. For a true artist must be able to project his
own sentiment to the object he depicts, and then express it through his
medium. Chih-tun himself would not have liked to be a pet of man, and he
projected this sentiment to the cranes. Though he is not known to have
been an artist, he was, in this sense, a very real one.
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刘嘉炜