to human history (Fu, Studies in
Connoisseurship, 19), in other
words, to make them useful in
our own attempts to understand
what it means to be human and
to try to understand the minps
of others who asked similar
questions. Noted for his rich
variations in shades of ink, the
Qing dynasty monk painter Shi
Tao (1642-1718) wrote in a colophon
on a painting: "There is a
vast universe in the dark, dark
clusters of ink.