Module 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Module 5 - Essay Example Those who finally do attain a post are called the mandarins. Literati scholars were schooled in a particular form of Confucianism known as the School of Literati. There are four arts of the Chinese scholar: qin, qi, shu (calligraphy), and hua (painting). Qin, or more precisely guqin, is the literati’s musical instrument meaning old (gu) musical instrument (qin). It is a seven stringed zither that is plucked to produce sound. Invented some 3,000 years ago, the qugin maintains its relevance into the space age; when the unmanned spacecraft Voyager was launched in 1977, it contained a recording of a guqin piece. The second art, qi, is a chess-like board game now called weiqi (‘surrounding game’) in Chinese, and go in Japan and in the Western countries. Various speculations exist regarding the origins of the game; one is that it is a fortune-telling tool employed by ancient Chinese astronomers who discern the influence exerted by the universe on an individual. In this game, black and white stones are placed on a 19 by 19 line grid. The stones are placed on the intersections of the lines; when a stone is surrounded on all four sides by an opposing color, then the stone is captured and removed from play; the game ends when there are no more possible moves. The third art is shu (Chinese calligraphy). This is the source of all calligraphic tradition in East Asia, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam. These are distinctive because they emphasize motion and â€Å"sheer life experience,† with â€Å"time and rhythm in shifting space† (Stanley-Baker, 2010). The fourth art of the literati is hua (Chinese painting). Literati paintings were prized above all academic paintings by educated people because of the painting’s goal of revealingthe inner character of the painter and how he depicts sensitivity towards the conditions of human life (Indiana University, 2012). The video chosen is centered on the design and