Design Description

Ancient people observed nature in order to survive. Through foraging, they accumulated knowledge of plants and animals, discovering that some plants could treat illness, while others were poisonous. The use of fire brought revolution: cooked food aided digestion, warmth dispelled cold, and light extended activity hours whilst reducing disease. Heated stones that relieved pain evolved into moxibustion; flint piercing abscesses accelerated healing: these practices formed the foundation of Chinese medicine. Ancient people also contemplated the connection between nature and disease; Zhouli (Rites of Zhou) notes that each season has its own epidemic diseases. Shijing (Classic of Poetry) records over fifty medicinal plants, such as plantain for diuresis. Laozi proposed that “the Dao begets One; One begets Two; Two begets Three; Three begets all things”; the philosophical view of yin-yang balance was subsequently introduced into medicine, becoming the foundational principle of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in “harmonising yin and yang”. Thus, TCM integrates observation of nature with philosophical reflection, forming a distinctive system that encompasses both theory and clinical practice.

Taking this as its imagery, the composition draws upon the aesthetic spirit of traditional Chinese landscape painting as its foundation, unfolding a visual scroll of life’s origins and the evolution of nature, and conveying a sense of warmth, vitality and unceasing generative force. The overall arrangement appears seamlessly natural: undulating mountains and coursing waterways are interwoven with traces of the natural world and human figures, walking or in quiet exploration, symbolising life emerging from primordial chaos, gradually attaining order, from which civilisation flourishes. In the upper register of the painting, swirling mists mingle as the sun and moon appear together, evoking the state of primal chaos and the opening of the cosmos — vast, boundless and immeasurable. A winding stream flows through the entire composition, serving both as the source that nourishes all things and as the vital current of transformation within creation. The work vividly portrays the magnificent journey of life from its inception to the rise of civilisation, resonating with TCM’s concept of tian ren xiang ying (correspondence between humans and nature).