The pregnancy of the theme of water hardly finds a parallel in the cultural history of human civilisation. Thales, the an- cient thinker of Miletus often regarded as the first philosopher in the venerable Greek tradition, believed that water is the substance from which all things came into being. Modern biologists believe that water is a precondition of all lifeforms. Space scientists exploring signs of life in extraterrestrial domains look for traces of water in the first instance. The very phenomenon of civilisation is as inseparable from water as life itself: rivers like the Yangtze, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Ganges gave birth to great continental civilisations; the Mediterranean engendered Graeco-Roman antiquity; the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans were the stage on which clashes of civlisations in the process of modern globalisa- tion was enacted. Water signifies life and development. It is a sine qua non for human flourishing.
Yet, as the Chinese idiom goes, “water can either carry or capsize boats.” Water is often associated with the uncertainties and even destruction of life. The tsunamis of 2004 and 2011 still pertain to our recent memories. Distant memories of a catastrophic flood that almost wiped out the human race are shared across great ancient civilisations by similar mytho- logical accounts such as that of Vishnu’s avatar and Enuma Elish. The sea in Hemmingway’s ultimate novella powerful- ly evokes an almost universal sense of the absurdity of being among readers of all the modern languages into which the work has been translated.
In art history, the theme of water has also inspired countless instances of profound imaginations and reflections. From The Raft of the Medusa by Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault to The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, to Les Nymphéas by Oscar-Claude Monet, the same theme of water has represented a wide variety of aesthetic ideals ranging from the sublime and the beautiful as symbols of moral reality to the pure beauty of aestheticism de- tached from other dimensions of existence.
Indeed, historic artworks featuring the theme of water are nearly countless. Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt van Rijn might not be the greatest of them—if a greatest can even be named—but its semiotic richness is hardly paralleled in art history. Based on a narrative taken from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, this painting depicts how the Creator of heaven and earth who separated water from water became a humble creature whose life was threatened by a storm on the sea of Galilee during a voyage with his disciples. Amidst the nearly hopeless panic from the disciples, the creature who is God rebuked the storm and the sea with divine authority by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as a man and not as the Creator according to Rembrandt’s extra-Calvinisticum. The boat-capsizing, life-threaten- ing water then became boat-carrying, life-saving water once again.
This gospel narrative is a continuation of the theme of water in the Hebrew Scriptures, set against the cultural back- ground of the Ancient Near East (ANE). In ANE civilisation, water is often deified and revered as an epitome of a supreme deity. The ancient Canaanites worshipped Baal, equivalent to Set the Egyptian deity and Almighty Zeus of an- cient Greek paganism. The Canaanites believed that Baal became sovereign over the waters after a victory over Yammu, the god of the rivers and the seas. In one sense, the waters were under the reign of a supreme deity; in another sense, the waters themselves constituted for the Canaanites an epitome of the supreme deity.
But Yahweh, the God of Israel, the IAM who could not be named, split the Red Sea from the middle and opened up an avenue of deliverance for his people out of the land of bondage. Salvation by water was given when the people of Yah- weh travelled by faith through the passage in the middle of the Red Sea. When Pharaoh’s mighty army attempted to do the same by pride, destruction by water ensued.
In the Book of Joshua, the Canaanites learned of Yahweh’s deliverance of the Jews at the Red Sea and their “hearts” are said to be “melted” in fear. From the incident they came to be aware of Yahweh’s lordship “over heaven and earth” for which even Baal, who supposedly guarded the Canaanites by his reign over the waters, was no match. When Yah- weh cut off the flow of the Jordan for his people to march into the Promise Land following the Ark of the Covenant, the hearts of the Amorite and Canaanite kings once again melted in fear.
In the New Testament, the ministry of Jesus began with this very river. At the Jordan he was baptised by John. A voice from heaven declared him to be the beloved Son. The Spirit of God descended in the shape of a dove, the creature that brought back a green leaf to Noah, proclaiming salvation after destruction by water. The Red Sea once overwhelmed the army of Pharaoh. The Jordan brought fear to the kings of the Canaanite lands, just as the ancient flood nearly wiped out life on earth. Yet the same sublime waters also represented a prolepsis of the redemption that was to come. The passages in the middle of the Red Sea and the Jordan typified the “new and living way” into the Most Holy Place through the cur- tain that was torn by the death of the man who, though having died only as a man and unceasingly immortal as God, is God.
This man likens the life he promises to water: “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” He cleanses his covenant people “by the washing with water through the word.” Upon the restoration of heaven and earth, the life-threatening sea shall give up “the dead that were in it,” and there shall be “no longer any sea.” Meanwhile, he who is the Alpha and the Omega shall “give water without cost from the spring of the water of life” to all who thirst. Indeed, the entire Christian message of salvation ends on the high note of life-giving water: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”
This robust message of destruction and salvation by water is artistically represented in Rembrandt’s depiction of the storm at the Sea of Galilee. In the painting is a stormy sea that threatens to devour life. Yet the artwork as a whole con- veys a sense of peace and tranquility characterised by faith in him who promises to give the water of life. This painting surely represents sophisticated reflections on the theme of water by a great artist.
Water flows through all of us and invokes in each of us different associations. Martial artists may be reminded of Bruce Lee’s “philosophy of water.” The ancient wells in the city of Hangzhou bring back collective memories of a dynasty in which refinement in poetry, the arts, and culture thrived in a manner unparalleled by any other period in Chinese histo- ry. Every famous water body in China has a story to tell—and yet so does every sample of bottled water. Old wells in Beijing and ancient wells in Hangzhou invoke different cultural memories. Perhaps tap water and toilet water are forms of water most familiar to us today. The same theme of water carries different meanings to Thales, Hemmingway, Rem- brandt, as well as you and me.
And this is precisely what is uniquely valuable about the present exhibition. It is not only meant to convey the theme of water as it appears to the artists, as in the cases of Katsushika or Monet. It is not intended to impose a certain idea about water on the viewer. What the artists intend to communicate is just water: water as it appears in the shared experiences of humankind—water that runs through your life and mine. The same theme of water may appear to one as the sea of absurdity in Hemmingway’s story, to another as the mythological memory of the ancient flood, and to yet another as the Red Sea representing the justice that overwhelmed the imperialistic slave masters. Or, for some, the exhibition may sim- ply bring back very recent memories of the water that flooded many households in the City of Shanghai. Still many will
see through these artistic representations of water the glassy sea before the holy throne in their hearts.
