The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art's new exhibit, Mountains of the Mind: Scholars’ Rocks from China and Beyond, will open this Saturday, Aug. 5, and run through June 23, 2024, in The Ringling’s Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Art. The exhibit features a selection of scholars’ rocks and related paintings and prints, including rocks recently donated from the extensive collection of Nancy and Stan Kaplan, a new acquisition funded by Lucia and Steve Almquist and paintings on loan from the Dongguan Lou Collection.

Scholars’ rocks are collected from remote geographic locations, where they have been formed by natural elements over millions of years. The stones may then be carved, polished and inscribed before being displayed in a custom-made stand to enhance their visual appeal. Scholars’ rocks are both natural objects and products of human creativity.

Mountains of the Mind will feature a wide array of scholars’ rocks in various shapes, textures and geological properties. The rocks are further contextualized by paintings, prints and texts that illuminate their cultural importance for scholars across the centuries. The stones have been appreciated and admired in China for more than a thousand years; historically, connoisseurs displayed their stones in their studios alongside paintings and other treasures, where they served as a focus for meditation or creative contemplation.

“Visitors to the exhibition can not only study the beautiful subtleties of the scholars’ rocks, they can also appreciate the complex roles that rocks [have] played in the imagination since ancient times,” says Dr. Rhiannon Paget, curator of Asian art, who organized the exhibition. “Paintings of remarkable stones produced from the 8^th century to the present day reflect and reinforce the significance of rocks in East Asian culture. Their fantastic shapes invite the brush to play, and a skillful artist can animate their subjects or lend them magical qualities.”

In addition to Chinese objects, Mountains of the Mind includes Japanese, Korean, Canadian and Italian objects, demonstrating how the appreciation of scholars’ rocks has diffused from China across East Asia and beyond. Across the globe, scholars’ rocks are admired for their interesting appearances, or for their resemblance to other forms, serving as portals for imaginative reflection. Visitors to the exhibition can spend time studying the nuances of the stones and contemplating their own responses to each.