If a composition has no strangeness, there is no virtue in its stability. Stability without strangeness is the work of a commonplace hand; strangeness without stability, of an immature hand.
–Gong Xian

(from the wall caption to a really haunting ink painting in this terrific exhibit–there’s a hut in the foreground, all soft brushstrokes for the thatch roof and the surrounding trees and wooden bridge, but in the distance there are dark mountains–and behind the tall dark mountains, an even taller one, pale, elusive.)