OBSERVING THE RETURN OF DAO: EASTERN INTERPRETATION OF SONATA OF THE SPRING

Čiurlionis is our first acquaintance with Lithuanian art. We gave him a Chinese name, 居 琉璃 Ju Liu Li, which means “living in a world of Liu li”, where “Liu li” is a beautiful ancient colored glaze. In Chinese culture, liuli - colored glaze - symbolizes a separate colorful, transparent world of Bodhisattvas, different from our regular mundane world. There is also an ancient Chinese poem “彩云易散琉璃脆” “colorful clouds are easy to scatter, and colored glaze is brittle,” telling us that the preciousness of beauty often so quickly passes away. Čiurlionis’ life of art was beautiful and brittle, just like a colored glaze. His works of art for us became the gates into Lithuanian culture. In this paper, we discuss the understanding of Ju Liu Li’s Sonata of the Spring, which depicts the four primary elements in the universe: earth, wind, water, and fire.