ARTBITRAGE五行 · Five ways of looking

五行 A gallery of changing things

Follow what
pulls you.

A branch. An ember. A vessel. A glint of light.
Begin with a quality you notice, and let it carry you from one work to another.
A little about the five phases ↓

木 Wood / Branch · weave · grow

Things reaching outward.

Follow a branch, a woven line, a shape reaching outward. Growth can be something pictured, or something held in the material itself.

Dark plum-tree branches with white blossoms cross a pink sky, framing a green garden and small distant visitors.

Plum Garden at Kameido

Utagawa Hiroshige · 1857

Museum record ↗

What pulls your eye?

Follow a dark branch across the pale sky.

A branching plum tree fills the foreground of this color woodblock print.

The materialColor woodblock print; ōban

Stay & breathe with this work ◯Go behind the work ↗

Three ways into wood.

Choose a work. Notice what changes.

Dark plum-tree branches with white blossoms cross a pink sky, framing a green garden and small distant visitors.

Plum Garden at Kameido

Utagawa Hiroshige

Spend a moment ↗A tan woven basket widens from a narrow base to an open rim, with repeating dark-brown triangles across its sides.

Burden Basket

Pomo · Northern California, United States

Spend a moment ↗A six-panel gold folding screen with red maple trees and hanging poem slips.

Autumn Maples with Poem Slips

Tosa Mitsuoki

Spend a moment ↗
Wood → Fire / Follow an echoFrom the red of a leaf, follow your eye towards the small light of an ember.

火 Fire / Glow · kindle · change

Where the light begins.

Some warmth is painted. Some belongs to the making. Move from a glowing ember to the heat that helps a vessel take its form.

A boy in a feathered cap blows on a glowing piece of wood while holding a candle; the ember lights his face against a dark background.

A Boy Blowing on a Firebrand

Gerrit van Honthorst · 1621–22

Museum record ↗

What pulls your eye?

Find the tiny sparks beside the glowing wood.

A glowing ember lights the boy’s face: a small heat made visible in paint.

The materialOil on canvas

Stay & breathe with this work ◯Go behind the work ↗

Three ways into fire.

Choose a work. Notice what changes.

A boy in a feathered cap blows on a glowing piece of wood while holding a candle; the ember lights his face against a dark background.

A Boy Blowing on a Firebrand

Gerrit van Honthorst

Spend a moment ↗An orange moon glows through a hazy landscape of trees and a solitary figure.

Moonrise

George Inness

Spend a moment ↗A rounded white Korean porcelain moon jar with a gently uneven outline and a softly glazed surface.

Moon Jar

Korea · Joseon dynasty

Spend a moment ↗
Fire → Earth / Follow an echoA moon jar links both rooms: through fire, a kiln; through earth, clay, weight and form.

土 Earth / Hold · shape · endure

Something to rest on.

A vessel, a table, a body carved from stone. Look for weight, texture and the places where a form seems to rest.

A rounded white Korean porcelain moon jar with a gently uneven outline and a softly glazed surface.

Moon Jar

Korea · Joseon dynasty · Joseon dynasty (1392–1897), late 17th– mid-18th century

Museum record ↗

What pulls your eye?

Compare the two sides of the jar’s rounded outline.

A rounded porcelain body turns clay into a vessel, built by joining two halves.

The materialPorcelain with glaze

Stay & breathe with this work ◯Go behind the work ↗See this work through Fire ↗

Three ways into earth.

Choose a work. Notice what changes.

A rounded white Korean porcelain moon jar with a gently uneven outline and a softly glazed surface.

Moon Jar

Korea · Joseon dynasty

Spend a moment ↗A tilted basket spills red and green apples across a white cloth on a wooden table, beside a dark bottle and a plate of biscuits.

The Basket of Apples

Paul Cezanne

Spend a moment ↗A pale marble standing figure with folded arms, a long neck, and a simple oval face with a raised nose.

Statuette of a Female Figure

Cycladic; probably from the island of Keros

Spend a moment ↗
Earth → Metal / Follow an echoFrom stone and fired clay, follow the earth’s materials into bronze and gold.

金 Metal / Gleam · cast · reflect

The shape of a glint.

Bronze carries a dance; gold carries a garden. Follow how a surface holds light, then how a painter makes light appear on water.

A bronze sculpture of Shiva dancing on one leg inside a ring edged with flames, with four arms extended and long hair fanning out on either side.

Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja)

India · Tamil Nadu · Chola period, about 10th/11th century

Museum record ↗

What pulls your eye?

Follow the bronze circle around the dancing figure.

A bronze image from Tamil Nadu holds Shiva’s dance in a circle of metal.

The materialBronze

Stay & breathe with this work ◯Go behind the work ↗

Three ways into metal.

Choose a work. Notice what changes.

A bronze sculpture of Shiva dancing on one leg inside a ring edged with flames, with four arms extended and long hair fanning out on either side.

Shiva as Lord of the Dance (Nataraja)

India · Tamil Nadu

Spend a moment ↗A six-panel gold folding screen with red maple trees and hanging poem slips.

Autumn Maples with Poem Slips

Tosa Mitsuoki

Spend a moment ↗A low golden moon hangs above a hazy blue-green harbor, with faint boats and a dark shoreline.

Nocturne: Blue and Gold—Southampton Water

James McNeill Whistler

Spend a moment ↗
Metal → Water / Follow an echoA bright edge becomes a reflection. Follow the glint out onto the water.

水 Water / Flow · ripple · return

Follow the current.

Water can hold a reflection or break into a wave. Drift between a pond, open sea and a quiet riverbank.

Pink and white water lilies spread across blue-green water, with soft reflections beneath them.

Water Lilies

Claude Monet · 1906

Museum record ↗

What pulls your eye?

Choose one lily pad and follow its rounded edge.

Lily pads and reflections share a surface, making it hard to separate water from sky.

The materialOil on canvas

Stay & breathe with this work ◯Go behind the work ↗

Three ways into water.

Choose a work. Notice what changes.

Pink and white water lilies spread across blue-green water, with soft reflections beneath them.

Water Lilies

Claude Monet

Spend a moment ↗A towering blue wave curls over long boats, with snow-capped Mount Fuji small in the distance.

The Great Wave

Katsushika Hokusai · 1830/33

Spend a moment ↗A blue boat with a white cloth inside and a smaller green boat rest on a grassy riverbank, beside still water reflecting distant houses.

Boats at Rest

Arthur Wesley Dow

Spend a moment ↗
Water → Wood / Follow an echoAt the water’s edge, return to branches, leaves and things that grow.

One work, more than one way in

A circle of changes.

木火土金水

A moon jar can speak of earth when you follow its rounded form, and fire when you imagine its making. A golden screen can lead you through branches or through light. Try meeting the same work from another side.

This gallery takes inspiration from 五行 (wǔxíng), the five phases of Chinese thought: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. The tradition attends to change and relationships; our rooms follow its generating cycle.

The connections between these artworks are Artbitrage’s invitations to look. Each work keeps its own history, materials and museum record.

A note on 五行 and these pairings +

“Five phases” is one translation of 五行. Wood, fire, earth, metal and water are understood through their interactions. Here they offer a route across artworks made in different places and traditions.

Our pairings do not claim that the artists used this framework. A painted reflection belongs here through what we see; a bronze sculpture also belongs through what it is made from.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy · Wuxing ↗
Follow materials, making and care ↗

A pattern can lead somewhere unexpected. Follow the Pomo basket into a notebook of working hands, painted edges and quiet rooms.

What caught my eye · open the notebook ↗