A viewing stone is a rock that has been selected and displayed for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation.  The relocation of a stone from its natural habitat changes the found object from an ordinary rock to a viewing stone that invites close examination and perhaps contemplation.
 

In this essay, I will examine the act of “re-grounding” rocks that have been removed from nature and resettled in the soil of culture.  Using examples from my collection of viewing stones, I will consider the recontextualization process in the light of our ambiguous relationship with the natural world.
 

In Ming Dynasty China (1573-1620) catalogues of viewing stones were illustrated with woodblock prints derived from brush-and-ink drawings.  Some of the drawings were based on direct observation of a stone; others were copies of earlier sketches, while other illustrations were idealized versions of stones that may have been inspired by written descriptions or depictions of stones in landscape paintings.  With the intent of reintroducing a slow-time appreciation of the viewing stone, the print edition of this essay is illustrated by high contrast black and white images derived from photographs but manipulated in Photoshop to a degree of abstraction shared by the Ming Dynasty woodblock prints.  The online version of the essay is illustrated with full-color photographs of the same stones. Here, both images are presented for each work.