This is really interesting!

The Ise Grand Shrine, the supreme Shinto sanctuary located on Honshu island, is 1,300 years old for the millions of Japanese people who go there on pilgrimage every year. But in reality this temple complex is completely rebuilt from scratch every 20 years.

I've been there! That was my first exposure to that concept of "replacing all the parts of a thing doesn't make it stop being the same thing". I still find that whole idea really cool.

and then

This religious practice is so alien to Western art historians that, after heated debates, UNESCO removed this Shinto temple from the list of World Heritage sites. For the experts at UNESCO, the shrine is 20 years old at most.

c'mon man -__-

I always did find it weird how like, an incredibly accurate forgery of a painting is worth so much less than the original. It's such a good forgery that you couldn't even tell the difference! It looks just as good!

Chinese artists … never lose sight of the fact that producing works in large numbers exemplifies creativity, too. They trust that, as in nature, there always will be some among the 10,000 things from which change springs.

this reminds me of ai weiwei's sunflower seeds exhibition, millions of individually painted and crafted seeds, none of them really unique but still singular

and re the last paragraph, the way i was taught to approach brush painting and calligraphy was more focused on creating a kind of flow for strokes. like, having a feel for qi or the spirit of nature in order to transfer that power into your work. it sounds really uhhh superstitious i guess from a western perspective but it is what it is