Description
Why these 8 paintings of horses?
Each idealized horse image in this series of paintings represents one of the 8 energy elements inherent
in Taoist symbolism.
In addition to the 4 elements of western civilization, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, Taoism includes Thunder, Wind, Mountain, and Lake, and substitutes Heaven in the place of Air.
The I Ching Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese divination tome in wide use even today assigns Trigram symbols to each of these 8 elements. Using solid Yang lines or broken Yin lines and stacking them 3 high results in 8 variations — one trigram set for each element.
In Taoist study, a wealth of information, applicable to all aspects of life, is contained within each Trigram symbol. But Taoism takes this farther by stacking one Trigram over another to create a 6 line symbol, the Hexagram.
