Mu Qi (Mu Chi)
Six Persimmons
c. 1269
Southern Sung, China

This painting is a highly religious Zen Buddhist work. There are many different speculations on its meaning. For us, studying the elements of art, let's look at it in a most simplistic way. How is any depth achieved in the work? It is done by overlapping. This is the simplest way to show an illusion of spacial depth on a two-dimensional surface. The painting also demonstrates a second way of showing depth and that is by vertical placement. See how the lowest persimmon seems to be the closest one to us.