To draw a house, they perceive it from the five-element perspective. For example, when depicting a plane view of a house, they draw the front side, as well as the flank sides which cannot be seen from front, because, in their words, the house has its side walls. Painting a suitcase they would also paint the patterns on the side of the suitcase even though they were not in sight from a straight perspective.
In depicting a scene of a community gathering in the central yard of a courtyard house, the plane view of the entire scene is fully unfolded without any overlapping. The house on the east, west, south and north four sides of the courtyard are all drawn in a flat, orizontal view, with bottom base towards the center; all human figures at the scene are laid down with their feet towards the center. This is an exemplary composition of five-element concept originated in original Chinese philosophy.
