On The Relationship Between Literature And Image Of Su Shi's Art Theory

On the basis of sorting through the artistic history before the Song Dynasty,Su Shi contemplated the Northern Song's variety of literature,art,music,etc,and their relationships related.He established an artistic ideology of Look before and behind and Look right and left,under which Su Shi”s theory of the relationship between writings and images considered and discussed about the two types like literature and art.The reason why Su Shi contemplated the artistic problems lies in the reality.In his view,poems,proses and calligraphy in the Northern Song had generally had the trend of wane while drawing was somewhat worldly.The way he solved the problems was unearthing and using for reference the models before the Song Dynasty.For example,the Northern Song's poems,proses,calligraphy and pictures should learn from DuFu,HanYu,Yan Zhenqing and Wu Daozi,take them as models and develop by analogy.In the mixture of poems and pictures,he set Wangwei's works as a model such as pictures in poems and poems in pictures.The theory he proposed,poems and pictures threaded together and scholars' pictures,got through the types of poems,proses and pictures,was continuously enriched in artistic practices at that time and in later times and became the important arguments influencing the development of the Chinese art.When talking about Su Shi's thory of the relationship between writings and pictures,we should get to learn the way he contemplted and described the problems with art in the process of the Song's artistic development,that is,to get to know his logic in discussing about art.Studying Su Shi's writings on art,I understand that he paid much attention to sorting through the artistic history before the Song Dynasty while he was contemplating the artistic phenomena in the Northern Song.So he developed his own views of artistic development from collecting the old available to getting something new.The important argument on the relationship between writings and pictures was based on such views of artistic development.The texts or versions,in which he put forward his views on the relationship between writings and pictures,were usually the inscriptive writings.The reason for him to write such writings was to meet the need of visiting,travelling or responding with poems.Sometimes they were descriptions of his visits to some famous places.That's why artistic visitations or travellings became the beginning of his contemplations and discussions on artistic problems.As it were,Su Shi's visits and travellings originated from Confucius,but was also similar to ZhuangZhou's travellings.So they could be regarded as the inheritances and creations of artistic traditions.Su Shi was always making comments while descriping artistic works,from which his arguments like the relationship between writings and pictures resulted.The words or phrases he used to comment,discuss or talk about artistic works,such as pictures in poems and poems in pictures while writing poems;horses under the sun in scholars' pictures,were usually allusions in literary and philosophic traditions.Writing poems was inherited from writing with the old in the Earlier Qin Dynasty,showing that the creation of poems and pictures should have some dependence,but more important,should overstep the views depended on.It was regarded as a classic expression from ZhuangZhou: Xu Wugui and ZhuangZhou: A horse's hoof that One appreciating sholars' picture is like watching the horses under the sun.Therefore,a picture's ultimate search for similarity,truth and soul was converted to nature and simplicity.Such allusions were quite important to understand the meanings of the arguments related.So the discussions about the concrete arguments could finally focus on Su Shi's way to use the allusion use the old as something new.Examining Su Shi'a practice of pictures in poems and poems in pictures,I found that they were all artistic creative works relying in some degree on real objects and exceeding.The sense of the general appearance of a picture in pictures in poems was often a different conbination of objective descriptions in the aesthetic space.The construction of the aesthetic space sometimes originated from Su Shi's real sights in front,like light winds in breeze,water in the river undisturbed in The Red Cliffs.Sometimes it came from his imagined sights,like white clouds drifting on the left,clean water flowing on the right in Writings in Lingao Ting.Sometimes it used the literary versions,like luxuriant woods made for quants,rowing in the flight of time in Again on The Red Cliffs.The sense of poems in pictures was so poetic that it showed us a visual picture with shapes in brush and ink.The picture of a dead standing tree with a queer stone was said to be drawn by Su Shi.The shape of the dead standing tree resulted in some poems,proses and inscriptive writings,which connected the sense of visual picture with the poetic and philosophic traditions in The book of poems and ZhuangZhou.The various pictures on the Red Cliffs resulted from Su Shi' writings,drawn in accordance with the writings,in which different appearances and interpretations of The crane were also related with the traditions in The book of poems and the idea of changes,showing the mixture of subject-object,time-space and artistic conceptions.According to the models before the Song Dynasty,Su Shi immersed his writings and practices into the artistic tradition with use the old as the new.So his theory of the relationship between writings and pictures became the gene of the Chinese pictures for its inner logical relation in the artistic history.At the same time,it was inevitably biguous with a few isolated words,phrases and expressions.So it's troublesome for later generations to exactly and correctly understand and accept it.For one thing,artistists and artistic theorists in later generations can't circumvent Su Shi's works and arguments.Some of them even used his words,phrases or expressions on art directly or indirectly.For another,later generations misread and misunderstood his classic descriptions and discussions like poems and pictures threaded together and scholars' pictures because they didn't know the exact meanings of the allusions Su Shi had used.In general,Su Shi's theory on art plays a deep and important part on the development of the Chinese art.It continues the artistic tradition before the Song Dynasty and introduces the classic forms of poems,calligraphy and pictures after the Song Dynasty.His theory on the relationship between writings and pictures has already overstepped the concrete artistic appearance and got into the regularity of art.