The “Picturesque” Research Of Landscape Writing In Shen Congwen’s Xiangxing Collection

Shen Congwen,one of the most famous country writers in the 20~thh century,wrote many classic literary works in his whole lifetime,among which,“The Border Town”,“Sketches of the Travel to Hunan”were the representatives.Because of the beautiful scenery and his deep love for the hometown,most of the country works created by Shen Congwen displayed his local complex.Xiangxing Collection is the rare representative of Shen Congwen’s essays,which mainly includes“Sketches of the Travel to Hunan”and“Hunan Letters”.Surrounded by his love for the native place,his works of Xiangxing Collection were obsessed with the description of nature,constructing fascinating images and displaying many beautiful pictures of Xiangxi.Shen Congwen had a long-lasting relationship with painting,and a special favor for traditional Chinese painting.When researching,he had understand and found the similarities between literature and painting and their different functions;used the traditional sighting ways to describe the beautiful landscape,showing us beautiful pictures of Xiangxi and thus stimulating us to search for the deeper facts behind them.This thesis mainly discusses about the“picturesque”of landscape description in Shen’s Xiangxing Collection from the relationship between literature and painting.Firstly it elaborates the understanding of Shen Congwen to the relationship between literature and painting.Although Shen was a writer,he tightened bound to painting all his lifetime,and had dreamed to be an artist when he was young.And Shen Congwen had a special preference to traditional Chinese painting.Excepting for devoting to writing,he also collected ancient paintings and did research,thus found the mutual connecting,supplementing relationship between literature and painting.In traditional Chinese literature works,literature and painting had always elucidated,echoed and supplemented each other.With his special understanding to the relationship between literature and painting,Shen hold that painting is much better at showing one beautiful landscape than literature,because the function of words description is always limited,while it can be better complemented by painting.Thus,deeply affected by traditional Chinese painting,Shen Congwen displayed his painting attainments unconsciously in his landscape description,which showed his inner feeling by abstract expression.Then it analyzes the uniqueness of Shen Congwen’s landscape description from his pursuit of“picturesque”by close-reading his works of Xiangxing Collection.The readers could feel the artistic conception of his landscape description and its uniqueness.Because he made full use of colors,ways of seeing,construction of pictures and building of images from painting to describe the beautiful landscape and construct“picturesque”image.Finally,it elaborates the significance of Shen Congwen’s“picturesque”landscape description in Xiangxing Collection.Painting considers what to convey at the first beginning.Shen Congwen showed his feelings and life attitude at that time in his landscape description of Xiangxing Collection,which were not only pure and simple description.With concise description,simple but various colors,the landscape description of Shen Congwen were special and unique,which made the harmony of people and landscape and let the readers experience strong“picturesque”images.In the process of enjoying the landscape description of Shen Congwen,we needed to look for the deeper facts to know more about him and had a better understanding.During the literature works,Shen Congwen tried to recreate the national spirits,found the unrecorded history,expressed his true feeling in an abstract way and enriched Chinese New Literature in an old classic way.