Tao Yuanming yingxiang: wenxueshi yu huihuashi zhi jiaocha yanjiu.

• Author: Huang, Amy
• Position: Book review

Tao Yuanming yingxiang: wenxueshi yu huihuashi zhi jiaocha yanjiu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. By YUAN XINGPEl [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Beijing: ZHONGHUA SHUJU [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 2009. Pp. 157, 51 plates. [yen] 180.

Tao Qian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or Tao Yuanming [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (365-427), was one of the most significant poets in Chinese history and is also prominent in the history of visual art because his life and art became popular themes in painting. This book, whose title means "Images of Tao Yuanming: A Cross-field Research between Literary History and Art History," surveys the many forms of visual representation of Tao Yuanming over time. The author, Yuan Xingpei [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Literature at Peking University, Director of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, and is especially well known as China's leading authority on Tao Yuanming. During his decades of research on this legendary poet, Yuan has studied many paintings from collections around the world that depict themes related to Tao, and this led him to embark on a cross-field project outside his usual realm of Chinese literature. He first published an article on this topic in the Journal of Peking University (vol. 6) in 2006; it then appeared in 2009 in English in Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (vol. 3.4) under the title "Tao Qian and Classical Chinese Paintings." The present richly illustrated volume was published in Beijing in 2009.

The numerous paintings in this book demonstrate the wide interplay possible between visuality and textuality. The paintings it discusses were inspired by two types of textual materials: Tao's literary works and biographical information on, or anecdotes about, the poet. In addition, there are also portraits of Tao that may be regarded as a sub-theme of the biographical material on Tao since these materials likely inspired the portraits. Of particular interest here is the imaginative space between textual materials and visual images, as evident in the similarities and differences among artistic interpretations of themes related to Tao. While elements mentioned in textual materials became conventional signifiers in paintings on the poet, and illustrations of "Taohua yuan ji [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]" [Peach Blossom Spring] and "Guiqulai xi ci [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]" [Returning Home] developed a...