Poems on Painting from the High Tang to Later Tang Periods

Abstract

That the practice of inscribing poems on paintings was brought to new prominence during the High Tang period is a well-known aspect of literary history. That poets’ ways of treating paintings in poems changed again in the late eighth and ninth centuries is a less well-known development. This article looks at that change and analyzes several of its manifestations, including new treatments of the “illusion” of painting, the relationship of the painter to his art, and the relationship of painting to poetry. Also briefly discussed is the new closeness between the poets of the later period and the painters they wrote about. Several of these changes anticipate the emergence of “literati painting” in the Northern Song period and allow us to see the later Tang period as an important transitional bridge between poetic treatments of painting before and after it.