poem; similarly, atihuashi about a painting of flowers may overlap with a piece of yongwushi about the same subject.
The Shenghua ji (A collection of voiced paintings, completed in 1187), the first collection of tihuashi in the history of Chinese literature, which was compiled by the Song scholar Sun Shaoyuan (fl. ca.1174–1189), consists of twenty-six categories of poems written since the Tang period, covering a span of more than four hundred years.8 It includes some pieces by anonymous poets as well as some by those whose works have not been preserved in other anthologies. The Yuding lidai tihuashi lei (The imperial authorized compilation of classified tihuashi of the past dynasties)—commissioned by the Qing government—contains nearly nine thousand tihuashi written from the Tang to the Ming dynasty, which are classified into thirty categories.9 The Zhongguo gujin tihuashici quanbi (The complete works of Chinese tihuashi and tihuaci, ancient and modern) is a modern anthology of tihuashi and tihuaci (ci being a genre of lyric whose number and length of lines as well as rhyming and tonal schemes follow various tune patterns originating in music) compiled by Shi Lijun et al. The volume collects nearly three thousand pieces of poetry and ci lyrics written since the Tang period, which fall into five major categories and twenty-nine subcategories.10 Tihuashi can also be categorized in other ways—for instance, Ronald Egan proposed grouping them into three categories in terms of primary theme or thematic concern: (1) the identification of the painting with the painter’s character or personality, (2) the expression of the poet’s personal response to the painting, and (3) the exploration or interpretation of the imaginary world of the painting.11
Although tihuashi was not formally established as an official genre until the Tang period (618–907), its origin traces back as early as the Warring States period (475–221 BC) to Qu Yuan’s creative practice.12 Having reshaped itself during the Six Dynasties period, tihuashi emerged as a burgeoning genre during the Tang period, thanks mainly to the exemplary practice of Du Fu (712–770). Later, it was further promoted by literati poets and especially by Su Shi (1037–1101) and Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) during the Song period (960–1279). An essential