| Chapter 1: | The Tang Tradition |
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During this period, painting also figured significantly in interior decoration. It became a social etiquette and a form of hospitality for people to entertain friends by showcasing their home collections. In his tihuashi "Song of Viewing the Horse Painting with Xianyu Luoyang [Xianyu Jin, city magistrate of Luoyang in Henan Province] at Assistant Undersecretary Bi's Mansion," the poet Gao Shi (706-765) wrote, "Entertaining his guests, our host unveils the screen-painting, / Saying that the fine horse comes from the farthest west."9 It was also a token of interartistic congeniality and appreciation for a poet to send his friends paintings accompanied by his own poems. In his poem "Looking Afar at the Rare Scenery From the Riverside Tower, Composing a Piece to Send to Zhang Ji [765-830?], Head of the Water Resources Department," the poet Bai Juyi (772-846) vividly depicted the autumn river scenery in the city of Hangzhou (in Zhejiang Province):
The river color is fresh and bright, the sea air cool.
The mirage dispersed, clouds gone, the phantom towers shattered;
The fading rainbow reflects a broken bridge in the water.
The wild geese dot the blue sky with a line of calligraphy.
I'll have the scenery rendered into a carefully colored painting,
To send it, when it's done, along with this poem to the Head of the Water Resources Department.
An apt expression of the complementary relationship between poetry and painting, Bai Juyi's poem can be considered a tihuashi that represents the poet's conception of a painting even before it was composed. Bai did not paint the scenery by himself but was certainly able to appreciate