Shen Zhou: Poet on a Mountaintop

Description

       Shen Zhou exemplified literati painting with his blending of poetry and painting, the arts of words and images. Many of Shen Zhou’s paintings include poems of his own – many also include poems composed by friends.

       The painting below is one of Shen Zhou’s most famous. The scholar alone in nature seems to be looking out not over a chasm of rocks and clouds, but directly at the poem that Shen Zhou has placed before him. The poem reads as follows:

White clouds sash-like
wrap mountain waists,
The rock terrace flies in space
distant, a narrow path.
Leaning on a bramble staff
far and free I gaze,
To the warble of valley brook
I will reply, whistling.

(Translation from Indiana University.)

白雲如帶束山腰，石磴飛空細路遙。獨倚杖藜舒眺望，欲因鳴澗答吹簫。