Page 8 - Chiense Silver and Gold, 2012, J.J. Lally, New York

Figure 1. Qiao Zhongchang. Illustration to the Later Prose-Poem to the Red Cliff (detail). Northern Song Dynasty.
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
the handscroll format and iconic images depicting a single scene, such as the
5
boat trip, that symbolize the prose-poem in its entirety. The former narrative
category is comprised primarily of works that represent the epic-poetic second
prose-poem, of which scrolls by Qiao Zhongchang and Wen Zhengming are
examples. The Jin Dynasty artist Wu Yuanzhi’s Illustration to the Red Cliff (Na-
tional Palace Museum, Taipei) and the Southern Song artist Li Song’s Red Cliff
are characteristic examples of the latter iconic category (figure 2).
Pictorializations of the Red Cliff prose-poems are not limited to painting,
however. Following developments in painting in the late Northern Song, a
variety of painting-inspired designs can be found on decorative arts dated to
6
the Southern Song period.
Four characters, 後赤壁賦 (“Second Prose-poem to the Red Cliff”), and illus-
trations of the second Red Cliff prose-poem are carved in relief on a shallow, red
lacquerware bowl, held in a private collection in Tokyo. At center-left appear
Su Shi and two companions standing before Su’s Xuetang (“Show Hall”) studio
in Huangzhou. The following passage is carved near the left rim of the bowl:
是歳十月之望。歩至雪堂。将帰于臨皐。二客従予過黄泥之坂 (“Under a full moon
in the tenth month of that year, I walked toward Snow Hall on the way to
Lingao [Pavilion]. Two companions joined me, and we crossed Huangni Hill”).
Although the original prose-poem describes Su walking from Snow Hall, both
the carved text and scene show Su walking toward the studio. In a scene above
this, Su, fish in hand, returns briefly to the Lingao Pavilion, his home looking
out over the Yangzi, to procure wine. The lower portions of the picture show a
lively Su Shi pushing his way into the mountains so that he may gaze out over
the Yangzi. To the right and slightly above this is a depiction of the boat trip to
the Red Cliff along with two characters, 赤壁 (“red cliff”). A single crane, hav-
ing flown in as if to take refuge on the central rock formation, is also shown.
Finally, in the upper portions of the image appear a slumbering Su Shi and, to
his upper left, the single Taoist in a robe of feathers that he sees in a dream.
7
In other words, the various episodes from Su Shi’s second prose-poem are