Verse meets brush in timeless dialogue

Also on view is Song Dynasty scholar Wang Shen's Misty River and Layered Peaks, from the Shanghai Museum collection.

Its left side is dominated by dense, jagged peaks draped in mist and teeming with vegetation, streams and waterfalls. This gives way to an expansive void on the right, depicting a vast, tranquil lake where a closer look reveals two small boats with figures.

When Song literary giant Su Shi saw this painting, he responded with a poem on the same theme. Wang replied with a poem and another painting. Their mutual exchange initiated an artistic dialogue that evolved into a classic theme.

For centuries, later scholars continued the exchange, paying tribute to the tradition by creating paintings inspired by the poem or producing calligraphic works of the poem itself.

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) calligrapher Zhao Mengfu transcribed the poem in running script, while Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) scholars Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming later painted their own interpretations.

These three separate works were ultimately mounted into a single, continuous scroll, now part of the Liaoning Provincial Museum collection and presented in the exhibition."Creations centered on the theme 'Misty River and Layered Peaks' are the pinnacle of poetry-painting integration in literati art," Dong says.

"Literati paintings were created by scholars, not professional painters. Scholars composed poetry and inscribed the poems in calligraphy on the paintings. This practice was not merely combined but fused into a single, unified expression of their inner world."

It was a common practice for ancient Chinese scholars to paint with inspiration from poetry and use it as a central theme.