Wheel-Rim River: The Mountain Poems and Paintings

Renowned in ancient China’s artistic tradition, the Wheel-Rim River poems and paintings come to life in exquisite translations and 40 full-color reproductions.

The famed T’ang-Dynasty poet Wang Wei once said that his poems were paintings and his paintings poems. This book presents a legendary instance of that conjunction. One autumn in eighth century China, Wang’s friend P’ei Ti came to visit, and the two of them wandered the mountain landscape around Wang’s house. They wrote poems at twenty sites in the area, and Wang later painted a scroll-painting of those same sites. The poems are among the most revered in the tradition, and though Wang’s scroll-painting was lost, it was so admired that scores of painters produced virtuosic copies and variations during the centuries that followed. Two of these scroll-paintings are reproduced here, site by site, together with the corresponding poems. The result is a unique collaboration between poets, painters, and translator David Hinton.

In ancient China, poetry and painting were considered expressions of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhistinsight, and Hinton’s commentary situates these masterpieces within that context. Presented as a constellation of interrelated words and images, Wheel-Rim River reveals mountain landscape as a transformative and enlightening realm.