Lanting Pavilion by a Winding Stream

Hara Zaichū, one of the leading painters of Kyoto of the day, in an expansive, brightly colored landscape has captured an imaginary scene of the famous poetry gathering at the Orchid Pavilion convened by Wang Xizhi (ca. 303–ca. 361), regarded as the greatest calligrapher of ancient China. Wang had invited forty-one scholarly acquaintances to an outing on banks of a winding stream, where they composed poetry and drank wine from cups that had been set floating on the stream (to give an added an incentive to compose impromptu poetry). The draft manuscript of the preface Wang created to the forty-one poems immortalized the occasion for generations of literati artists both in China and Japan. According to tradition, the original manuscript was a treasured calligraphy model of the Tang emperor Taizong and was interred with him when he died, in 649. The many copies that survived insured that the preface would be known and revered in years to come, both as an exemplar of semi-cursive Chinese calligraphy and as a record of the literary event.

To the Nanga artists of the Edo period, the Orchid Pavilion Gathering encapsulated the ideals of literary friendship, poetry composition, and calligraphy—not to mention the imbibing of wine as an inducement to creativity. Of the many Japanese artists who painted the theme, Ike Taiga (1723–1776) depicted it repeatedly on scrolls and screens, each time with a similar compositional scheme, as in a screen in The Met’s collection (2015.300.163.1). In Zaichū’s interpretation, many of the scholars are garbed in iridescent blue robes along verdant banks surround the broad, winding stream. The coloristic drama of the work derives from Chinese Blue-and-Green painting precedents. Wang is shown seated within a grand garden pavilion, a scroll spread before him, a brush in hand.