Note

Many readers are familiar with China’s long history of poets as painters.  Perhaps the most famous examples are the Tang poet Wang Wei and the Song poet Su Shi (Su Dong Po), who wrote: “In Wang Wei’s poems, there are paintings. In his paintings, poems.” Paintings from Tang and later eras often carried poems or poetic comments written within their margins, composed by the painter, another poet or artist, a scholar, or even the owner. Poetry, painting, and calligraphy have long been revered in China as “The Three Perfections”.

While this correspondence may be less frequent in the west, one thinks of William Blake, and more recently the American poets Donald Justice, Derek Walcott, and Mark Strand, each of whom created visual art.  Strand began his artistic life as a painter, studying with Josef Albers for his Yale BFA.  In 1994 he published Hopper, a volume of his commentary on the 20th c. painter Edward Hopper’s work.  The Roman poet Horace famously declared “ut pictura poesis”, literally “as is painting, so is poetry.” Certainly in both eastern and western poetries, the relation between these forms has been profound, replete with “ekphrastic” poems composed in response to visual art.  In this respect, however, eastern artists may have an advantage in the relative fluidity of both their language and aesthetic thought.

In previous issues, as well as calligraphy by Henry Lo, Pangolin House has featured painting by Chinese contemporary poets Che Qianzi and Yang Jian.  Yang Jian’s poetry also appears in the current issue. We are pleased to offer a selection of Duo Duo’s paintings here, surely part of the continuing Chinese painter/poet tradition. As Duo Duo lived many years in Europe, however, and is one of the most cosmopolitan contemporary Chinese poets, viewers may find his paintings also reflect an international sensibility.