In Zhang Daquan’s famous forgery, Drinking
And Singing at the Foot of a Precipitous Mountain,
the trees themselves have drunk too much,
have climbed too high, have spun themselves
around the winding paths one too many times.
Scrub brush now clings on hands and knees
while vertigo sets in. Everything is lush and leafy;
even the pine trees gloat. Above them all, red chop
marks float like bright kites on invisible strings.
Just another scene from ancient China, courtesy
of distressed silk. Distant hummocks, clouds,
drifting smoke and mist, attenuated cascades
all careen into varying shades of jade, moss,
and aquamarine, like the ultra-natural tints and hues
of chlorophyll. Rumpled and crumbling, it’d take
a telescope to see the small white men climb
the stairs, another leaning over the rail
of a footbridge. It’s just so much raw silk,
except, that’s right, they’ve been painted
in twentieth-century titanium white.
To view a larger version of this painting, visit the Wikipedia media page about it.
About Deborah H. Doolittle
