A Study on Bada Shanren’s Scroll of Flowers on the River(河上花圖卷): Focusing on the Annotation and Translation of Song of Flowers on the River(河上花歌)

This study approaches the art of Bada Shanren's 1697 painting Flowers on the River(河上花圖卷) by reading it as an integral work of painting and literature. The painting, with its lotus paintings and the lengthy inscriptional poem Song of Flowers on the River(河上花歌) of over 200 characters organically incorporated on a 13-meter scroll, is characterized by iconography that manifests a transition from bird-and-flower painting to landscape painting. The contents of this study are an annotated translation of Song of Flowers on the River through analysis of the production background and textual verification of Flowers on the River, identification of its literary characteristics, and probing into painting-poetry narrative integration. Song of Flowers on the River is composed of three layers: lamentation of the fallen Ming dynasty by the historical personages of lotus flowers from Liulang(六郞) to Kunming Lake(昆明池); solidarity awareness among loyalist subjects by the invocation of Li Bai(李白) and the Song on the River(河上歌) tradition of Wu Zixu(伍子胥); and philosophical reflection and realistic awareness by Buddhist transcendence and lamentation of Zhishan Ren(芝山人). In Flowers on the River, the temporal unfolding of the scroll and the narrative structure of the poetry are equated in a three-part composition, with visual forms and linguistic expressions reinforcing and supplementing each other around the central theme of the lotus. Particularly through the integration of bird-and-flower and landscape painting, taking the gexing poetic mode, and incorporating historical references and Buddhist thought, it embodies the multi-dimensional identity of late Ming and early Qing loyalist scholars. It is evaluated as an achievement that fully realizes the Chinese literati painting ideal of the synthesis of poetry, calligraphy, and painting.