Reconstruction and Concreteness: The Religious Background and Political Connotations of Gibbon-Themed Poetry and Painting in East Asian Elite Culture from the 12th to the 19th Centuries

The gibbon was an often-mentioned animal in the elite literati world of China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula during the twelfth to nineteenth centuries, with a large number of poems and paintings touching on the theme of gibbons. The image of the gibbon is often entangled with religion (Daoism and Zen Buddhism), and through the coding of art, it has become a tool for displaying one’s political position. There is also an intertextual phenomenon in the presentation of gibbons from poetry to painting which plays a crucial role in the generation of meaning. This article attempts to answer two questions: (1) why and how the image of a gibbon has become a tool for displaying religious affiliation and one’s political position through the art form of Sinitic poetry; (2) how does the intertextual relationship between poetry and painting affect the creation of meaning?