The three perfections

In China, art that combines poetry, calligraphy and painting is known as a work of the three perfections. The three perfections have long been regarded as the highest arts on account of their expressive qualities, and Shih-t'ao (1642–1707) was regarded as a master of all three expressive arts. His masterpiece, Returning Home, is a book of twelve pairs of leaves, each consisting of a poem written in calligraphy on one leaf and a painting on the facing leaf. A pair of leaves such as “Gathering Lotus Flowers” is conceived of as a single entity. What makes this a single entity? What is the sense in which the poetry, calligraphy and painting are unified to form a whole? The curators at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art would have us believe that this unity comes from the sense in which the three elements complement one another: the painting illustrates the poem; the calligraphy imitates the brushstrokes of the painting; and the poem is written in the calligraphy that imitates the painting that illustrates the poem.

This reading meets with several problems. It is not clear that the painting actually illustrates the poem: the poem speaks of fields of flowers and leaves, a boat gathering flowers, and bits of lotus floating on the water; whereas the painting is a simple line drawing – in the blank-outline style – of a single flower and several leaves.