Looked at from the angle of the Western tradition of painting, Chinese literati painting is a very special case, with the painter as a translator or interpreter of his own artistic work. The five features of transmutation elaborated by Eco (2001) are simultaneous presence of the target and the source, showing things left unsaid, understanding through manipulation, isolating a level of the text, and adaptation as a new work. In the following sections, I will elaborate on how these five features are embodied in the painting-poem transmutation of Chinese literati paintings and explore other unique features of this specific mode of transmutation. While there are many layers in this topic worth excavating, the calligraphy of the painter and the placement of the poetic lines in the painting are not within the scope of the present study. In addition, by inscriptions, I mean inscriptions on paintings made by the painters themselves rather than by other people, as such inscriptions have a certain authority in interpreting the painting. There are, of course, paintings that are transmuted from a poem which is not inscribed on the painting. This area is also outside the scope of the present paper, as in these cases, extensive historical investigation is needed to find reliable evidence for a direct relation between the painting and the proposed poem.Following the inscribed lines, viewers may find the dog in the middle of the road and know that there are cocks amid the mulberry trees. In this way, the painter guides viewers to appreciate the specific state depicted in the two lines of poetry.From the perspective of art appreciation, however, they are also likely to confine the space for interpretation. In other words, while the inscribed poems may reduce the chance of overinterpretation, paintings with poetic inscriptions may be also less “open” than those without inscriptions.
姜奕村，博士，现执教于山东工商学院外国语学院，其研究领域主要包括符号学、隐喻研究和语言哲学。
Email：[email protected].
（文中图片均来自网络）
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