Wind, flower, snow and moon are the most famous four grand landscapes and are very common images when writing poems. Men of letters mostly have a kind of love knot towards them. Especially, to the snow, in Chinese proverb, we have “A timely snow promises a good harvest” and “Under water, famine; under snow, bread” and so forth to show best wishes towards next year.
Chinese Snow Painting
In the poem “To the tune of Chin Yuan Chun-Snow” Chair Mao wrote like this:
“North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in ice,
A thousand leagues of whirling snow.
Both sides of the Great Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift current
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance like silver snakes
And the highlands charge like wax-hued elephants,
Vying with heaven in stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white, adorned in red,
Grows more enchanting.
This land so rich in beauty
Has made countless heroes bow in homage.
But alas! Chin Shih-huang and Han Wu-ti
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung Tai-tsu
Had little poetry in their souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud Son of Heaven for a day,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.”
Chinese Snow Painting
By depicting such kind of landscape, Chair Mao expressed his great ambition and best wishes towards his career. Such kind of descriptions can be found everywhere in Chinese ancient poems.
