Quick Answer: What Are Su Shi’s Dongting and Zhongshan Odes?
Spring Colors at Dongting (洞庭春色赋, Dòngtíng Chūnsè Fù) and Pine Wine from Zhongshan (中山松醪赋, Zhōngshān Sōngláo Fù) form a combined handscroll written by Su Shi (苏轼, Sū Shì) in 1094. Both titles refer to wines. The ink-on-paper work belongs to the Jilin Provincial Museum; Su’s writing section measures 28.3 × 306.3 cm. Its dense, full strokes and varied character forms make it an important work of his later calligraphy.[1][2]
Start with the two titles, then find the personal note at the end. Together they explain why wine, travel and a long stretch of writing belong in the same object.
The Combined Handscroll at a Glance
| Campo | Identification |
|---|---|
| Author and calligrapher | Su Shi |
| Date of this combined transcription | 1094 |
| Periodo | Northern Song dynasty |
| Medium and format | Ink on paper, handscroll |
| Script | Running script (行书, xíngshū) |
| Su’s writing section | 28.3 cm high × 306.3 cm long |
| Length including later written additions | 450.3 cm |
| Collection | Jilin Provincial Museum |
| Writing in Su’s section | 77 columns, 684 characters, including his concluding note |
The long section brings the two literary works and Su’s own explanation together. Later viewers added a further history on the papers that follow.[1][2]
The guide to Su Shi introduces his wider literary and artistic career. The Song dynasty provides the broader setting for this conjunction of prose, handwriting and personal circumstance.
Both Titles Refer to Wines
The names can initially suggest a landscape and a drink. Su’s concluding note identifies both as wines and explains their connection with the two compositions.[3]
| Title | Wine behind the literary work |
|---|---|
| Spring Colors at Dongting | A yellow-citrus wine received through a friend |
| Pine Wine from Zhongshan | A wine Su made using pine knots while serving at Zhongshan |
The first ode responds to a gift associated with the Prince of Anding and conveyed to Su by the prince’s nephew. The citrus wine’s Dongting name is associated with the Dongting hills of Lake Tai in Jiangsu. The second ode draws on Su’s own experiment with pine.[2] His note says that he brought the works together because their subjects and literary character were related.[3]
The imaginative writing moves well beyond a description of flavor. In the first, citrus opens into a world of stories, landscape and extravagant enjoyment. In the second, pine used for torchlight becomes material for another purpose, allowing the prose to move from apparent waste toward transformation.[3]
Read those passages as literary invention. The scroll’s value lies in the relationship among everyday materials, a writer’s imagination and the marks of his hand. The wine names give a concrete starting point for following that imaginative movement.
A Rain-Delayed Journey in 1094
Su’s final note records the twenty-first day of the intercalary fourth lunar month in the first Shaosheng year, 1094. He was traveling toward Lingnan when heavy rain delayed him at Xiangyi (襄邑, Xiāngyì), present-day Sui County in Henan. He wrote out the two odes during that stop.[3][4]
The date belongs to this combined calligraphic work. The note looks back to the separate experiences that had prompted the texts: receiving the citrus wine and making pine wine while in office.
That retrospective voice is important. The handscroll places memories of pleasure and invention beside the circumstances of a journey into renewed exile. The rain-delayed stop gives the object a particular moment in Su’s life without making every stroke an illustration of distress.[2][4]
Look for the change from the two literary pieces to the concluding explanation. The same hand now tells you why the texts were joined and where the writing took place. That shift makes the note part of the work’s meaning as well as evidence for its date.
Compact Characters Carry the Weight of the Brush
The writing is noted for compact, broad character structures and substantial ink. Shorter, denser forms sit beside strokes that extend outward, giving the sequence both weight and movement.[2][4]
Choose one character with several closely placed strokes. Examine how much blank paper remains inside it. Then look at an extended stroke in the same column and compare the direction it gives to the surrounding forms.
The compactness does not make the writing uniform. Differences in height, width and lean interrupt any simple rhythm. Follow those changes over a few columns, looking at how a crowded form is balanced by a more open one.
Now change the scale. A close detail reveals the edges and density of individual marks; a longer view shows how the columns maintain continuity across joined sheets. The two views answer different questions about the same act of writing.
The guide to Chinese calligraphy styles explains the script family. For another work in Su’s own hand, compare his Former Ode on the Red Cliff.
The Scroll’s Length Includes Different Historical Layers
Su’s section is just over three meters long. The larger figure of 450.3 cm includes later written additions. Those measurements describe different extents of the object.[1]
The following papers record responses from successive periods. Qianlong (乾隆, Qiánlóng), the Qing emperor, was among the later admirers who inscribed and copied the work. Such additions show how a personal transcription became an object of sustained study and collecting.[1]
Its modern history also matters. After passing through the former imperial collection, the scroll was dispersed in 1945 and rediscovered in 1982, when it entered the Jilin museum’s collection.[4]
Read the later writing and seals separately from Su’s own concluding note. The guides to scroll formats and inscriptions and seals help distinguish the original writing from its accumulating record of reception.
How to Read the Two Odes and Their Postscript
- Identify the two titles. Follow the sequence from the citrus-wine ode to the pine-wine ode, keeping their different occasions in mind.
- Compare compact and extended forms. Examine the space inside a dense character, then the direction of a longer stroke beside it.
- Find Su’s personal note. Look for the explanation joining the texts and the date of the rain-delayed stop.
- Separate later additions. Continue to the following comments and seals as evidence of later readers, then return to Su’s own section.
The guide to reading Chinese calligraphy develops this approach to form and sequence.
FAQs About Su Shi’s Dongting and Zhongshan Odes
Is Spring Colors at Dongting a landscape painting?
No. It is a literary ode transcribed as calligraphy. The title names a citrus wine, although the text also uses landscape imagery.[3]
Why is the scroll sometimes described as about 4.5 meters long?
That figure includes later written additions. Su’s own calligraphic section is 306.3 cm long.[1]
Did Su compose both odes during the rainy stop in 1094?
The dated note records his transcription of texts connected with earlier wine-related occasions. It explains why he combined them in one scroll.[3]
Fuentes
[2] Sichuan Museum. Appreciating Su Shi’s Dongting and Zhongshan Odes, via The Paper
[3] Su Shi, transcription preserved in the National Palace Museum catalogue. Modelbooks of the Three Rarities Hall, Vol. 11: the two odes and Su’s concluding note
[4] China Culture Daily, via China Youth Network. Su Shi’s Dongting and Zhongshan Odes: paper, brushwork and collecting history